[HN Gopher] Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong
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       Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong
        
       Author : rogerian
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2022-10-13 11:34 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | ALittleLight wrote:
       | They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can
       | be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?
        
         | djmips wrote:
         | Interesting question!
         | 
         | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02986-y
        
         | p1necone wrote:
         | Yeah this makes me _really_ uncomfortable. We have no idea
         | really what causes consciousness to arise, but  "enough actual
         | animal/human neurons to perform complex tasks" doesn't seem
         | like an unlikely way to do it to me.
         | 
         | "Unimaginable suffering in a petri dish" is not something I
         | want even a tiny chance of creating.
        
       | superkuh wrote:
       | This is about 40x more cells than they used to fly a fighter jet
       | in a simulation back in 2004.
       | https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1572 .
       | 
       | I suppose the claim to fame in this similar study is the use of
       | the title organoid and there's some legitimacy to that. Form and
       | function are intimately tied in the brain and just a bunch of
       | neurons on a petri dish isn't quite an organ.
        
         | Kalanos wrote:
         | 10 points to gryffindor
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | i would urge people to read the paper instead. The 'learning' is
       | a bit iffy , and this was meant to test the brain theory of
       | Friston rather than plug neurons into pong. Still, great job on
       | the neurotechnology involved and a step in the direction where we
       | should be going, controlling large numbers of neurons
       | 
       | Ars Technica has a better article, although they dont describe
       | the dense electode array correctly:
       | https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/a-dish-of-neurons-ma...
        
       | sidewndr46 wrote:
       | A question for someone who understands the neurology and biology
       | of this much more than I do:
       | 
       | Once I have a group of neurons like this trained to do something,
       | can I actually count on them to continue performing that task
       | until they die? Or is it possible they spontaneously reorganize
       | or "learn" a previously unseen behavioral pattern?
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | I guess they can become tired also, just like humans. (Not a
         | biologist)
        
       | yrgulation wrote:
       | Proper ai.
        
         | sabertoothed wrote:
         | N.I.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-14 23:00 UTC)