\n\tMELBOURNE: Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the nineties shooter \u201cDoom\u201d and say they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing.
It\u2019s the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain\u2019s networking system.
Each so-called \u201cbiological computer\u201d contains around 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations.
Having mastered the simple computer game \u201cPong,\u201d where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball across a screen, the brain cells have moved on to bigger things.
Initially, the neurons were at the \u201clevel of a beginner who\u2019s never played a video game before,\u201d Alon Loeffler, Cortical Labs\u2019 senior application scientist, told AFP.
\u201cDoom\u201d involves a chaotic 3D game-world where the user is required to explore its surroundings and dispatch enemies \u2014 no easy task for a clump of cells.
\u201cThey were walking into walls a lot, shooting the walls, turning around, doing funny things like that,\u201d Loeffler said.
\u201cAnd then eventually they started targeting the enemies more regularly and correctly.\u201d
It\u2019s not the cleanest execution, however. One demon takes several attempts to slaughter, with shots fired in multiple directions before the target is hit.
But the mind-bending research proves the neurons can adapt to stimuli in real time and complete goal-directed learning, Cortical Labs say.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2018Scratching the surface\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\tThe researchers converted the digital environment in \u201cDoom\u201d into patterns of electrical signals the neurons on the chip could understand.
When an enemy appears, specific electrodes stimulate the neurons on the special chip called a CL1, causing them to react.
Different patterns of neuron activity produce specific responses, such as firing the gun or moving left or right.
Researchers monitor the electrical activity of the neurons from a computer screen connected to the CL1, represented by thousands of tiny dots.
From this data, the team adjusts their input to influence and train the neuron\u2019s activity.
The CL1 isn\u2019t limited to computer games \u2014 the chip can be coded to perform a range of applications, from drug screening to AI-like machine learning.
\u201cWe are just scratching the surface of what these neural cultures can achieve when integrated in systems like our CL1,\u201d said chief scientific and operations officer Brett Kagan.
\u201cOur neural cultures have been explored for a variety of tasks,\u201d he said \u2014 everything from \u201crobotics, real-time learning tasks that are similar to AI, as well as health care, medicine, disease modelling, drug screening and even personalized medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNot \u2018wacky science\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\tKagan describes the CL1 chip as \u201ca more sustainable and more powerful form of intelligence.\u201d
The human brain runs on an estimated 20 watts of power, a level of efficiency that silicon computing and artificial intelligence have not yet been able to replicate.
While it\u2019s \u201cnot aimed to replace what AI is doing\u201d it\u2019s intended to \u201cgive us abilities that we\u2019ve never had before,\u201d Kagan said.
The cells have a six-month lifespan and aren\u2019t yet capable of producing consistent, programmable results.
But analysts say the project\u2019s value could lie in its more sustainable power consumption compared to regular chips.
\u201cWe need better ways to manage that power envelope and get higher levels of efficiency,\u201d William Keating, CEO of semiconductor research company Ingenuity, said.
\u201cThis isn\u2019t wacky science or some bunch of scammers. This is real science and it\u2019s making real progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE: Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the nineties shooter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-475600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}