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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?
Does this freak the shit out of anyone else?
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?
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.
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
Not really. The network of neurons is not conscious; it's just a mass of cells that happens to have a way to communicate with each other that's convenient for the application. (Or rather, that make this a convenient application for the study of that communication.) Just because the components happen to be biological doesn't make this neural network more intelligent or conscious than one running on traditional hardware.
Point 1: This isn't a brain we're talking about, it's 25,000 neurons in a dish that has a grid of electrodes on the bottom, so whatever structure has come to being is unlikely to resemble that of a brain except that it's made up of neurons which synapse on other neurons.
Point 2: Pleasure and pain are not localized in the brain. You can feel many different kinds of pain (visceral via sympathetic nervous system vs. somatic, for instance) and can feel each of these kinds of pain at different regions in the body (and thus different groups of neurons in the brain). I imagine the same holds true for pleasure, with different neurotransmitter pathways involved for each.
About the grandparent, that's exactly what I wondered too, and I couldn't find any pertinent info in the two articles either. The two following paragraphs are what I find to be very handwavy and suspect:
What? How can you possibly assert that? I could make the same claim about you. All you are is a "bunch of neurons" that exhibits complex behavior. I have absolutely no reason to suspect that you are conscious. Sure, you act like you're conscious, but you're just saying that.
But is it self aware? At present I would doubt it, but maybe in the future, just maybe.
:-)
This I find fascinating. The moral ramifications are huge.
For starters if it becomes self aware, is it alive like us? If so are we no more than complex machines or is there something else?
What makes you think a large simulation of a brain won't be conscious?
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Deleted
Still, we have crossed a line. I'm not sure exactly where that line was, but I do know that people will be angry that we've crossed it. For better, or for worse, it's been crossed, and there is no reason to go back, and undo the experiment, infact, you couldn't. It will be interesting to watch where this field of science will go.
If I could tell these scientists but one thing, that would be to use a great deal, a great deal of caution in what they do, and what could happen becuase of their results.
Sig
You better be vegetarian! I, for one, know of many larger and more common masses of neurons that definately can feel things that are having much worse existances than flying a virtual plane.
Don't anthromorphize the neuron. Neurons self organize and process signals in completely unconscious structures with no sense of pleasure. The neurons of the spinal cord, retina, or enteric nervous system for instance. Self organization and signal processing is just what neurons do. We've known for some time that certain types of electrical stimulation (high frequency) can strengthen a connection where as other (low frequency) can weaken a connection. But how this turns into computation, we don't have a clue.
I am really excited about this. If we can standardize this process, this gives us a whole new in vitro method for studying how neurons learn. Then we can apply drugs, or knock out proteins, or even do fluorescent imaging on the live neurons as they think. This could be as big a leap forward in the understanding of the mind as PCR or western blotting have been to understanding the cell.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm glad I'm not the only one that is slightly creeped out. I mean, I read about a lot of stuff that could fairly be considered "scifi-esque" that have people recoiling...Cloning (reproductive AND theraputic- that includes cloning organs), stem cell research, genetically engineering organisms like foods that resist pesticide or viruses and bacteria that eliminate certain diseases and cancers, no problem.
This just seems much creepier for some reason I can't pinpoint. Maybe for the very reasons you cited- human brains being a valuble commodity on some black market.
It raises some ethical concerns as well...What would be this brain's level of consciousness? What if it DID became self-aware and what it was being used for? Man, I gotta stop thinking about this now...
"He does look a bit Oompa like, even if his Loompa is a bit off-kilter."
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.
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
About the grandparent, that's exactly what I wondered too, and I couldn't find any pertinent info in the two articles either. The two following paragraphs are what I find to be very handwavy and suspect
He's talking to the lay press, give him a break. Even if he gave the information we all want, it's likely the reporter didn't understand it well enough to realise its importance. We'll just have to wait until his paper is published to find out how he's done it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
that is, by far, the worst joke i've ever heard :)
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Despite that life plays with us?
The point is not so much that a mass neurons of can't be conscious, as that a mass of neurons this small can't be concscious. The reason I can assert this is because, while the network does exhibit complex behaviour, that behaviour is not as complicated as that shown by organisms that we can reasonably assume to be conscious - people. Why should this be any scarier than a silicon based solution that does the same thing? Why does biology need to have a monopoly on consciousness?
As much fun as it is to bring Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds into this, it doesn't really help the conversation. How do I know my PC isn't conscious? How do I know my hands aren't seperate, conscious entities that my conscious mind has enslaved to do its bidding?
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.
Yet another example of technology outstripping society and out collective wisdom.
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... 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
My guess is, you use the electrodes in the petri dish to stimulate the neurons into strengthening the connections when the plane is doing the right thing (straight and level presumadly) and weaken (or just not strengthen) when the plane is doing the wrong thing (crashing).
I believe that by altering the characteristics of the charge applied over the electrodes this effect could be realised.
Eventually the connections will be strengthened in such as way as the plane is flown straight and level.
Nothing to do with pleasure or pain, just artificially causing the correct connections to strengthen.
Of course, IANABS (Brain Surgeon). So I could be completly wrong, it's just how I imagine they could achieve the desired results.
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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.
There you go asserting things again to which you have no proof.
[that behaviour is not as complicated as that shown by organisms that we can reasonably assume to be conscious - people.]
Do you think a baby is concious? If yes, is a cat that is able to exhibit more complex behavior than the baby , concious? Where is your dividing line?
~561
Even taking your broad stroke of "animals" as non-human animals, that statement is worthless - at present, there is no way to define what you're talking about, much less measure it once it has been defined.
If animals are self-aware, the only conclusion you can draw is that they don't seem to have a way to communicate it to us. If they aren't, they can't communicate it to us no matter what. And that's all we know about it.
We do, however, know for a fact that some animals (cats and dogs are good examples here) evidence just about every segment of the spectrums of emotions that we do, and that they can be quite calculating with regard to obtaining results that benefit them.
Animals deeply pine after long-time companions (animal and human) who are no longer around. They love and they hate. They lust, they sneak, they pull practical jokes, they play, sacrifice themselves, mope, use tools, trust, distrust, defend territory and friends, and so on through an amazing spectrum of supposedly definitive human characteristics. And let us not forget that they share almost all of our genetic makeup.
So animals may indeed not be conscious, but no sensible alternative explanation for these behaviours has ever been published - and that leaves the issue 100% open.
Right now, the evidence hints towards the likelyhood of non-human animal consciousness - not away. As to what they might do with such a thing, we have no idea. They're not us, and we are not them. It is presumptuous to say otherwise. So they might, indeed, contemplate their place in their world. If so, that process might, or might not, somehow resemble what humans do.
I know of only two venues where statements like yours are taken seriously. Religion and Psi-chi-hat-tricks. Neither are sciences, and neither has any credibility worth talking about except in their own circle of sychophants.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
At what point does a creation like this become considered life?
There you go asserting things again to which you have no proof.
While the other AC had no proof (nor shall I present any), this is testable. Of course, first you have to define "conscious", but there probably exist definitions to which we could all agree. I'm not a psychologist, but I vaguely recall that there are experiments to test for a generally agreed-upon definition.
Do you think a baby is concious?
That rather depends on the age of the baby. Note that this is not "conscious" in the sense of "awake."
If yes, is a cat that is able to exhibit more complex behavior than the baby , concious?
And if no? And how do you measure the complexity of behavior? (This is a silly question, of course, but no more than your next one.)
Where is your dividing line?
If there is a concrete phenomenon that can be referred to as "consciousness" (which there seems to be), there must be a dividing line. (alright, and assuming that some things lack consciousness) Where, exactly, that line is does not matter. What matters is that this blob of cells is far below it.