Only A Matter of Time Before Skynet

[Neuqua]

Rat Brain Flies Airplane

Rat brain flies jet
By Robin Lettice
Published Tuesday 7th December 2004 16:01 GMT

Florida scientists have grown a brain in a petri dish and taught it to fly a fighter plane.

Scientists at the university of Florida taught the 'brain', which was grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a rat embryo, to pilot an F-22 jet simulator. It was taught to control the flight path, even in mock hurricane-strength winds.

"When we first hooked them up, the plane 'crashed' all the time," Dr Thomas DeMarse, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, 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."

The brain-in-a-dish was DeMarse' idea. To produce it, 25,000 rat neurones were suspended in a specialised liquid to keep them alive and then laid across a grid of 60 electrodes in a small glass dish.

The cells at first looked like grains of sand under the microscope, but soon began to connect to form what scientists call a "live computation device" (a brain). Electrodes monitor and stimulate neural activity in this network, allowing researchers to study how the brain processes and transfers information.

The scientists hope that their research will lead to hybrid computers with organic components, allowing more flexible and varied means of solving problems.

One potential application is to install living computers in unmanned aircraft for missions too dangerous for humans. It is also hoped that further advances will help in the search for cures for conditions such as epilepsy, The Age reports.

"The algorithms that living computers use are also extremely fault-tolerant," Dr DeMarse said. "A few neurons die off every day in humans without any noticeable drop in performance, and yet if the same were to happen in a traditional silicon-based computer the results would be catastrophic."

The US National Science Foundation has awarded the team a $500,000 grant to produce a mathematical model of how the neurons compute. ®

[Eaglesfan27]

Fascinating.

[Sun Tzu]

No Fate.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

did anyone else think that this was going to be another SD thread?

Yes.

[SirFozzie]

did anyone else think that this was going to be another SD thread?

[Neuqua]

I actually thought so myself after I had submitted the thread.

[sterlingice]

I wish I could find it, but about a year ago there was an article from a newspaper or magazine about a bunch of MIT or Cal Tech-type grads who were trying to create a cognative learning computer because of humanity and what they perceived were their limitations or something like that. As soon as I saw that article, I couldn't help but think: "You people need to get out and socialize more... or at least be forced to watch Terminator 2 and The Matrix- then you'd know what a horrible mistake you are making!"

SI

[Anthony]

i don't see how this would be practical. even though sci-fi is fantasy, i really don't think we need to enable computers with brains. if we need brain-controlled machines to do the job of humans that's a pretty good indicator that we shouldn't be doing what we're doing.

[sachmo71]

Skynet was AI, not a cyborg.

[Anthony]

yeah, but SkyNet started the whole Man vs. Machine War.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

yeah, but SkyNet started the whole Man vs. Machine War.

You are correct. So we need to be more wary of the chess match between computers and humans, and stuff like that. This rat brain stuff...that just means that the Terminator is theoritically possible. Cool, but they will probably become the tools of humans before an evil AI takes over.