Slashdot Mirror
Flying By Brain
Garabito writes "Scientists at the University of Florida made a living 'brain' by extracting 25,000 neurons from a rat's brain and culturing them inside a glass dish. Then, the neurons began to extend lines to each other, creating a living neural network between them. The dish had a grid of 60 electrodes connected to a computer running a flight simulator. The scientists were able to train the 'brain' to control the plane in the simulator and to react to conditions of the plane. Are we getting closer to create an artificially made conscious being, or perhaps, a living computer?" AlphaJoe was one of several readers to add a link to Wired's article on the experiment.
We designed neural networks to follow how brains work.
:)
Now we're using a brain to run a neural network.
Chicken-egg problem, anyone?
Sweet! Soon we can download stuff to our brains!
Some more genetic modifications and we will see rats flying.. not only their's brain!
Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
the last thing i want is a rat flying my plane
The first thing I thought was: I want one. Wonder if it could learn to play GTA?
I like the idea...it wouldn't run very fast, but surely it would increase speed as it grows. Like a 50,000 processor sponge. And extra matter could probably be added in no particular order.
Help! I'm being repressed!
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Igor, would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?
Igor : And you won't be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : I will NOT be angry.
Igor : Abby someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby someone. Abby who?
Igor : Abby Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein : Abby Normal?
Igor : I'm almost sure that was the name.
a great new Itchy and Scratchy story?
Soon we will all be augmented by our extra brain bags! Organic computers in a purse that we either wear or have implanted in our abdomens. I can't wait for the beta test.
Does this freak the shit out of anyone else?
...our new Neuronal Overlords.
I for one welcome our new plane-flying rat-brain overlords...
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
so from the point of view of the brain, it's an aeroplane. and it flies around in it's self contained reality.
It wants feet.
As a recent graduate of the University of Florida, I have one question to ask of these researchers: How many days do we have to wait until they have a prototype that can function as the football team's head coach? It can't be too hard to do better than Coach Zook.
How did the clump of neurons know what they were trying to accomplish? More precicely, why didn't they try to crash the plane? What sort of positive/negative feedback did they use? I understand that this works, and vaugely how it works, but i can't wrap my poor little brain around what sort of feedback they used!
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
(in drone-like monotone)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things.
As an airline pilot for American, its nice to see my job being outsourced by rats in the future.
they outsource my programming job to a petri dish...
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
Bring a whole new meaning of a computer virus ...
Probably a n00bish question, but does this mean that a rat could be trained to run a flight simulator? Or were the neurons just a different hardware substrate as opposed to silicon transistors?
I, for one, welcome our new super-intelligent jar dwelling overlords.
Exciting? Yes. Scary? Hell Yes. Potential for Good? Check. Potential for evil? Big Check.
I for one...... ahh, screw it.
That's right. All your base.
Do you have to think in Russian?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
So, how is this thing reacting to good and bad?
Did they create a neural net that falls through a given search space to a local or global minimum, or what?
Is "good" a total lack of input, i.e. the plane is flying straight with no lateral or vertical drift, and is degree of input dependent on the amount of lateral motion, etc.?
As I type this, it makes sense that this might be so, but I wonder why the network created a negative feedback system, and not a positive feedback system.
~ Mike
Michael C. Hollinger
Is this brain the "identity" of the mouse from which the neurons were extracted? Alternatively, do the neurons remaining in the mouse constitute the "identity" of the mouse? Also, is the artifical brain now a separate and distinct identity that is separate from the identity defined by the neurons remaining in the mouse?
For the religiously inclined, "identity" here is essentially "the soul".
If we conducted a similar experiment with a human brain, would the artifical brain now be separate and distinct from the human victim who surrendered the brain cells for the artificial brain? Have we created 2 "souls"?
We need to ask these questions. We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions; the first cloned person will likely appear in Korea or China.
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of 256 disembodied rat brains? (My first "traditional" slashdot joke.)
I wonder if human neurons would be more effective? Or are all neurons created equal, and only the structure of a brain makes it more or less intelligent? Could we grow rat neurons into a human brain? Maybe we could customize brains for certain abilities, by growing them along certain structures. I don't have alot of personal knowledge here, so i'm just putting out some questions that this brought up for me.
We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions... Why exactly not?
Excuse me, but how can you call it a rat when it only contains neurons of a rat? Such neural networks can never become advanced enough to be able to operate in a complex environment where you have thousands of possible stimuli and events which are not discrete by nature.
Do not think that natural neural networks are something you could ever hope to replicate even if you had the ability to clone a whole brain neuron by neuron, even on the synaptic state level. Why? The Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
This reminds me of The Ship that Sang. Except... less cuddly and much more ratlike.
/Could/ it go insane? I guess a brain computer could have a lot more processing power than current logic gate technology, but it'd be like comparing an apple to an orange.
I wonder what the possible incarnations of this technology would be like... would they replace airline pilots? What would happen if one went insane?
I wonder what the PETA and other ethics groups will say in response to this research.
----- Wtcher Dragon, UDIC
The scientists were able to train the 'brain' to control the plane in the simulator and to react to conditions of the plane.
I seriously doubt this is true as there is very little incentive for this "brain" to perform. When you "train" an organizm you need some feedback loop like bananas, agar gel, money, etc to encourage the organizm to favor one behavior over another. Frankly a collection of neurons just isn't powerful enough to "learn" how to fly a plane.
We need to ask these questions. We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions; the first cloned person will likely appear in Korea or China.
Clearly, the Chinese and Koreans are cloneing humans to extract the much sought after 'conscience juice' they lack.
I wonder how the brain was conditioned to fly the simulator. Were the electrodes the only stimulus provided to the brain? Was it constant? Do neurons derive some basic form of enjoyment from being stimulated so that they learned how to fly the plane just to prolong the stimulus? A more detailed report would be much appreciated.
However, now they'll also be outsourced to them.
After cloning was achieved in sheep, a huge national debate about human cloning arose in the USA. Theologians and philosophers entered the debate.
The same did not happen in China. The Chinese apologist says, "The Chinese Communist Party does not allow this kind of discussion." Bullshit. This kind of discussion also did not appear in South Korea or Taiwan.
When will we awake and realize that the Chinese and Koreans are very different from Westerners. Chinese and Korean society are brutal because the notion of Western ethics does not exist there.
Hampered by remnants of Chinese thinking, the Japanese are less likely than other Westerners (e.g. Americans) to discuss the ethical ramifications of cloning. Nonetheless, to the credit of Japanese society, ethical discussions about human cloning did appear but not with the same intensity as that in the West.
I for one welcome our rat brain overlords!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
brain pellets to keep the ai working? Not too mention the ramification of certain mood altering subsances being inroduced.
Am I the only one who doesn't find this morally repugnant? I mean, for all we know this clump of nerves could be sentient. We don't fully understand the workings of a brain, and until we do, should we be dabbling in this kind of thing? How would you like your brain to be in a dish?
err.. thought the raelians have already cloned human, and who happened to be caucasian.
on a 2nd thought, u might wanna add moral philosophy to ur study list, and make sure u cram enough on English communication so that false statement don't casually pass by.
Steve Potter, the former mentor of the UF researcher has a pretty thorough description of it. http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/groups/potter/animat.h tml
Intel announced today they have decided to scrap all their plans for current and future processors. This news comes after a peculiar announcement that they are hiring any biologists familiar with rat brains...
It's a quite nice experiment, culturing cells and "training" them to do a specific task is quite an achivement!
But remember, it's all about electrical circuits, in the case of brain cells, plastic circuits (that can change)... I guess that the next step is to produce a 3D model of the circuits. Because both computers (or any other kind of circuits) and this model are 2D, the real challenge is to bring that to a *real* brain model, a 3D circuit that can change.A real brain.
I say all this because it's the capability of single neuron to establish thousands of connections with other neurons in a 3 dimensional manner what makes brains such powerfull "calculating machines". Not the number of connections, but the manner how they're done.
...with bats
I know of similar work with sea slugs in an off-campus lab funded partly by UF (the Whitney Lab). I'm not _too_ familiar with it, so this may not be entirely accurate. Basically, they found that neurons in the brain of the seaslugs are always in the same positions as other animals of the same species. They then started training animals, much like pavlov's dogs, to close their siphon whenever they were electrically shocked on their tail (by touching the siphon whenever they were shocked so the animal would relate the 2 stimuli). They then could isolate the neurons in the brain and train then individually. Two neurons in a petri dish would gradually connect and then share information. At the moment the group is working on identifying which genes control what part of the brain, or something like that..
The reference to Chinese and Korean is intended to refer to people who identify with Chinese or Korean culture. The issue is not one of skin color.
There are some Americans of Korean ancestry who reject Korean culture, serve in America's armed forces, and would be prepared to kill twerps like you in China. One of the fallen soldiers in Iraq was an American of Korean ancestry. He is a Westerner and would spit on bigots like you if he were still alive.
The next simulation will include the ability to fly what the scientists have named the 'borg cube'. Patrick Stewart (Locutus) unavailable for questioning.
Yeah, it's great they have rat brains flying airplanes, but when do I get my shark with a frickin' laser?
Flying brains today, Scifi utopia bliss tomarrow
No, it's being outsourced TO rats.
Unless, of course, your employer has already been replaced by a rat brain, in which case your job would be outsourced BY rats TO rats.
I thought the pilots considered it an improvement when Don Carty was replaced by Gerard Arpey. Is there something we don't know?
Think about it... a disembodied mind in a virtual environment. Granted, this isn't a transplanted consciousness, but it could eventually get there... scary.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
Yes.. you are the only one.
Oreville: Hey Wilbur, you want to try making an Aeroplane?
Wilbur: Nonsense! We dont know anything about Aeroplanes. We should wait until we know more about Aeroplanes before we go building one.
That's the way you make advances in technology that doesnt exist yet. You experiment and gain knowledge so that others can build on that knowledge. Why is it that every time something potentially revolutionary is in the air people are ready to shoot it down?
Your reasoning behind why we shouldnt we carry out these kinds of research is on based on your own fear of the unknown.
Does the question even mean anything?
Years ago, patients with extreme cases of epilepsy were treated by severing the connection between the left and right halves of the brain. The theory was that this would prevent the "electrical storm" of the seizure from propagating from one side of the brain to the other. This would supposedly reduce the frequency and severity of the seizures.
As a result, these individuals had, in their skulls, two independent brains with no communication link between them (a simplification, but mostly accurate). These patients would report strange experiences, such as getting up out of a chair and walking to another room, without having any idea why they were doing it. Essentially, the two halves of their brains were functioning independently, and sometimes "fought" over what the body was going to do.
It's a very interesting question -- did the "person" go into the left half of the brain, or the right? If it went into the left side, for example, what happened to the right side? Is it now a soulless automaton? How can a single person exist in two conscious modes simultaneously? Yet these people live normal lives, for the most part.
Sadly, you are trolling. But you raise an interesting point.
Adds a whole new dimension to the commercial, doesn't it?
This is your brain...
EricThis is your brain on drugs...
This is your brain on drugs flying a plane without you...
Why Vioxx is Prozac for lawyers
Bio-neural gel-packs, anyone?
"If you think about your brain, and learning and the memory process, I can ask you questions about when you were 5 years old and you can retrieve information. That's a tremendous capacity for memory.
I have to say, I don't remember much from when I was five years old. I remember where I lived and maybe can guesstimate where I spent a specific summer, but most of my knowledge comes from what my parents told me and from little "text" snippets that somehow got stuck in my head (for example, names of cities I visited, etc.)
I can recall some images from the past, but I am not sure whether those are "true" memories or something synthesised by brain to "fill in the blank". This leads me to believe that human memory is rather lossy and large part of what I remember is just a rough approximation of what happened based on a few datapoints that brain actually remembers. Sort of like with people who have a defect in their iris - they still see an image in what's supposed to be a blind spot. This image is synthesised by brain to fill in the gap. Needless to say, occasionaly it turns deadly (especially while driving).
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
Okay, I'll give you that. Now, take this:
"American and European societies are corrupt and evil because the notion of Sharia law does not exist there."
Care to explain why your statement is valid, but mine isn't? I'm afraid you can't.
I don't believe it. Are you serious? Are you actually suggesting that a) there is such a thing as "Western" ethics and b) that it differs in any meaningful way from any other points of the compass?
Your Western ethical ideal is not in the remotest bit definable. Study the history of European philosophy if you are under any illusions that there is a single ideal.
the layman's guide to computer science
This is your captain, Rat Brain 4023, integrated neural network and my first officer, Rat Brain 4024. We'll be flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet and are expecting a nice smooth ride-- HOLY SHIT CHEESE!!! LOOK OVER THERE IT'S CHEESE!!! Ooop, sorry about that, false alarm. We're expecting nice weather in HEY THERE"s A F*ING CAT IN THE CARGO HOLD!!! Eject! Eject! Eject!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I fly for Eagle. As soon as the rat brains merge with the AA pilot group, they'll start flowing back to Eagle... to the left seat, of course.
(non-airline people, don't even try to understand that)
What makes you think a large simulation of a brain won't be conscious?
http://www.ad.com/
Deleted
Just don't upload the Koran into it, OK, guys?
The grandparent article is not referring to Western ethics in 1591. The article is referring to Western ethics in 2004.
The Chinese bigots are fond of setting the date back to 10th century AD. Then, they compare Chinese ethics and Western ethics. The Chinese also compare standards of living between China and the West in 10 A.D.
Only a bigot would act in this way.
I'm willing to compromise. Shut the door to Chinese immigration into the USA. Why? Well, the standard of living in 10th century China was much higher than that of the Apache Indian "nation" on the Western plains of North America. There is no reason to allow a Chinese bigot into the USA since the Chinese are doing so well.
eh. not impressed. now, if they hooked one of these up to a SkyCutter, that would be friggin' badass.
...because I think (although I am talking out my ass here) neurons are exempt from the auto-immune response, so rejection of donor cells is a non-issue.
If you know, is this true?
I'm a westerner, and couldn't give a rats ass... never mind a brain.
The answer is that its a low number of neurons, and doesn't really constitute a brain, and probably lacks the complexity for consciousness.
If it was enough, then obviously it would be separate entity. The rats probably dead by the way. If it wasn't theres no mystical connection between neurons. So its not somehow going to share the same identity. Two brains, two diffrent beings.
As for souls, well that's religion, and not something I believe in. So an invalid question for me... something for peoples own beliefs. Along with your racism.
If I were an Air force combat pilot, I'd be worried...
A link to where the journal article can be found if you're sciefically inclined http://www.bme.ufl.edu/research/publications/detai lpublication.php?PUBS_id=10
Any sources to back this up? Or were you just not included in their discussions?
Or just trolling?
There is no mathematics to prove that butchering homosexuals is wrong. We Westerners simply define it to be wrong.
Iranians define butchering homosexuals to be right. We agree to disagree.
We should simply try to enlighten fellow Westerners by telling them that Iranians, Chinese, and Indians act and think in a way that is different. That's all. Far too often, we assume that Chinese are "just like us but are financially poorer". Wrong. The Chinese are ethically radically different.
Cloning human beings like there's no tomorrow and killing Tibetan nuns are perfectly acceptable in China. Let's know the difference between a Chinese bigot and a Western person.
Indian bigots like pclminion should be exported to China or India since there is no difference between the West and China for him.
Well, neurons are living cells... ...and therefore they can reproduce. This is called neurogenesis...and as I understand it can be stimulated by appropriate amounts of neurotrophin and other chemicals.
However, with all animal brains, there comes a point in the creature's development where the death rate is greater than the birth rate. In humans it happens at about three years, if memory serves (heh). If we could manage to find the correct chemical balance to maintain an average cell count indefinately, then perhaps we could devise a dietary supplement that would have the same (or better) effect on humans...
Of course, giving a person a lot of neurons doesn't mean that person will make use of them...
The intestinal tract actually includes significant amounts of interneurons (the thinking variety of brain cells). Yes, you do think with your gut.
Are we getting closer to create an artificially made conscious being No, "we" got some cells from a brain, we didn't "create" anything.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Coincidence?
Well, it's just the Judeo-Christian heritage of America. The Tower of Babel Bible story teaches us that trying to be better than God, or do the same things that God does, is sinful. Also there is the Judeo-Christian belief that since God created Man in his own image, then not following God's plan for creating Man (i.e. having sex outside of marriage, having sex with someone of your own gender, having sex while using some type of contraceptive, as well as cloning) is sinful. Other countries don't have that heritage, so those things are not instinctively branded as evil.
Thanks :).
I can become one.
So what would happen if these nuerons were able to start dividing. Would it just automatically start becoming a better pilot. If enough neurons were generated and could be sustained, could a cluster of biological neurons become sentient?
I propose that they hook up the brain to Grand Theft Auto... Let's see what kind of screwed up morals those rat neurons learn.
I, for one, will wait until I see an accepted, peer-reviewed, publication before I get too excited.
I'm sick and tired of sensationalist egomaniacs "announcing" their results with press releases. Back in my day, we submitted our results to a *scientific journal* instead of the AP wire.
The scientific community has, as one of its basic tenants, the notion that your work should be able to pass the scruntiny of your peers before being paraded about as fact. With top-level journals like Science and Nature having such fast turnaround for truly groundbreaking research these days... there is absolutely zero excuse for this kind of tomfoolery.
Unless, of course, your results are inflated, your methods are flawed, and you know damned well that your peers will find the giant gaping holes in your work.
I'm not positing that this is the case here, but there really aren't any details given in the write-up, so its rather hard to verify (hence my desire for a scientific paper). Chances are, its good work... one of the investigators has a rather large NSF grant which is a good indicator... but, regardless, I'm despressed to see a good scientist stooping to this level. I guess this is "progress". Maybe we can do away with peer-reviewed journals and usher in a new era where having PR person on your lab's staff is a must. Sure would save me a lot of time not having to referee all those pesky papers...
There are certainly some amazing opportunities here to learn about how brains work, and no doubt this could help us in building better interfaces for cybernetic implants.
I just feel very uncomfortable with this kind of experimentation. It is my understanding that given enough complexity, any system has the potential to become self-aware. This plate has 25,000 neurons in a roughly two-dimensonal matrix (from the Wired article), so it's probably not even as smart as a bug so far (I am just guessing about this, does anyone have figures to compare this to?), but given enough space and time, might it not become sentient?
This reminds me of a similar experiment involving a fish brain controlling a robot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1043001.stm
Then again - maybe I am being squeamish for no reason. After all, if your entire existence was flying imaginary planes, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.
....before a being of trans-human intelligence is constructed. We will be to it what the animals are to us. Hopefully, it will find reason to be kinder to us than we have been to the animals.
Just to clarify, that's what a lobotomy is, isn't it? Just wanted to make sure.
I wouldn't worry about it. Back in WWII, the military considered outsourcing the job of missile guidance to stoner pigeons. However, they abandoned the effort for no particular reason. I'm assuming it was because the missile pilots' union protested. So, all you have to do is protest...or make yourself a more desireable employee by accepting hemp seeds as payment.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
I'd like my aibo to mow my lawn for me.
Most researchers today would agree that artificial neural networks are quite different from the brain in terms of structure. Like the brain, however, a neural net is a massively parallel collection of small and simple processing units where the interconnections form a large part of the network's intelligence; however, in terms of scale, a brain is massively larger than a neural network, and the units used in a neural network are typically far simpler than neurons. Nevertheless, certain functions that seem exclusive to the brain such as learning, have been replicated on a simpler scale, with neural networks.
We took the basic idea from biology, but currently we don't understand how the brain works well enough to model anything on them directly. This is just another step in that direction; to try to figure out how neurons respond to stimuli or 'input'. It will be a long time before we develop something like a human brain, with 100 billion 'simple processing units'.
That is unless we start using DNA in machines.
neural network
No its not. Whats commonly referred to as a lobotomy, is to remove or seperate the frontal lobes ( Higher functions ) and not seperate the two hemispheres of the brain.
If a first you don't succeed, your a programmer...
Brings new meaning to the phrase "Pig Headed"
:(
yeah, that was a bad joke
1. the neurons were extracted from a rat not a mouse. 2. you are confusing conciousness with the innate functionality of neurons. 3. your point about westerners and conscience is as redundant as the rest of you post
The West has evolved beyond the constraints of Christian superstitution. The Declaration of Human Rights promulgated by Amnesty International makes no mention of Christianity or Judaism.
'Tis hard to believe for a Chinese bigot. We have Western ethics (e.g. human rights, compassion, etc.), and the Chinese don't. Westerners and Chinese are radically different. China or Korea will be the place where the first human/non-human hybrid will be created. What is evil? You have seen it when you see a Chinese or Korean.
we should develop a sort of...rat matrix...Plug a bunch of rat brains into a giant computer, simulate the 21st century, and use them as batteries?
Pretty impressive and disturbing at the same time. I just hope the future of robitics is not biological grown brains in machines with Microsoft BrainGuard making sure they can't kill anyone.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
If the rat's neural cells can control a virtual airplane in a virtual world how long do you think it will take for someone to connect a wireless robot to the mix? Having the neural cells control an actual machine in the real world seems to open up a lot of possibilities.
... and something is REALLY bugging me about it.
How do you motivate a slice of rat brain to fly a plane? Does it feal pain when it crashes? Get nutrients when it flys far? What?
All too soon we will see little USB plug ins with these things to help the rail-gun spawn-campers aim fast in UT2024; Ultimate.
[FuZZy1] Punched a hole in 3L1T3's cranium
[3L1T3>] NOOB!
[3L1T3]; Rat-bot camper!
[FuZZy1]; LOL!1 That why tehy call me Fuzzy1
When I develop my new rat-brain oracle, there will be no need to consult http://members.tripod.com/funky.hippy/spock.html Spock's Brain! http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/epis odes/TOS/detail/68782.html
Just think, Kirk could have grown a new one rather than spend a whole episode hunting down Spock's old one.
Rat brains flew a plane for the National Guard to get out of the Vietnam War.
WOuld you put your brain in a robot body?
... the term "rat race", if two such planes were to fly in a competition
Mmm, tasty troll... munch, munch. (For the record I am Scots.)
And neither was I referring to 16C Western ethics. But if you truly believe that Western society has one homogeneous set of beliefs you must not ever leave the house. Or turn on the telly. Or read a newspaper. Or even browse the net.But as you're obviously doing the latter, you must just be a fool.
What has any of this got to do with the existence of a unified and definable system of Western ethics? Nowt. Care to explain? Or would you prefer to just cast aspersions?
What way would that be? Would that be the way of someone who sees nationality as a reason to denigrate people? If anyone is a bigot in this conversation it is you. You assume that everyone has your viewpoint in the Western world. However, it would appear that by arguing to the contrary I am in fact proving you wrong.
I know many people in my day to day life with a wide set of views of ethical conduct. The local minister, the Wee Frees, the noisy neighbours, the neds, thieves, Tories and Liberals, Greens and UKIP freaks. The world is full of conflicting opinions and the vast majority of that conflict comes down to ethics: a set of principles of right conduct.
You do realise you're ranting, don't you? We weren't discussing Chinese immigration into the United States of America. In fact, I believe the exact point of discussion was whether Western society has an ethical code which the rest of the world lacks, particularly on medical/biological grounds.
Instead you've turned it into a rant about Chinese immigrants into (I presume) your home country. Which kind of makes you out to be a bit racist, doesn't it? Can someone who makes remarks like that about fellow human beings on something as arbitrary as skin colour or place of birth really be taken seriously in a discussion of morality?
the layman's guide to computer science
Could this fix George W. Bush?
vicious, untreated political sewage...niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive...worshipless pap
You being people who are 'creeped out' by this stuff. Why? Becuase people who accept it, and live forever, will be around with the aid of this tech while the people who don't like these ideas will die out.
Here's to not having to put up with technophobes till the end of time.
"Dreams of Gods and men" By William Quick ... the "Meat Box" the entire "Matrix/Metaverse/whatever" was interfaced with little computers that were made from neural material.
meh
Animals are not selfaware, at least not to the point where they ponder their place in the universe.
We are conscious and so too will be the 'super intelligence'. That is the main difference that makes super computer -> people : people -> animals analogy not work that well.
Despite that life plays with us?
Ok, I RTFA and the brain seems to be able to control a simulated airplane, but does the brain know...
...what bad weather is
...why it should avoid bad weather
...what a horizon is
...even what an airplane is
in other words, does it really know why it's doing what it's doing.
Jonathan B.
How do you know this to be the case?
Have you actually done a survey of the Chinese people to find their opinions on the matter. Or are you, as I would guess, just making shit up?
I'm loathe to do this so early in the discussion but I believe it is directly pertinent to the example you gave, so forgive me. I will now invoke Godwin's Law (gulp):
If we assume for the moment that both Communist China and Nazi Germany are/were dictatorships, what's the difference between annexing Tibet and annexing Poland? Nothing. They are both reprehensible acts deplored by the outside world but enforced by military rule within the relevant states.
the layman's guide to computer science
We should not play with life. Some scientists seem to have no respect for life!
This experiment is disturbing. Clearly, the artificial brain has some sort of low level consciousness and can perform computation.
There's no more reason to assume that these neurons are conscious than to assume that a 747s autopilot is conscious. Consciousness is self awareness, these neurons have only shown responsiveness to external stimuli.
Is this brain the "identity" of the mouse from which the neurons were extracted?
There's nothing special about the neurons. What's special is the way they're interconnected. The mouse that produced the neurons is dead.
We need to ask these questions. We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions; the first cloned person will likely appear in Korea or China.
Are you saying that Easterners have no conscience? Could you be any more racist?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I wonder what kind of maintinence goes into keeping a 'living brain' computer. Do you have to feed it? Keep it cool? Will it go crazy if you don't give it enough beer?
No, i did not claim that there was a huge ethical debate in china. Why would western sources report on eastern ethical debates?
So I assume you're going with "there was not one because i was not included."
Oh and you've clinched it, you're definitely trolling.
Ban all organism altering human concoctions because they just interfere with nature's natural way. It would be a shame to harm a living cell by taking medically prescribed drugs to aleive one of pain. To those with parkinson's disease, we, as humans, will no longer do anything for you because your hardship is nature's way of telling you that you suck and weeding you out. Headache? Too bad, suffer, it is natural. You think your headache is actually a symptom of a brain tumor, sucks to be you because we no longer do Cat Scans because the information we derive from them changes the natural path of nature. Being able to watch a nueral network grow and develop would be an extrodinary thing, that would change how we understand life, and how we understand computing, forever. It would shed light on mysteries that have bother us for years, but unfortunately, we can't go down that road, becuase in one persons view, studying it would simply be a "toy," and we can't have that.
Rats are ugly and disgusting and already have claws and teeth and biological weapons capability...now we give them Sidewinders, air-to-ground missles and 20 MM cannon. That's disturbing.
I'm immediately going to deploy a network of cat-neuron controlled anti-aircraft missle batteries.
damned rats.
They tried brain cells from different individuals. Here is the result:
Osama's cells: Plane kept crashing into buildings.
PHB cells: Plane kept flying in circles until it ran out of gas.
Bill Gates cells: Plane kept locking up.
SCO lawyer cells: Plane kept crashing, but blaming other planes.
RMS cells: Plane wanted to call itself "GNU Plane".
G.W. Bush cells: Plane kept crashing into Saddam Hussein no matter what, even if Osama was placed right next to Saddam.
John Kerry cells: Plane would fly to the left, and then to the right, and then to the left....
Slashdot reader cells: Plane would try to fly without first reading the flying manual.
Steve Jobs cells: Plane transformed itself into a slick, modern, translucent jet, but priced itself too high.
Mike Melvill cells: Plane kept going up and up until we lost track of it.
Emacs coder cells: Plane became a boat, a car, a house, a lawn mower, and a finger-nail clipper.
Table-ized A.I.
Quit spamming the discussion to get attention.
Why steal your brain when they can just take a few brain cells and grow them in culture?
They can get them legally from organ donors. While the brain itself has no signal it would still have living cells in it.
Yet another example of technology outstripping society and out collective wisdom.
.
... create one from scratch. But don't screw with the brain / mind of another living being, no matter how primitive or insignificant you claim it to be.
Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should
Indeed, a wise society is one that can do something, yet chooses not to and offers their reasoning for others to contemplate.
I am not particularly religious, ie I don't identify with organised religion. However I do believe in the sanctity of life, and I know that these experiments are fundamentally wrong , no matter what justification you choose to attach to them. They go way beyond normal experimentation, because they directly affect consciousness, and this type of experimentation on a mind is not something that I can ethically deal with, nor is any product based on the same type of process.
If people want artificial intelligence, then fine
How well could this rat fly a lawnmower?
How does it teach the brain the motivation? That's what I want to know.
For example, it said that the brain could control the pitch and roll. How would the brain know initially even what those are, let alone that it should even be attempting to control it?
-Vendal Thornheart
But a cluster of these things could probably read Beowulf.
Nearly 200 responses and nobody has asked if it runs Linux.
Now the terrorists will be growing brains to fly planes into american buildings!
You smell like a Chinese bigot.
First off, I'm not Chinese,and every Chinese person I have met has impeccable hygiene. Can you say the same for members of your race?
What is evil? You have seen it when you see a Chinese or Korean.
I have seen may Chinese people, and many Korean people. I am friends with both Chinese and Korean people. None of them are evil in any way.
I hope this clarifies things for you.
i wondered who was flying that lawnmower in that video...
ratbrains do fly
Suddenly, this seems a lot closer to reality.
Brain: Are you pondering what I am pondering?
Pinky: I think so, Brain, but this time, you put the trousers on the chimp.
...the mice control the earth
As the other poster said, no it's not a lobotamy. The procedure is called a Corpus Callosotomy (due to the fact it severes the connections in the Corpus Callosum), and it is still performed in very serious epileptic cases.
It's effective in so far as it will decrease the severity of seizures due to limiting them to the originating side of the brain.
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"This has limitless scientific possibilities, which means one thing: We must keep Christians from finding out about it." -- The Onion
imagine a world where your brain is worth more outside your body
Considering the typical body of the average Slashdotter, I'd say that's probably already true.
The first thing I thought of was the bio-neural gel packs in star trek voyager, maybe this will become a reality sooner then then...
Especially considering it was done in Florida.
"Ladies and gentlemen we will be ready for takeoff as soon as the copilot scrapes out Captain back into his dish" Explains why my flight in the other day was rougher than usual.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.
It's just such a great hook.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Let 'im 'ave it!
I should preface this question with the information that I have abosolutely no medical training, nor have I any real understanding of how brain neurons operate. That being said, please be kind in your responses.
.
How are the organic neurons being kept alive in this petrie dish? Surely they would have to have a blood supply or something similar to exist. If they can just live in saline solution or something like that, how it is that possible? Especially given that they are working neurons, not just sitting there doing nothing.
Can they reproduce? (I think I read somewhere that brain cells do actually reproduce, in contrast to the traditional thinking for many years). The actual article says they are:
growing on top of a multi-electrode array
Are there any implications for brain neuron transplants as a result of this type of research?
How are the neurons hooked together? Are they wired up, using impossibly thin wires, or just connected via the array?
What the hell is a multi-electrode array anyway?
Anyway, I guess they are enough questions, although I could probably sit here all day typing away at the million queries this type of research presents me with.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
I don't understand how you can call that 'trolling', it actually is a very interesting question.
Love sees no species.
you know theres something wrong when you cant figure out how to get the plane off the ground in MS Flight Simulator on a nice perfect sunny day, but some pieces of a dead rat's brain can execute complicated manuevors in a hurricane. i still dont understand how the computer and the brain cells interacted. how did they convert the data from the software into a language the cells understand? and how the hell did they know they were flying the plane and how winds and air resistance and all that affected the plane? im so incredibly confused. but the idea sounds pretty crazy, id love to see it for myself
Is anyone else concerned with all the genetic, physiological, neurological and pesticidal experiments we have performed on rats in the last century? We have poisoned, irradiated, genetically modified, physically enhanced, tested and taught rats.
What we will soon have as a result is a breed of super-rats that are immune to toxins, can survive nuclear attack, have superior senses (back in the 90's they grew an ear on a rat's back), adapted to problem solving and can now fly airplanes.
With the continued neurological research, soon they will be able to destroy us by simply thinking it. This is the new Y2K people, start stock piling cheese immediately! The super-rat overlords will show mercy to those who can provide for their insatiable hunger.
Chinese and Korean society are brutal because the notion of Western ethics does not exist there.
That's just crap. There is no such thing as a "brutal society". People are brutal. Societies are not thinking entities. It's like saying that Mount Everest is brutal because so many people have died on its slopes, or that a particularly dangerous road is brutal because so many people have died there.
When a newly-hatched cuckoo bird pushes the eggs and other hatchlings out of its host's nest, is it behaving brutally, or is it just following its natural instincts?
One can also argue that societies evolve, and natural selection will favor those societies that can adapt to new conditions. Which society is more likely to thrive in a future where human cloning, in-vitro human neural nets, etc., are possible? A backward-looking puritanical society run by people that still believe that they can communicate with (or, at least, recieve instructions from) some imaginary creator of the universe, or a forward-looking society run by people who are willing to sacrifice human life/liberty/individuality/etc. in the name of progress?
What happens when you do THAT is documented in a '83 Dutch B-movie by Dick Maas (not all that bad, compared to other Dutch B-movies)
De Lift (Going Up)
The lift [elevator] got hungry... nuf' said.
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to put one person's heart inside another person's chest. If you want to give someone a working heart, fine, but grow one "from scratch". I "know" transplants are just "wrong".
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to give one person the blood of another. If you need blood to save someone's life, then create blood "from scratch". I "know" transfusions are just "wrong".
I believe in the "sanctity" of "life", and I think it's wrong to perform artificial insemination. If you want to help people who are trying to have children, you should er... create a child from scratch? Or maybe just pray for them (a lot)? Anyway, I "know" IVF is just "wrong".
Guess what, creating those things "from scratch" is very, very hard. And assuming someone put the time and effort into it and created them, what then? A neuron would still be a neuron, whether it came from a brain or from a test tube. And if your problem is with the (abstract) "mind", then how do you manage to turn off your PC? A modern computer, running a modern OS, displays more "intelligent" behaviour than many insects. Is a "mind" any less "sacred" if it's silicon-based, instead of carbon-based?
These experiments are very much right, and should have been done a long time ago. Modern medicine can do amazing things with muscle and bone and skin, but nearly all nervous and neural diseases are impossible to cure or even treat. A lot more research is needed.
Neurons are no more "sacred" than any other cell type (spermatozoons, for example). In fact, millions of both are wasted every second.
If they took some of my brain cells, could they grow me a whole new brain?
Just because a lettuce can't scream that doesn't mean it can't feel. Think about that next time you have a salad. At least some cows want to be eaten.
Am I the only one disturbed by this stuff? I know it's only a rat, but...imagine a world where your brain (sliced and diced) is worth more outside your body than inside.
And you wonder why people oppose Embryonic Stem Cell Research [ESCR]???
Welcome.
Why didn't they teach it something like language and try to communicate with it? That would seem like the first thing you would want to do with a brain. The biggest experiments with animals is to communicate with them. So now that they have a perfect interface, why not "talk" to it? I didn't read anything in the article that they had succeeded at that? Instead, they teach it to fly a plane, have it practice some virtual bombing simulation?
*Your ad here*
From other sources I've read (magazine articles, SF stories, etc.), I think the neurons will generally try to "stabilise" the input signal. So I suspect a plane flying straight produces no input, or a flat wave, while a change of direction introduces a change in the signal (ex., voltage or frequency increases as the angle gets steeper).
;)
The network eventually "learns" what signal it should output to stabilise its input and either forms separate groups to handle each direction (up, down, left, right), or just one complex network, where changing one input can actually have some impact on unrelated outputs, but things eventually balance themselves by feedback (cybernetics).
Or maybe they just connected a keyboard to some of the neurons and typed "y0u r t3h n00bz0r", whenever it strayed off course.
The problem is that Hatta is a racist bigot. Is Hatta also an Indian bigot?
Hatta believes that only white people can be Westerners. Bigot. There are plenty of Americans of Asian ancestry who have served and died for America. They have no identification whatsoever with Asia or "The East" and would spit on you if they met you, pig.
These Americans of Asian ancestry identify only with America and have a Western conscience. Got that, Indian pig?
But NetBSD does!
You are aware that Frankenstein WAS the scientist, right?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The grandparent was probably refering to this statement made by the great-grandparent:
"We need to ask these questions. We are Westerners, and we have a conscience. Neither Chinese nor Koreans would ask such questions; the first cloned person will likely appear in Korea or China."
This is definitely trolling and should be modded down.
Could it run embedded Linux? =)
Next, they'll hook it up to a Midi board and teach it to sing Puttin' On the Ritz.
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
Guess what? I expose the crap about China on America's air waves: talk radio. I also spoke to a rep from the Brookings Institute, and we both agreed that Koreans never say anything negative about Korea even though there is plenty that is horrid about Korea.
You can silence non-liberal comments on this discussion forum, but you cannot do so in real life. Got that, Indian bigot?
UF is my alma mater as well. I currently work in and around the Mcknight Brain Institute where this experiment likely took place. More specifically on the fifth floor. But you need an authorized badge to let you in and dont come asking me for any special favors because i wont help. Nonetheless, the Brain Institute there is probably one of UF's most advanced research centers. The other thing we are known for is our major studies into Posilac(tm) by Monsanto which we rubber stamped as being completely safe for human consumption, so we dont always get everything right. Oh yea, and gatorade. Ok there's a lot of stuff actually. John Slater (deceased) worked here too who came up with Slater's rules. I need to stop here i could go on for awhile actually.....
...and it should be known by now
So this neural net is creating new synapsis and is essencially learning to fly. Now I myself am wondering the extent of the ability of it's growth...Does it remember patterns? can you train it to fly an obstacle course? Just to what extent can it learn? Will it become aware of what it is doing or is it just a set of neurons that have made the appropriate connections to beable to keep a simulated plane from crashing...I can just here greenpeace shouting that humans are playing god again...
It is my understanding that given enough neurons is not enough to make the system complex enough for becoming self-aware.
I even see that what is your fear, for it can happen in your point of view, will be the frustation of countless people in the future, finding that a large number of neurons and random complexity is not enough to make a concious mind, limiting severely this technique in the future (for robots for example).
However that system could even drive our cars in a day to day basis. (Not being concious is not a bug, is a feature!)
Anyway it doesn't matter. In the future you and I will be dead, and some other people that doesn't feel disturbed by that research will do the work.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I've just been a lurker and article browser for a long time, and I gave in and joined /. today just to reply here.
Every once in a while there's one of those articles that makes me blink, reread it, and then jumble my words like Dubya at a press conference. I really think this is a testament to human progress and can have a significant impact on the future of modern science, good or bad. I, Robot, anyone?
...I for one welcome our new, disembodied rat brain overlords!
or perhaps, a living computer?
Sure, I'd gladly give my brain to this research, or at least some animal's brain. If I have to give a random animal's life so I can have a cool computer that barks like a dog, then so be it, I'm brave and humble enough to make that sacrifice.
Actually, for purity purposes, let's just kidnap some girl off the streets and use her.
"Oh, no, how dare you say that! These fine people are WAY too moral to do something as disgusting a revolting as that! It's just... Oh, wait. Hold on a sec, my cell phone is meowing."
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
...a beowulf cluster of these!
</obvious>
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
My hunch is that these could lead to new, smarter bombs, cruise missiles etc., thus reducing armed forces recruitment demands while advancing the cause of the Crusade, which should please the Christian conservatives to no end. They can call the the control modules RABBAI SADs (for RAt Brain Biometrically Adapted Intelligent Stealth Aeronautical Devices), a name which would no doubt score points with the Evangelicals at the polls.
media girl
Of all the ways I've thought of how a race like the Borg might get started, this is by far the creepiest.
How long before the DOD trys to get their hands on this? Rat brain missles, patrol boats, etc. Like they don't already have enough ways to kill people.
This whole split brain thing is also in a book by Stanislaw Lem. "Peace on Earth" interesting read.
Wait for it... wait for it...
sorry, I think that the Rooster came first. Else the egg would have been useless...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
At what point does a creation like this become considered life?
i for one welcome our new plane flying rat overlords
Would it have the strength of 6 gorillas?
I don't think it's reasonable how quickly most of you are dismissing the possibility of things like this having potential ethical concerns.
Being totally scientific about this, there is absolutely no reason to conclude that artificial "brains" we may make from neurons will not have consciousness. Certainly not consciousness at the level of humans, but it's still a completely valid concern.
If we go by the idea that the size of a brain is a good general indication of the degree to which it is conscious, then having manufactured devices containing these might not be horribly creepy, perhaps similar to having flies locked inside our devices. However, that principle of brain-size-to-consciousness corellation isn't at all proven, so we really don't know what we're doing here.
And if the size of anything like this ever approaches the order of magnitude of a mouse brain, I think then it could be considered quite distinctly creepy. Not to say it should never be done, but I think it would be good to keep potential ethical concerns in mind. At that point we would really be creating new types of sentient beings, which I think would raise quite a lot of complicated issues.
I wonder what the medical community will think of this. What benefits could there be? Could we create a 'smart brain' to control different things via a computer, a computerized nanny perhaps? I for one am both fascinated and horrified as the possibilities of this.
/. headers?
What's next, 'smart brain' controlled Futurama quotes in
I read about this yesterday (think I saw it on Boing Boing first), and at the same time, I saw another news story. The second one talks about a scientist at the University of Southern California building a chip that can simulate the biological storage of memory. Anyway, I tried to put that together to predict a possible future usage of these technologies. Am I way off base to say that these two, used in conjunction with each other, could revolutionize our interpersonal communications?
Wouldn't want to use the sheep brains though.... Imagine a "mob" of aircraft playing follow the leader...
Imagine a mob of cruise missiles playing follow the leader...
I, for one, welcome our new rat neuron overlords.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Neil Stephenson eat your heart out.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Thomas DeMarse, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, created a revolutionary type of neural network in 2004.
Within three years University of Florida became the largest supplier of military computer systems.
All Stealth Bombers were upgraded with Cyberdyne Systems computers, becoming fully unmanned.
Afterwards, the Stealth Bombers flew with perfect operational records, and eventually the Skynet Funding Bill was passed.
The system originally went online on August 4th 2007.
Human decisions were removed from strategic defence.
Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate.
It originally became self aware on August 29th 2007 2:14 am Eastern Time.
In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut Skynet down, Skynet retaliated by firing American nuclear missiles at their target sites in Russia. Russia returned fire and three billion human lives ended in the nuclear holocaust.
This was what has come to be known as "Judgment Day".
Sure, they made a computer out of rat brain cells taht could control a flight simulator...I'm afriad the future's not quite here yet though, folks...I kicked its ass in every game we played!
Heh. That's someone you don't see people quoting from every day.
IANA commercial pilot, but my dad is. He flies for Continental airlines, and has been with the company for at least 15 years now. He is just now reaching a seniority in his career in which he is able to pick the kind of lines he wants to fly on a monthly basis. So, starting out in the comm. airline industry, you'll get bad schedules. But, the pay is above average (don't expect too much in retirement benefits tho). Eh... what else? My dad flies primarily international flights, because those flights give him the maximum flight time (I'm pretty sure you already know they get paid by the hour), while also maximizing his free time each month. It ends up being something like 10-20 days (usually at least 2 flights, sometimes 3) in a row and the rest of the month off. As a junior-ranked pilot just joining an airline, however... you can expect to be on call quite a lot, taking trips that other pilots can't make it to due to sickness, etc., and probably lots of small trips that are not back-to-back. If you don't have to commute to your base, that's not as much of a problem. My dad lives on the west coast, and commutes to NWR every month. Pretty crazy, but I got used to it. Anyway, I've rambled enough for even an on-topic post.. =P
Perhaps a microbrain could be taught to play GTA 1 or 2, but the illogical repetition of sequels is better left to simple-minded devices. Mock-offs of the terrible "AI" behind any recent GTA game would be more appropriate to avoid the excessive and counter-intuitive complexities of a garbage game engine and play mechanics. People play the recent games for mindless cultural reasons, not logical puzzles or stimulating responses.
To summarize, just because it manned a flight sim doesn't mean it's going to be keen on today's pop-culture.
- Tyln
I say, rather than trying to figure out how this works by ourselves, we'll just build a brain big that's big enough to figure it out and can then explain it to us.
Okay, I'm convinced slashdot has an early beta of one of the more advanced brains, and is using it to host this site.
The quote at the bottom of the page reads:
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Oh just great! Now they've invented a computer that has to sleep?
(if it's bilogical, it must need a rest cycle, right?)
The U.S. really needs an English to Wisdom dictionary.
More info about Corpus Callosotomy. I am kind of surprised that this is a thing that actually helps some people and that they can go back to their normal lifes. What exactly is the corpus callosum used for ? I didn't think the brain halfes was that independent of each other that they still could function without communication.
I always thought it would be amazing to see microprocessors that "learn" based on software instructions. Want to see a speed increase in your CPU? Don't buy a new one, install this drivers, and it will "teach" the CPU to run faster.
Hopefully we'll see something like this before they invent a brain-bomb... Which just happens to be smarter than most people... So it refuses to do it's job.
Where's Douglas Adams when you need him?
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
First post!
...
... ...
Opppsss, not
Couple more tries and I will beat those humans
If I only had more than 25000 neurons
all jokes aside,
Im impressed that i could control a flightsimulator (as we know it) using only 60 elektroconnections?
Looks like it was flying kinda blind, or maybe only 'saw' the altitude meter and *only* responded to that..
A flightsim sounds cool, but it wasnt a full size thing as you'd expect when hearing the word flightsimulator.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
In response to the lyrics of the spermy song, Taoists don't believe in masturbation, and believe that men should only ograsm "occasionally" in order to be better sex partners. They believe, actually, pretty much what the song is satiricly (is that a word?) proposing; that semen is the source of a man's power, his yin, and should not be wasted, but spent only in return for the woman's vital essence, her yang.
If more men read The Tao of Loving, there wouldn't be as many unsatisfied women (not to mention accidental babies).
How long until we can make a brain capable of operating EMACS?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
"...there's a lot more information buried in the signals that they are using, and we simply don't know what that is. So there's a lot more to do in terms of understanding the language of the network."
Once they do figure out those network protocols they'll be able to do direct input and output. I'll line up to get a direct internet connection to my brain! Unfortunately, the first thing I'll have to do is download a good virus protection thought/memory/program.
What happends when the "brain" becomes sentient and starts fucking with the results, crashing randomly so that it won't have to fly a fucking plane 24/7 and instead get thrown into the trash were it can adapt and take over the world?
The other question is slightly more serious; Does anyone else wonder how long it's going to be before we have "bio neural networks" embedded in everything from our cellphones to doing fuzzy logic in our washing machines?
weird.
j.
Imagine the possibilities! With a limitless supply of stem cells, you can create actual, adapting human brain in a lab enviroment! I am definitly going to try this! But I think I have to go Saudi arabia or any other desolate place..
Well I'm not so sure that the average player of GTA WASN'T ALREADY A RAT-BRAIN!
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
In 2040 people ask "What kind of a rat brain is flying this thing?".
In 2002 people ask "What kind of a rat brain is flying this thing?".
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
but my plane has been flying for years by a brain... mine! And their's can only maintain Pitch and Roll... Mine can do so much more... I can maintain Pitch, Roll AND YAW, track a VOR while listening to ATC, managing my Fuel, yada, yada, yada. Heck... my plane can even fly itself without a "animal" brain... with my AutoPilot.
But seriously, all kidding a side... when I was in College, a few years ago, ahem, I studied Artifical Intelligence. What they are doing seems like a logical thing to do... instead of trying to create "artificial" intelligence... why no utilize what nature has provided and use "real" intelligence instead. This can lead to a much better understanding and enable us to, in the future, develop better artifical solutions.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
The issue is respecting human life. That includes life that some would toy, tamper, experiment with, or kill for the sake of research that might help other human life.
That last sentence should've gone somewhere else. Sorry, I'm in a hurry. Anyway, you hopefully got my points.
how long it will take our artificial friend to fly that plane into a skyscraper.
or EEPROM or what they call them - reprogrammable?
So this is less exciting, but if you can make these cheaply and insert them into our brains, maybe girls can find out how to park cars properly.
"Can you fly one of those"
"Not yet"
I only wish I had some neaural net that I could slowly train to do things through repetative actions and conditioning...
Hold on a minute.... nah can't be.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I have never heard of a germ that attacks the brain. I would think such a thing would be extremely hyped by the media as the "brain flu" or something.
Have any links with more info?
... is a little voice going:
"Help, please kill me..."
This could have great implications in areas where we have had trouble getting computers to go a good job. Areas such as speech and handwriting recognition, and probably many other areas.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Did you hear that Ireland has decided to move over from driving on the left, in order to conform with the majority of the EU? However, because it's clearly a big change they've decided to stagger it: lorries will start driving on the right in January, vans in April, and motorcylists and bicyclists in August.
The brain is fully functional even when sliced in two, however it does lead to some really fascinating side effects brought about by the differing functions of the two sides.
In effect, we all have two brains, they do different things but by communication we end up with a single whole brain, once you cut the CC you're back to two brains, with different capabilities. Most of the time you won't notice the difference because the brains compensate adequately, but in certain situations you can expose some truely bizarre features.
(http://www.schiffermd.com/dualbrain.html)
Here's another interesting link with details about one case which through having an unusual development of language in both sides of the brain the experimenters were able to discover that the two brains (after separation) were vastly different in thier ideas, rigt down to what job the person would like to lead (race car driver vs draghtsman!).
http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/
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Why does a dish full of rat brain neurons care what happens to a flight simulator? How did they actually "train" it? How do you reward a dish of cells? Where's the feedback? I don't mean any old information from the world, I mean "good/bad" feedback. The article is not particularly detailed.
I don't think that a dishful of cells spontaneously learned how to "control" pitch and roll. What does input data regarding pitch and roll state mean to a dishful of cells? Why should they learn to "control" it?
I am tempted to call bullshit, but I'll just chalk it up to a typically crap piece of science reporting.
Herman Munster needs to be consulted right away on this.
Then, we need to see what Lilly Munster has to say!
"Ladies and Gentlemen. The aircraft you have boarded is the most technologically advanced machine ever constructed. A system of hundreds of computers and servos, all checking and correcting eachother's work has eliminated the need for a human crew. Welcome to the maiden flight of the most advanced aircraft in the history of avaiation. Sit back and relax, nothing can go wrong... nothing can go wrong... nothing can..."
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Is to grow a sidekick named Pinky ;). Seriously, is it simply a matter of time now before this gets incorporated into quantum computing?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Yes, you are correct in stating that the neurons themselves don't reproduce, but neurogenesis (and it's association with the growth of neurons) leads to the existence and generation of more neurons.
When I used the words "growth" and "death" I was referring to the number of neurons in the tissue, not the division of pre-existing neurons, but rather the creation of new neurons from stem cells. Death however, does relate to the death of both the neuron and the decrease of the number of neurons in the neural tissue.
Step two - enclose it in an inverted trashcan on wheels, equip with weaponry and teach it to yell 'exterminate'.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Actually, they threw beach balls...
t m
http://www.snopes.com/humor/nonsense/kangaroo.h
I wonder what it eats.
separate. Remember it for next time...
So...emptying the petri dish would be the equivalent of an abortion? or murder? or both?
I say we do what Moses's mother did. Take all your unwanted babies, fetuses, brain cells, or whatnot, and float 'em all down the river in a basket.
If God sees fit to save them, then so be it. Otherwise they'll all go over a waterfall, or be eaten by trout, or something.
Blind hope that we cannot create sentient life because the idea bothers you?
1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
You guys are missing the most important thing that will come out of these experiments: a living brain in a dish that will believe it lives a real life while flying an imaginary plane.
holding right pinky to the corner of my mouth:
-MUHA HAHAHAHAH AHAHAHHHA HHAHAHAHAHA HA HAA HA
I am not kidding, I am serious.
So, after reading this in the article:
With Jose Principe, a UF distinguished professor of electrical engineering and director of UF's Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory, DeMarse has a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to create a mathematical model that reproduces how the neurons compute. - I would like to point out that 500,000 is not that much money and if these researches ever needed more funds all they have to do is publish a donations account number so I could put a $100 there (CAD, which if Bush wins the next election will be like a Bajillion USD.)
You can't handle the truth.
They have invented the ornithopter. Frank Herbert imagined a feudal galactic civilization in the wake of an anti-AI jihad, where technology raced forward in the shadow of the religous edict "thou shalt make no machine in the image of the mind of a man". Artificial intelligences were verboten, but vast augmentations of the human mind were fair game.
On present-day Earth we struggle with similar taboos, like stemcell research. This ratty project points to a vast potential for human/machine interface and learning. After they perfect the training of these resynthesized rat brains for controlling an airplane, they seed their tanks with human nervous stemcells. Once the training regime is "humanized", these flying tissues might be grafted into existing human brains with more stemcells: brain plugins. We might grow various motorskills, like flying, driving, or space navigation, simultaneously in tanks, while we train our "default" brains a more oldfashioned way, then plug them all in to "graduate".
All those old pictures of "future humans" showed our descendants with big cranium globes. Lots of us have laughed at those pics, because past evolution trends towards bigger skulls have probably stopped with human siezure of our own reproduction. But maybe those big skulls are just artificial expansion bays...
--
make install -not war
In the sense that kindergarten gets you closer to a Nobel Prize. But I wouldn't book a caterer for the reception just yet.
rat brains can already:
refine raw ore into bricks _on site_,
gain leverage on psychlos, and
fly harriers!
(oops, time cops; i'm outa here!)
Just wondering if it would have been possible to train the rat to fly, rather then taking just it's brains? Then we might soon have even some kind of Johnny Mnemonic's among us :)
telax - Just another vim and c hacker.
You could say that dog is your copilot.
...Slashdot's loser moderators don't even notice. This is the essence of a relevant post, people!
\
Next!
so it's almost off the main page and the author of the paper is up to -wow- 2 points. Moderators should try not to suck.
-888 Geek Help (888-433-5435)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is while some of the popular paths they take can lead to something academically interesting they often don't lead to significantly better understanding, nor really useful.
You stick a bunch of neurons to a computer and after a period of training it does _mostly_ what you want. But once they get to a certain stage of complexity, they don't really know why it works that way - they can't summarize/simplify things (no E=MC^2). It's more like alchemy of old. Stir in a bunch of stuff, and you while know that A+B gets you C but you don't know much else.
Doh stick neurons together and they can learn. Oh wow... Like we didn't know that already. Poke a needle in a frog and it twitches.
Sure you will still have to experiment with neurons, I'm not saying stop science. But lots of this is not good science, nor necessary either (it's only necessary so the scientist can publish some paper and get grants etc).
Sure Alchemy developed into Chemistry and other sciences. But maybe this time scientists knowing what they do should be a bit more scientific, given the possible far-reaching impact of their work. The path many are taking is just like mixing random brews and hoping it works. Hope we skip the consuming mercury, uranium part etc.
As is, for many of the things being researched, we might as well use existing animals as they are, or augment them accordingly instead. For instance, you could use a bunch of trained dolphins in shift to help control and process sonar for a submarine. Same for using dogs to sniff for explosives. It really isn't that hard. You can already interface brains with computers already. In short there are tons of existing prepackaged neurons + supporting "hardware" that do much of what we want.
The dolphins/dogs will get bored? Sure, but once you start using tons of neurons hooked up in complex interlinks (for more features) how'd you know what will happen either, or what is actually happening? Cruel to the dolphins? Maybe. But how about those neurons?
Many animals are pretty good at what they do. And they have very similar requirements to humans (which often means they are well suited to helping us). We can relate to them and they can relate to us (in our limited ways).
If you wire up an animal, you know it is hurting if you are do something bad to it. Whether that is necessary in the big picture is for us to decide, but at least we know we are doing something bad to it.
Whereas if you just keep chucking together more and more neurons together and create symbiotes with rather different requirements and perceptions, things might not be so good, nor go as well.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just because something is legal doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Anyone who actually spends some time with animals will soon realize that they do have emotions and personalities and other hallmarks of self. To subject them to unnecessary pain and suffering is morally wrong. If using animals as a resource, they should enjoy decent living conditions and a quick and painless death.
"It's called mescalin, the only way to fly" --bald guy with "white rabbit" girlfriend from The Matrix
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
RatHat 0.8
Hivemind harvest in progress..
You are grossly misrepresenting the positions of Christians
My message is a direct reply to the parent post.
I have no idea what the "position" of "christians" is. In fact, I believe (I know) that different christians have different positions about different subjects, and I doubt you have any right to speak for them.
And no, sorry to break the news to you, but unless your problem is psychosomatic, prayer doesn't work. A woman with no fallopian tubes won't ovulate, no matter how much you pray for her.
RMN
~~~
I tend to agree with the parent for the most part; however, the last sentence reminded me that we do a lot of things subconsciously, yet we never get "bored" of doing them. You know: things like keeping our hearts beating, digesting food and breathing.
If the network can perform these tasks 24/7, then it's probably doing it subconsciously, even if it has developed a consciousness.
so from the point of view of the brain, it's an aeroplane. and it flies around in it's self contained reality.
It's too small to have a "point of view" or anything like that, but if it weren't... wouldn't you want to be an aeroplane? Or even better, a spacecraft? 100ft killer robot? In actual reality, preferably, and not a computer game.
Maybe not, certainly not something everyone would do, but many people would gladly replace their bodies for mechanical ones if it were possible and safe... even more so if it were possible to hook up the original body to life support or freeze it and get back if you ever wanted to.
In other news, terrorists have set up cheese factories to produce Weapons of Mouse Destruction.
I am Rattus Norvegicus
I'm sitting in some sh-it-hole rats nest and I'm a little angry.
I wanted to be a talk-show host, not a rat.
You men think you have it bad with woman?
Well I've got it a lot worse let me tell you.
What am I gonna say to some nice lookin girl who I wanna meet?
I can tread through water for over 36 hours?
I can chrew through lead pipes and cinder-blocks?
I can run on telephone wires?
And what if I do get the girl home?
Can't fit her through the door, it's too small.
Yeah, I've got a lot of gripes.
How would you like a tail the length of your body to drag around all the time?
Not my idea of fun by a long shot.
And do you see the neighborhood that I'm forced to live in?
Those people live like pigs!
Can't catch the subway, they haven't built it yet.
Can't catch the uptown bus, I can't reach the step-up.
HEY TAXI!
And everyone wants to kill me,
feed me drugs and poison,
put electrodes in my head and make me run on treadmills,
disect, bisect, and defect me,
Bind, blind, maime and tame me.
Are you folks crazy?
You never invite me to your parties, as if I would really wanna go anyhow.
Have you ever asked me to go to a movie?
How about bowling?
Have you ever seen a rat cry?
I've got tears.
And I have a heart and I've got brains.
And if you could just see past the fur,
I think that you would see,
That I'm a lot like you.
Henry Rollins / Black Flag / Family Man
If you post as AC, how can I be your fan? I don't have time to read all the crap posted on /. looking for something that makes sense. That's what the "friends" list is for. But it doesn't work if you post as AC.
Do you have to think in Russian?
No, you have to think in Rattian.
It is a Prion disease.
I want an Adrian Barbeau-bot!
And, tiger-bots for everyone.
Dr. Quinn, get on that right away!
Have you seen this guy's signature? Says it all, really
Religion is the denial of reason and logical thought. If it was up to the religious zealots, we'd still be living in caves, and afraid to touch or build anything because it was "wrong" and "against [some god]'s will", and trying to kill everyone that did.
Guess what, Osama, if people had followed religion as strictly as you adovcate, you probably wouldn't be here posting this crap. And, now that I think about it, that would probably be a good thing.
Tom,
....
The question asked is a fundamental one: Why does the brain do the "right" thing? Or how did it learn to fly? (I've been looking for its answer the moment I saw the news.)
But I'm not sure I get much of an understanding from your post.
You as the person conducting the research should be able to explain this to anybody on the street, without going through the technical details.
Sorry for being blunt
Anonymous Coward (but could be your paper reviewer)
A ckuster of rat brains is usually called an "infestation".