Slime Mold Demonstrates Primitive Intelligence

A reader writes "According to BBC News, scientists have just published a paper in Nature demonstrating that slime molds can negotiate the shortest route through a maze, thus demonstrating a form of "cellular computation" which implies a primitive intelligence."

Comments

Anime

[alephnull42]

From the article:
"Toshiyuki Nakagaki of the Bio-Mimetic Control Research Centre, Nagoya, Japan,..."

Is it just me or does this sound like the first 5 minutes of a Manga movie?

Did I Misunderstand This?

[Happy Monkey]

Before the race, food was everywhere (To grow it to size). They then put food at the two ends of the maze, and all of the dead end pseudopodia withdrew or died? It just sounds like "grow where the food is..." A skill microscopic life has had for quite a while.
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Gee whiz!

[CentrX]

Well they're hell of a lot smarter than me. I can never figure out those maze thingies.

Slime Molds possibly smarter than humans

[Tairan]

In other news, it was discovered that the same slime molds could possibly be smarter than the humans studying them. It was discovered that most humans complete mazes by trying every possible path and then backtracking, or using the time honed method of placing one hand on the right wall and continueing until the end is reached.

Man...

[pb]

I didn't want to see any more articles about the RIAA today!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Also in the news

[gorilla]

The bar association has complained that the slime molds could be mistaken for lawyers. In a suit filed in federal court the bar claims that slime molds are "slimy, disgusting, and unwanted, all attributes traditionally associated with lawyers."

Oh, for crying out loud

[Alik]

So this thing has demonstrated intelligence because it reshaped its body to move most of its bulk as close to the nutrient source as possible? I'm not mad at the BBC or Slashdot, but I can't believe the scientists who call this intelligence. You could do the same thing with a single neuron and the appropriate mix of growth factors. (At least, given that both axon growth cones and slime mold food-seeking work on a sense-molecule-grow-tubules model, it seems pretty likely to me that you could achieve the same with a single cell.) This doesn't mean that those cells are intelligent.

I'll grant the idea that you could somehow do computation using a mobile mold as your switching unit. I fail to see why anyone would bother (especially given that slime molds are icky :-) but you could do it. That still doesn't mean it's intelligent. (I'm not even sure one could say that the mold itself is really *computing*, but I suppose the network of cells and integrated signal cascasdes does encode some function.)

Yes, I'm one of those biased morons who thinks that you've got to demonstrate something like a sense of self or use of language to qualify for intelligence. Then again, given the human race, perhaps the bar's been lowered. :-)

Re:Oh, for crying out loud

[Just Some Guy]

So this thing has demonstrated intelligence because it reshaped its body to move most of its bulk as close to the nutrient source as possible?

Umm, when you get down to it, isn't that pretty much all that intelligence does? That is, isn't it the prime goal of intelligence to move closer to food to increase survival rates and be able to reproduce more than the less intelligent competitors?

I wouldn't be quick to state that the slime mold is intelligent, but I wouldn't be too ready to write off its accomplishments.

After all, Douglas Hofstadter makes the point in Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid that when dealing with artificial intelligence, the common definition of AI is whatever we can do that computers haven't accomplished yet. That is, once a computer beat a human at chess, then a lot of people quit using that as an indicator of AI. Let's not make that mistake here; give the little chap his credit!

Biologists aMaze me...

[jellisky]

I don't understand this fascination about biologists trying to prove intelligence through things "figuring" out mazes. Any person with a basic programming knowledge can solve a maze using exhaustive methods.
Also, it sounds like they ran this experiment once. As the great fortune program will tell you: If reproducibility is going to be a problem, conduct the experiment once.
I'll be convinced of the intelligence of this slime mold if it, and lots of its relatives, can do a maze without resorting to simple or exhaustive methods, or until the researchers can figure out a better test than exhaustive methods to prove intelligence. Until then, slime mold is a mostly unintelligent fungus-like growth that can solve a maze, like everything else that can move can do...
Consider me a skeptic.

In other news...

[billcopc]

A giant slime was found living in Redmond,WA with its spouse and offspring. The specimen voided all scientific proof of primitive intelligence as soon as we pointed our cameras upon the creature, which immediately started conversing in a seemingly incoherent language tentatively named FudSpeak. Further tests will be performed to find out where these slimes come from.

It posts!

[Tommi Morre]

The researchers believe the slime is exhibiting some form of primitive intelligence.

Obviously, it's been posting as Anonymous Coward.

survival==intelligence?

[gurgi]

If you take the premise of the article and say that survival equals intelligence, then that implies the evolution is intelligent. This idea is touched on in Akira, but I choice not to believe this one. As the universe ages is edges towards complexity, so more complex systems look more and more intelligent. The illusion of intelligence or intelligence itself is just s side benefit of complexity.

For more on complexity I would read "Complexity: the Emerging Science At the Edge of Order and Chaos" by M. Mitchell Waldrop. We read this after reading "Chaos" by Gleick. These books and the class change my perspective on the universe and changed it from a static thing to a wonderful complexity.

Followup Story

[Royster]

Slime Mold Gets Slashdot Id
Earns +2 Karma bonus in record time.

Slime Smarter Than Clinton

[xtheunknown]

In a similar experiment, scientists put Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton's legacy at seperate exits to a maze. In multiple tries, Clinton chose Lewinsky each time, proving once again that not all slime is intelligent.