Why not both? Fish bowls atop laser equipped robot dogs, with air cover provided by bomb dropping quadcopter fish bowls, hunting humans and flushing our remains down toilet in revenge. I for one salute our new fishy overlords in this new normal.

The scientists probably get paid mediocre salaries to work on something adjacent and more useful, and their Prof seized the PR opportunity and ordered them to do it and they rolled their eyes and obliged.