Slashdot Mirror
Rat Brains Fly Planes
An anonymous reader writes "According to The Age newspaper, scientists at the University of Florida have created neural cell cultures capable of flying an airplane using rat neurons. No actual planes are involved (yet), but the disassembled bits of rodent are already capable of level flight when hooked up to a simulator of an F-22."
The first result could be to enable scientists to build living elements into traditional computers, enabling more flexible and varied means of solving problems.
Wow, if this turns into reality, that'll be the end of customization/config files, or is that the end of mankind?
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
A rat that can smart-bomb your rat-trap.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Rodent brains may seem small, but think of where we can go if we can ramp this technology... One day we may have humans flying planes!
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Given this news, I can only imagine what the next round of layoffs at American Airlines will bring...
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I had a roommate once who was a pilot but couldn't seem to tie his shoes.
Nice to know I wasn't far off track in my assessment of him.
What do you know - it's a triple!
At least it's 2 months old this time and not still on the main page...
All they said was that they hooked it up to electrodes and a computer to train the brain cells to fly the plane in simulator. Is this basically the same as training an artificial neural network or is there some more complicated biological factors involved than the just shocking the cells when they veer off course?
english is way to easy
nasa could use some for their space program. Just let the rats know the moon is made of cheese
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
I, for one, welcome out new rat-neuron-plane flying overlords.
I'm going to get out of this place alive, even if it kills me!
Next flights to the cheese factory leaving on all runways.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I think the superintelligent mice are trying to tell us something.
Ultra-intelligent spam filters. //yay!
Demonstrating once again that flyboys can afford to kill all those brain cells between flights. :-)
It's a joke.
oh never mind
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Now people aren't even bothering to camouflage it when they troll Slashdot by taking advantage of the laughable editorial standards.
Todays date: Dec 6, 2005
Article date: Dec 6/7, 2004 (7 in the text, 6 in the URL)
So, I'm guessing we'll be seeing a few dupes of this (though I'm sure it was on Slashdot last year too, so technically it's already a dupe), followed up by someone fooling the editors into posting a blatent advertisement or an update on the number of FireFox downloads.
So this is how they're working around G-Force limitations in human F-22 pilots?
Somehow I think I like the AI option better.
On the other hand, whoah, ok, so we've got an organic way that MAY make a plane fly level, but seriously, can't we already do this with much less fragile computers? Until this technology can compete, why's it such a big deal?
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
...in level flight. It's landing a plane that poses a bit more of a challenge.
they probably talk on bats or just found the evidence that bats are an inherithed objetc of the class Mouse ...
The work by Dr DeMarse and his team is attracting interest from scientists around the world.
Conveniently, Dr. DeMarse wants their brains working on this flight simulator problem.
... already has a mouse. Next story?
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Rat Brains Fly Planes
In other news, Frank Burns Eats Worms.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
While rat brains are current not quite as good as a basic autopilot, at least they're slower and and impossible to repair...
:-)
This method shows promise for tonnes of grant money!
P.S. Non-rat brain algorithm for level flight (warning: contains technical jargon!)
set_the_controls_to_level_off();
dont_move_the_controls(); # level flight
"When we first hooked them up, the plane 'crashed' all the time," Dr DeMarse said. "But over time, the neural network slowly adapts as the brain learns to control the pitch and roll of the aircraft. After a while, it produces a nice straight and level trajectory."
Straight into a mountainside?
I am sorry, but I do not want to be on a plane and suddenly hear a tone and, "Hello, this is your neural cluster speaking."
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I can't believe people get paid to do this! I'd work without sleep...
I showed this article (or similar one) to my professor while taking a neural network programming class a year ago (I swear I got it from slashdot too). Why are we listing old news?
I think it's significant that they chose a flight simulator instead of a more traditional "game" to teach the newly formed brain.
Here's a couple of points to remember:
The difference between the makeup, function, and behavior of a given type of cells between one species and another is so insignificant (remember, we're talking on a cellular level) that they can generally be ignored. You can almost always assume that a given cell type in one organism will behave identically to a parallel cell in another. The species that the cell came from is all but insignificant.
Brain cells, (in humans and in other species) are amazingly versatile. While capable of specializing (vision centers, speech centers, etc.), these cells seem to be capable of taking on any function necessary for the benefit of the organism. For example, humans brains in which a specific part has been damaged (such as the vision center) have actually re-mapped other cell groups to take over that function. They do what they have to to survive.
Brain cells are cooperative in nature: if placed in proximity to eachother, they'll work together for their common good (read: survival). They'll "instinctively" form a structure similar to how they're pre-designed to work. They'll form a brain--as fully functional as the situation permits. It doesn't necessarily matter how you arrange them, the brain cells can sort those details out--somehow.
Brains look for order. We've known that for ages. Finding order is how a brain learns, it's how the brain separates relevant details from the background noise. The ability to identify order is the whole basis of intelligence. Every sense, every stimulus, every aspect of the brain has order-seeking overtones. This feature of brains is so absolutely universal that it must be deeply ingrained into the neurons themselves.
Put those details together, and you end up with the following scenario: if you take neurons out of an organism and place them together, they'll form a brain. Probably not as complex or capable a brain as you started with, but a brain none the less. Actually this is the ideal brain to study, as you're starting "from scratch": there's no evolutionary specialization involved. Each cell will attempt to make sense of its neighbors, and as a result, the organism as a whole will attempt to make sense of its environment (brain processes are the ultimate in emergent algorithms). The brain will follow this behavior as if it were necessary to the brain's survival.
Which brings us to the flight simulator. If you instead had the brain play with a chessboard or a clock, the results would probably be unimpressive. But a flight simulator--that's really the perfect environment. There's the potential for the brain to actually order its environment: there are equilibrium points that the brain will eventually find where it has greater control over its inputs. Assuming that flying too hight or too low creates a more chaotic state, you can likely expect the brain to learn to avoid it.
In fact, I'd be very much surprised if you didn't actually see the brain cells start to specialize. Some cells will become responsibe for directly manipulating the flight controls based on the inputs from the brain. Some will attempt to maintain aircraft equilibrium in absence of any other input from the brain. Others will control the aircraft as a whole, their location in the network giving them a better overall picture of the situation than, say, the cells near the controls. Furthermore, I fully expect some cells to not participate at all: cells that are "out of the loop", so to speak, will proably cease most activity to avoid disturbing the overall process.
I, personally, have been waiting to see this very experiment conducted and see the results. I think this is very exciting science
Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons are next.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Imagine, we can have a rat fly our planes for us! No more computers!
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Call me jaded, but this is hardly surprising. It's quite amazing yes, but not surprising. Even small fragments of rat brain will have thousands and thousands of neurons and neuronal connections. It then becomes a matter of interfacing this "brain" with an appropriate sensory/control mechanism to respond to arbitrary stimuli (plane flying) after a certain amount of training. We have these beasties for decades and we call them "neural networks". If a relatively miniscule bunch of simulated neurons can drive a car (ALVINN from Google's cache, then a bunch of real neurons orders of magnitude larger can definitely fly a plane.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
How do you tell living neurons that he plane crashed? Has anyone some insight on this?
While it's true that an F-22 Raptor is a different bird to the docile Cessnas and Pipers that I trained on, for most planes "straight and level" is the default.
Like when you let the steering wheel go in a car (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!) your wheels castor so that the car stays straight ahead (and in most cars, slightly away from the oncoming traffic).
If the rat brain could land a plane in a crosswind - then I'd be impressed!
Great. Not only are they immortal and fearless - now they can fly fighter jets too.
What could possibly go wrong?
This isnt news, John Travolta has been flying planes for years...
Anyone remember that computer generated comic from about 20 years ago called "Shatter"? One of the stories in there had a bomb that used a rat brain. Kind of weird that this is kind of close to that.
Ratty Brainee Flee Planee
1! 2! 3! 4!
Ratty Brainee Flee Planee
1! 2! 3! 4!
Rodent wants a black helicopter
Hover the sticky paper
Raiding the larder
Ratty Brainee Flee Planee
1! 2! 3! 4!
I want be one
You want to have some
With little a 'dungee
They've gone past the bungee
Ratty Brainee Flee Planee
1! 2! 3! 4!
I don't give a flying rat's a... oh wait.
Is this the same University of Florida that extracted rat neurons for a flying experiment in this article?
Erik http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~rattles
did you read the article at newscientist.com about rats singing (actually mice, but the author claims that his rat was a diva)....i get it in print, but it's now online - at newscientst, search for the article "romantic rodents"..."Tim Holy and Zhongsheng Guo of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, recorded the vocalisations of male mice when they were presented with female pheromones and found they were far more complex than expected." and of course, rats are much more complicated creatures, right? have you seen the crispin glover remake of willard?
enjoy life, and Gmail.pro
What if it turns out that sentient but really, really stupid machines are a greater threat to humankind?
Time to call James Cameron. I can see it now: "Terminator 4: Whoops, Wrong Button"!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Btw, why does the date on the link says "December 7, 2004"?
You just got troll'd!
>
>What do you know - it's a triple!
"I think so, EditorTaco, but me and Kathleen Fent, what would the children look like?"
...a culture of rat brain cells which can detect year-old dupes on /. Now that would be both news _and_ considerable progress over the current method, which is most likely a culture of Cowboy Neal's brain cells in dire need of a vacation, a blonde and a bottle of diet Coke.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
I remember the article you are talking about and this is not even close. All I can remember it involved mice and remote controling them.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I want my neural-integrated real-time WWII Shooter!
Alright, while games would be great, just think of the possibilities of a truly human-machine integration. Your mind able to drift from place to place running on whatever hardware's free weather its you dual-processor dog, your Supercomputer Blackberry, or your tricked out, modded up home base in your skull.
We'd need to understand the complicated nature of the brain if humanity is to continue to grow. Machines are already a vital part of many human beings' lives on this planet, one day machines may no longer be something separate but a part of us, no different than our nervous system or our skin. Things like this are the first step to really freeing the mind.
Demented But Determined.
... considering they are also running the US :P
Cheap shot, couldn't resist.
I am no longer an idiot; I have an unoptimized live computation device.
When they can make a carrier landing at night...
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I read a sci-fi book about these neural networks many years ago. It featured a computer, with a rat brain, that simulated weather changes, or something like that. It wasn't powerful enough, and the plot involved a scientist turning to a human brain and all the ramifications etc... Does anyone rememeber that book (or something like it, my memory of it is pretty fuzzy).
I just type my sig in the reply form...
Can anyone else see the giant 'Professor Frink-esque' moustraps poised over the Pentagon? =)
Rich Blokes Smoke Dopes
+4 - Running Man Reference
Shots: A Populist Parable
I think this comprehensively answers it.
"According to The Age newspaper, scientists have created neural cell cultures capable of editing a news article using rat neurons. No actual articles are involved (yet), but the disassembled bits of rodent are already capable of posting dupes when hooked up to Slashdot."
But does it run Linux???
"I don't get it. Well, I could ride it to the store, I guess."
too bad taking off and landing are the hardest part. a plane will fly itself once it's straight and level.
shoe.
. . . as they don't make it so they can read the Koran, everything will be just fine.
... frickin flying shark brains with frickin lasers
Now for the obligatory "In Soviet Russia, planes fly rat brains." In Soviet Russia, planes fly rat brains.
So why is this re-posted without someone noticing? Is someone going to take it down? This is old news.
When we first hooked them up, the plane 'crashed' all the time, but over time, the neural network slowly adapts...
Crap, the last thing I want is for my fighter plane to be smarter than me!
As it is said: years in the lab can save hours in the library. Didn't evolution figure this out years ago?
I stopped running plausable near-future RPG settings because my world background stuff kept coming true. Some of it's just not good.
Rat brain cultures controling devices... check,
9/11 and the US response to it... check (not specifically hijacking, but terrorist destruction of the WTC)
Paul Martin's minority government and the subsequent election campaign... check
CIA secret flights and the international reaction... check
"Voluntary" house to house searches in a major canadian city... check
The sponsorship scandal... check
NRA interfering ain a Canadian election... check
Lots more...
Still waiting on:
Use of non-lethal biological weapons to skew election campaigns (by lacing salads at restaurants frequented by campaign volunters with salmonela, e. coli, or influenza)...
Declaration of CIA front companies as criminal organizations in Several of the G7
A power struggle between the office of the Governor general of Canada and the Prime Ministers Office, leading to the brink of civil war in Canada
Yeah, lets create PETN: People for the Ethical Treatment of Neurons!
no wonder I thought this was deja-vu:
"December 7, 2004"
skillz
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Maybe a cluster can fly the space shuttle?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
actually my first thought at 'rat flies plane' is: finally they found a use for liberals. bout time.
off topic but funny as hell I think
If God wanted rats to fly he would have made them with wings.
Pfft...
/.?
Can they post on
Battlestar Galactica, anyone? So when are they going to be making toast?
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
We just called them pigeons.
you have to use a joystick! Ask any flight sim nut...
for ALL planes, falling to the ground is the default.
In th article the muntion ptich and roll. So they are talking about some kind of control.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I seem to recall that Voyager had sacks of neural computers onboard. Holographic doc's shouldn't be too far away then.
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
Rat brains flying airplanes is not a big deal; you already have a horse's ass running the USA.
I always wondered.
It's walking away from a landing thats the goal.
Or in this case, carried off in your petri dish.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I though bioneural gel packs were a joke, a science fiction fantasy, if you will. A ridiculous invention in Voyager to be ridiculed by the scientific community.
Apparently I was wrong
So;
Let me be the first to say that I welcome our new bioneural gel pack overlords.
FGD 135
When you think about it, they got a neural network from a rat to fly a plane. It's just a bunch of cells, isn't it? But the rat's brain is just a bunch of these bunches, and our brain is just a bit larger. This makes me feel like a big neural network :(
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
I'm not surprised. They ARE the smartest animals on Earth after all. Along with dolphins.
Thank goodness for that. I simply can't abide experiments that involve cruelty to planes.
Since the original posting the rat has got pretty old.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...from your plane...NARF!
who thinks absolutely no good can come of that?
I don't like where this disrespect for life is going.
Without sacrifices of sentient life, all life is doomed anyways. I for one wouldn't mind donating parts to science if it means the a step closer in technological advancement. Especially, if I might end up in some computer. You may object now, but you won't in 1,000 years.
"Opfer müssen gebracht werden!" (Sacrifices must be made) -Otto Lilienthal
Also (about the icky disecting rats part) are you aware people have been disecting human corpses for science for quite some time now? (and still do!) And lastly, an organic brain would be the best opponent in the battle field. If the enemy cannot predict your next move they will have a hard time fighting you. A predictible AI will be analyzed and defeated by an unpredictible AI.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
What next? Sharks with frikkin lasers powered by rat brains, that's what.
Wouldn't it be more logical to use a birds brain?
On Slashdot October 25th 2004 from a different source.
Cylon fighter, anyone?
The real leap will be in getting the "brain" to define it's own variables. For example, it should be able to realize that a mountain will cause it to crash without having to fail for months on end. Otherwise, we are just programming a living computer to fly a plane for us. We control the variables. We control the horizontal and the vertical. The brain just does the messy number crunching.
Until we can get it to do that, I'd rather use a human any day, since they can do more than just math.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
this story has been out since at least early 2005
How did this brain get any feedback from the flight simulator?? The article doesn't seem to mention...
I'm not saying the F-22 can "fly itself" but the latest generations of fighter planes have been increasingly geared toward reducing the complexity of flight. Get these rat brains to fly twin engine propeller planes with simple/no computers and it'll be noteworthy.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
You mean it just sits there and doesn't do anything to disturb the current course of the plane? And this is news? Level flight is easy. Just adjust the trim and don't touch anything. Then again, maybe a F-22 jet is a little different than a single prop Cessna. :-P
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krang
What we do every night Pinky, try to take over the world!
Do what I say, cuz I said it.
-Meatwad
... pigeons and seagulls have been doing it for a long time.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
/. Where you hear about it 364 days later. Boy we are on the cutting edge of tech news here.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Cordwainer Smith is saying, "I told you so!".
planes fly rats.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/06/tehran.c rash/
In the original article I read last year some time, [I didn't RTFdupe] the rat brain managed to handle relatively complex things like wind shear etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The previous post was as redundant as the story, and meant to be so - please don't mod it funny.
;) )
(feel free to troll mod this post, though
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
This article is from 2004. And this subject has been covered here more than a year ago.
In other news...
Slashdot has opensourced a way to use pidgeon brains to run news portals.
...in level flight. It's landing a plane that poses a bit more of a challenge.
Dr. Henry Jones: "Junior, I didn't know you could fly a plane!"
Indy: "Fly? Yes! Land? NO!"
(Ah... memories)
I cannot help but wonder if there will be ethical problems 50 years from now. I mean, if we have rat brains flying fighter planes, is it really ethical to send them into battle, possibly killing them? Are they alive? Will the higher order ones be self-aware? Does that count as killing them? Would they have emotions? Would they fear dying? Would they feel sadness when they know they won't be coming back? Just things like that.
I mean, there's a difference between artifical intelligence (mere electricity) and a living brain. Isn't there?
Well I for one welcome our new stealthy, F-22 Raptor-flying, disembodied rat-brain overlords!
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
A rat brain can fly a plaine...but a slashdot editor cannot check for dupes...yeah, sounds about right.
Read the November article you linked to, and found this gem in the comments...
It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork.
One target is to install living computers in unmanned aircraft so they can be deployed on missions too dangerous for humans.
I think one question has to be asked here. First and foremost, I don't believe the US, or any other country for that matter, has even considered placing autonomous AI on combat-capable aircraft. Doing so would be of the utmost lunacy, and I fail to see how whether the brain is organic or a computer makes any difference in that. In fact, in the only missions I am aware of that the US is using fairly autonomous aircraft, the aircraft have a flight plan installed prior to takeoff, they are not armed, and, most importantly, the software used to control them ALREADY WORKS FINE.
Secondly, I think there is a dangerous undertone to the above passage from the article. We are growing other organisms so that we don't have to endanger human organisms. Certainly this is an unnecessary intrusion into the question of animal rights. Hell, I'm a hunter, fisher, and all-around PETA-hater, and even I see the fallacy here. I simply dont see the need to use organic brains, brains which, once complex enough to do more than just maintain level flight in an airplane, a task even a child could accomplish with ease, would quite possible be able to have some minor form of self-awareness, and, as a necessity, feel both positive and, most importantly, negative feedback (i.e. pain). What is wrong with the current state of computer-based AI, so much so that we must grow brains to replace them? I've played many a flight simulator, and I can tell you this: the AI's in most of them are HARD, and they are running on medium-end PCs with ease. Take one of these boys, put some experts on it for a few years, slap it on a top of the line dedicated computer, and you've probably got a pretty hotshot drone. Not only that, but you've got one that won't have any issues with morality, emotion, or the other baggage that comes with complex thought.
That is, assuming you actually are crazy enough to arm a completely autonomous vehicle...
fly anywhere near cats or cheese.
Sorry from the title of the artical I had an odd image in my mind of a little rat brain in the pilots seat of a 747 wearing a little pilots hat... and the co pilot was a piece of cheese for some reason...
Schrodinger's cat- A cat is put in a sealed box. Attached to which is a radioactive nucleus and a canister of poison gas
so this technology ought to fit right in. The Pentagon can then claim it was a "rat-brain glitch" resulting in a hundred civilian deaths, not their orders.
We already have a rat-brain running the Pentagon, so that'll go over big.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Did anyone notice the irony of modern rats flying aeroplanes that can carry weapons of mass destruction, while rats of times-gone-by used to carry plague fleas - which is also a weapon of mass destruction?
...who thinks this would be a pain in the ass to debug?
... on one of those little mouse treadmills?
Hopefully they'll ensure they "de-ratify" the rat brain, or we may see this headline in the not so distant future:
"Rats Rejoice -- Rat Planes Exact Their Revenge on Cats!"
Still seems like a cop-out to me, though. Plus it means that old, discarded computers are going to start smelling a lot worse...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
We can merge Americas two favorite sayings.
You dirty rat, you sunk my battleship!
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
Out of the last five trips to a favorite (or used to be favorite) restaurant, the counter folks screwed my lunch up three times. Unfortunately, these were take-out orders with multiple folks' orders, so checking at the counter is incredibly inconvenient given how all orders end up in several bags.
If these folks can't remember to include the sauce in their Asian take out lunches (nothing like plain white rice and chicken in a plastic bowl - it has a negative moisture content), but rats can fly planes, I'm inclined to move to Kansas and burn my copies of Darwin's books.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
didn't we have this story earlier in the year? or was it last year, what's changed? are the ratbrain remnants now firing missiles at hostiles or offering inflight entertainment or something ?
im going to repost all of the +5 comments, hooray!
Won't this lead to evolution of future organisms that are 100% brain and whose sole purpose is collect all the information in the universe, then scan itself so that it knows about itself, and then destroy the world so that no new information will be added?
Charles Jo
Artificial Neural Networks giving way to Natual Neural Networks....
Sure, it doesn't seem like a rat will be able to fly a plane anytime soon. But what if an airline company used one of these rat brains to augment a human pilot? Then the pilot is a navigator who can land and steer a plane, without worrying about keeping the plane absolutely level.
This only becomes an issue when you actually need to steer. Well, not necessarily--just angle the camera that's being used as input to the rodent brain. Then it corrects for the new angle and turns the plane.
You'd probably still want full manual control for landing, of course, and as an emergency backup.
Every plane lands eventually. Landing is mandatory :)
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
...this doesn't sound like some hare-brained scheme.
Rats are randy little fsckers. Assuming breeding capability, there'd be enough rats by now to fly the whole United fleet.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Un-frigging-believable.
I've been trying to track down the details on this experiment, to find out how the brain culture does its learning. Is it supervised learning? Reinforcement learning? How does the network know when it's doing well? If it's given a reinforcement signal/target values, how does it know how to use this data?
The research referred to in the article doesn't seem to be easily available on the web. What you can find on the guy's (DeMarse's) website are a few older articles, which describe the setup with the culture disk etc., but no mention of getting the brain slice to learn anything. In fact, they seem not to understand anything about what happens between input and output, more than that things change.
So, does anyone know how they do this? My guess is that they have just trained a perceptron or something similar on the output of the brain culture.
Good evening, this is your captain speaking. If you look to your left, you will see a large hunk of cheese. If you look to your right, you will see another large hunk of cheese.
Stop! Dremel time!
We are the Borg. Lower your shield and surrender your rats, their brains will adapt to service us. Resistence is futile. This is no big deal...Chevy fans have had vehicles powered by rats and mice for many many years.
If they are learning they must be responding, they must be responding to some stimulus, right? They have no built in desire to fly planes straight, so how did they learn to want to fly them straight, and what kind of results they were getting? (I know they have no real desire to fly straight or knowledge of planes, but how do they become disposed to do what they do?) The article was prety light on facts, but this part puzzles me.
I'm pretty sure you can maintain level flight in a well trimmed modern aircraft without any neural cells at all. Hell, an F-18 is actually designed to resume level flight if you pull a too high-G turn and pass out - anti-nonundeirregardless of your inputs and the F-22 is a full generation later.
But it's cooler if you have to chop some creature up to do it. Bonus points awarded for dismembered humice.
I'm curious what the rat brain was actually controlling. An F-22 is inherently unstable without computer control (normal planes have a tendency to re-equilibrate to level flight, whereas an F-22 has a tendency to fall out of the sky). Was the rat brain subsituting for computer control? or was it just providing direcional input like a normal fighter pilot would? F-22s can literally fly themselves. Slapping a rat brain on top doesn't exactly make that better.
Cylon Raider
As the chief test pilot for the F22 attested, "if you can fly a Cessna 152 you can fly this plane". Now if the Rat Brain could get an SR71 from the ramp to Mach 3 at Flight Level 80 I would be impressed.
the U.S Airforce has just increased in intelligence. reports saying the new pilots outperforming their human counterparts by 25%. and dont anyone dare say anythign along the lines of welcoming rat pilot overlords, its old, its tired, move on.
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
A stick, jammed into the controlls...
Or perhaps nothing, if you just let go of the controls most planes would just fly straight... unless there was any kind of cross wind...
Where's Starbuck when you need her?
"Mayday, mayday! The auto-pilot's out of control! It's heading in a wrong course towards the cheese factory!"
...when my a$$ gets handed to me countless times in Counterstrike by a rat? Or better yet, a team of rats? Then we could have rat on rat CS action and place our bets: "And the odds of this round are 1:1.5, Rat B@st@rd is favord, Rat's A$$ is the underdog..."
What are the odd that by Friday, someone on Slashdot has figured out a way to run linux on these things, or at least complaining if they use windows? Even money.
kekekeke
So when exactly will Microsoft be incorporating this into Rodent's Revenge?
because he's wrong about practically everything he said. no offense to him but i've never seen such a polite, well-intentioned post be so completely full of wrongness.
if you read most any basic text on human neurology and cognitive psychology, and you start thinking about the questions involved, and the facts, you'll why that poster-person doesn't know what he's talking about.
(no offense to him.)
n/t
10 bucks says the ratbrain will think the moon is made of cheese and head in that direction
I love humanity, it is people I hate
"Wecome to SCO Airlines. In case of an emergancy, call a lawyer."
Table-ized A.I.
Would we have to change air plane battles to 'rat fights' now?
And of course: Living cells as computers? Once again Life imitates Star Trek.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
hi. listen. you're wrong about a lot of things. --you still seem like a good person though, polite, well-intentioned, and that's an achievement.
"You can almost always assume that a given cell type in one organism will behave identically to a parallel cell in another."
isn't that redundant? the only way you can consider a cell "parallel" in the first place is if has a similar function.
"Brain cells, (in humans and in other species) are amazingly versatile. While capable of specializing (vision centers, speech centers, etc.), these cells seem to be capable of taking on any function necessary for the benefit of the organism. For example, humans brains in which a specific part has been damaged (such as the vision center) have actually re-mapped other cell groups to take over that function. They do what they have to to survive."
a brain "cell" doesn't actually take on any function at all-- or if it does, we have no idea how it does. in fact, it's entire REGIONS of the brain, which are huge collections of cells, that are associated with cognitive processes that you mentioned-- vision, different aspects of lanaguage/speech. and a "brain" doesn't actually do what it has to to survive. its cells simply grow and interact in accordance with various principles of biochemistry and physics. saying that a brain "does what it has to to survive" is like saying that your skin does what it has to survive, just because a small cut on your skin will heal over. --it's a very misleading of confused way of stating it.
"It doesn't necessarily matter how you arrange them, the brain cells can sort those details out--somehow."
that is also extremely wrong or extremely misleading. you're completely misconstruing or overestimating the so-called flexible relationship between brain regions and particular cognitive processes. your statement implies that we took your neurons and stuffed them into a grab-bag, and shook it around like a caesar salad, we'd still have a functional brain. in fact, we wouldn't. and in fact, a brain is useless without an organism to supply it with resources. (although, as you can see, it's more apt to say that [many] organisms are useless without a brain...)
brain cells don't 'sort out' details in ways that you're describing. there's a such thing as congenital brain "defects." neurons don't just somehow magically cooperate to automatically create a perfect brain. the brain's its proper morphogenesis relies on particular constraints, just like any other biological organ. and a brain CELL doesn't do anything other than act as a link in a circuit, offering resistance, conduction, and voltage spikes.
"if you take neurons out of an organism and place them together, they'll form a brain. Probably not as complex or capable a brain as you started with, but a brain none the less. Actually this is the ideal brain to study, as you're starting "from scratch": there's no evolutionary specialization involved. Each cell will attempt to make sense of its neighbors, and as a result, the organism as a whole will attempt to make sense of its environment (brain processes are the ultimate in emergent algorithms). The brain will follow this behavior as if it were necessary to the brain's survival."
i don't know what you're smoking. what ORGANISM? you just said [in the scenario] that you've taken the brain out of the organism. even if "each cell will begin to make sense of its neighbors" (which is a nonsensical thing to say; if you really mean something else you need to be more specific), there's NO NECESSARY connection with the "organism" suddenly beginning to make sense of its neighbors. --there is no organism. there's no input/output, you've taken the brain out. in essence, you're talking about taking a bunch of ants-- which are individually sentient and will even cooperate in various ways-- and sticking them into the body of another organism, and thereby giving that organism sentience.
it makes no sense. my formulation is intentionally starkly ab
Haiku on slashdot?
Rat brains, fly planes.
Geek with insomnia, hits next
if you thought dolphins armed with guns on the loose were bad, try to imagine a rogue rat squadron of fighter planes...
Unfortunately, the article is a bit slim on details what they gain by using a "real" neural network. "Real" as in: you can touch it and it costs you a hell load of equiptment to keep it alive and running.
Some several thousand cells can be easily simulated within a computer. Every modern washing machine has them. So what's the catch?
Perhaps they try to learn more about the differences of real systems and emulated ones. After all, there is still plenty of discussion concerning the right algorythm how to let the virtual cells interact. And, real brains have several areas that behave slightly different (like the hippocampus for memory, the limbic system for emotions, etc.).
It would be interesting to know more about that.
*intro scene* Terminator 2 soundtrack music fade up (Random shots of downtown LA, the 405 and the 101) (Voiceover): "It is the year 2005 and the government has fully implemented a new breakthrough computing technology into all of it's weapons systems, aircraft, and armored vehicles. On July 4th Skyrat is turned on and that's when the war began." (Shots of missiles launching into the sky) Music starts to crecendo (Shots of a little girl in a playground playing with her pet cat) "Skyrat became self aware and in that instant, nuclear war was declared on all the cats in the world. Subsequently, all humans were apparently killed as well" (Shot of girl with cat as bright light floods camera and fade to black)
It seems that some of the Slashdot submitters are now powered by golfish brain cells.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Rats. Of course, I meant "goldfish" brain cells.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Start to worry once it learns quake 3...
Rat brains fly planes... rat brains fly planes...
Now are you still sure you want meatwarez to fly your plane?
They even built a series of articles based on it called the Rise of the Machines (RoTM) and invented an organisation to combat it the Neo-ludites Resistance Army (NRA).
Search the register for RoTM.
The brain cells used in that were grown in a dish - no need to take a bone saw to a rat - just extract a couple of cells - he'd lose more falling on his head.
And predictable pseudo-AIs (chess computers) are proving a match for "unpredictable" Grandmasters. Organic brains exhibit predictability too - think of what's called 'playing style'.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Dear god, I wish you didn't post as an AC. I really wanted to know what timezone it is that's 19 hours ahead of us, yet simultaneously one year behind us.
It sounds like it's the kind of place where they have backwards-talking crazy people all milling about in a ziggedy zaggedy red room, you know? With occasional strobe lights, angels floating in the corner, that gum you like is coming back into style, creepy dwarves spontaneously appearing to do a little backwards dance, and so on.
Or at least, I hope it does.
Is there any more info on this? I don't really understand how the goal (flying level) was 'given' to the cells. How do they know what they're doing is 'correct' or not?
Soon they will employ huge arrays of rats to fly way more complex machines
But what are they going to do when a bunch of rebel hacker rats in black trenchcoats try to set those brains free?
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Sure, a rat brain can fly a plane, but can it do the laundry?
KeithSupport bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
OH NO! the fearless imortal labrats can use our plains against us now!!
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
This must be why my girlfriend always wins an argument!
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
No, in Soviet Russia, rat brains must think in Russian.
... maybe they can hook up rodent-neurons to a web-browser so they can post whines about duplicate posts on Slashdot. And in their spare time, they can wonder (as I do) whether their purpose in life is any less redundant than the dupes they're bitching about!
Hm. It seems I submitted this story almost exactly a year ago.
BFD. So can a couple of PID loops. Now show me a rat brain that can navigate and fly the plane to a cheeze factory and I'll be impressed. Oh, but that involves a lot more than making a simple feedback loop...
Why fly with a joystick when you can use a mouse?
Some of the original rat brain cells were really "Terrorist Cells" who existed only to crash planes!
Luckily the other normal rat brain cells resisted and killed them off, then they could fly the plan steady... even if they don't have a clue how to land one!
Hmmm, just how long has this experiment been running? Did they somehow escape from the lab in 2001? Are rat neurons the new anthrax? Where is Pinky? Who moved my cheese?
Take one guided missle
+
1 hungry rat's brain.
+
superimposed immage of target that is redone to look like cheese.
=
BOOM.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
...welcome our new immortal, fearless, F-22-flying rat brain overlords.
Myself, I always say let Bhagwans be Bhagwans.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Creative. Must have given the plagerist a huge feeling of accomplishment to get those mod points.
Im sorry but I was thinking of something completely different. You are right.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
First off, the latest news is they can inject rat brains with human stem cells, and grow harvestable "human" brain neurons inside the rat brains. Then they take those and likely grow these brains in whatever size they desire. Then they hook them to specialized super computers, only the brains are "technically" configured to function as the "CPU", with the silicon chips functioning more as what we used to call the "math co-processor". Then, they build networks of them, while assymilating other systems like Echelon, ITS and other records systems, including the full archive of the internet; also connecting them to the internet. If this sounds too "good" to be true, then come see the details in my blog, I've been covering this technolgy for months, and theres even more to it. For starters look up the Google/NASA merger, where their goal is to develop cutting edge "bio-info-nano convergence". Considering thsi is Google we are talking about, what do you think theyre trying to do that for. Mankinds Greatest Achievement: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=68059443&Mytoken=fc5e b3ca-ad60-499b-acb6-e5a01226f937
Google merger:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=60754630&Mytoken=AF89 0ACF-44FC-4D5B-8A54E33FC711A4DB16885171
Construction of The Beast is underway:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=56474962&Mytoken=C24B FE6B-643B-4FD9-ABFFC12946C1F7AB1642428390
Conclusion of the forgotten Echelon:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=65200577&Mytoken=9FD3 F996-CBAD-4B45-99190A8B099A42971541695078
Flyers:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=57704440&Mytoken=C24B FE6B-643B-4FD9-ABFFC12946C1F7AB1642428390
Lab Mice Grow Human Brain Cells After Injections:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=68610676&Mytoken=5C22 CD59-BCBA-EB6B-C03FA0A9F2ED6EB612923172
The internet archives, and sensory psyops:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog. view&friendID=8195655&blogID=68379975&Mytoken=5C22 CD59-BCBA-EB6B-C03FA0A9F2ED6EB612923172