alt Hacker NewsAll opinions are my own:
The whole point of the CNNs is to act like a auto encoder for input and an auto decoder for output. The only reason why this is done in the first place is because the number of electrodes in the dish is pitiful and has no chance of describing something as complex as Doom. They are there to create a latent space that can be fed through 60 odd electrodes and decode the neuron latent space into pressing buttons.
The pong version of the game was the proof of concept that neurons can learn without a latent space intermediate in either direction. Both the world state and neuronal control were raw signals: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36228614/
What I wanted to do after dish brain pong, but never had the budget for, was using live animals as the computational substrate. Use the visual cortex of one as the input, send the neural spikes to a second animals frontal lobe for computation and finally send those signals to a third animals motor cortex to physically press buttons. It's a shame we never raised enough because it wouldn't have cost more than $15m to build the hardware and do the biological proof of concept.
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> The only reason why this is done in the first place is because the number of electrodes in the dish is pitiful and has no chance of describing something as complex as Doom.
This sounds a bit suspicious though. If we're confident that the neurons aren't complex enough to understand Doom, how can they be said to be complex enough to play it? Playing a game is a loose term but it seems difficult to say that it is playing something that it can't comprehend or interact with. By analogy, if there was a CNN between me and a game of Doom people would say "roenxi is cheating with an AI aim-bot", not 'roenxi is playing Doom".
The whole thing is still pretty cool though. Hopefully the neurons are having fun, I'm sure we all wish them what happiness they can muster.
This sounds nightmarish. Maybe we build a human centipede if we can get the VC funding next?
Reminds me of the head transplant experiments. The stuff of nightmares but also fascinating.
Gosh it's been years, but I think they did the dual animal experiment with rats about a decade ago. I'm likely misremembering but they tickled a rat in Japan and fed the impulses into the internet and had another rat in maybe Brazil move it's tail in response. From what I recall it did potentiate over time, implying learning at the more reflex level. Sorry I can't find the link though!
Hahaha I love how you made something that wouldn’t be harmful sound like a nightmare horror show.
Edit sweet Jesus never mind I missread it.
Yes...quite a shame that we never made a amalgamation cyborg horror out of parts and pieces of several different animals. That's definitely not the plot of every sci-fi horror movie.
>What I wanted to do after dish brain pong, but never had the budget for, was using live animals as the computational substrate.
What does the ethical due diligence process look like, for something like this?
> using live animals as the computational substrate. Use the visual cortex of one as the input, send the neural spikes to a second animals frontal lobe for computation and finally send those signals to a third animals motor cortex to physically press buttons.
That sounds terrifying.