California scientists looking for new ways to explore the world’s oceans have created something that seems right out of a Hollywood movie: a cyborg jellyfish — half animal, half robot — that can swim nearly three times faster than a regular jellyfish, and which one day might be remotely steered to collect information from deep ocean waters.

Engineers at Stanford University and Caltech in Pasadena say the sci-fi jellyfish may rekindle memories of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator, but could actually help expand our understanding of the deep seas. These “biohybrid robots” are raising ethical questions as well as amazing possibilities.

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Hank Greely, a prominent medical and scientific ethics expert at Stanford, said it’s important that the jellyfish researchers took care to monitor whether the animals were harmed. Humans have used horses, cattle, pigs, dogs and other animals for thousands of years, he said, adding that this experiment raises new questions.

“There is something disconcerting about mechanically changing animals for our utility,” Greely said. “It’s less disconcerting when there are only a few of them, used for specific purposes. It’s more disconcerting if we release a self-reproducing set into the wild — not possible with these mechanical prostheses but eminently possible with genetic modifications. Is it wrong, is it right? I don’t know, but I am confident we will face these kinds of questions more and more often.”