Hey all :)

I don't know if anyone else saw this article, but it seems that the folks at the University of Florida have managed to create a neural network (of 25,000 rat neurons hooked up to an array of 60 electrodes) that is learning how to fly an F-22 flight simulator. The article is here:

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65438,00.html

While the commands it is executing at the moment are quite simple (moving the stick forward/back, left/right so as to control the pitch and roll of the 'aircraft'), the mindboggling things are 1) that this network was made from cultured cells extracted from multiple rats (in other words, not anything remotely resembling an intact rat brain); and 2) that the neural net is *learning*, improving over time and now capable of keeping the simulated aircraft straight and level in anything from a dead calm to hurricane force winds.

While I find this completely amazing, I also wonder how long it will be before this particular castle gets stormed by pitchfork-wielding peasants so to speak, or before the government shows up in black cars and De Marse or his work disappears... because even to a lot of us in science, the prospect of anything even remotely resembling functioning sentience growing in a dish is... kinda creepy.

Regards,
Nydia

Fred Saberhagen and Isaac Asimov would be interested in that piece.

That's really interesting, creepy, and cool all at once.

In a couple years that rig will be used to macro EQ tradeskilling.

Sounds intresting. Lots of potential.....if the bible thumpers or animal rights activists don't kill it first.

From a military standpoint, it could lead to an AI that makes the pilot, and the G-force limitations of the Human body, obsolete. There are already aircraft that can execute maneuvers that would kill the pilot long before structural failure of the aircraft. The F-22 is one of those.

I always think it's interesting how sci-fi authors come up with ideas, and people say "oh that'll never happen" then someone really invents it.

In a couple years that rig will be used to macro EQ tradeskilling

Sadly, EQ tradeskilling is so mind-numbingly boring that it would cause the rat brain to revolt and kill off the human population.

I think that people will complain about it taking away jobs more than 'ABOMINATION AGAINST OUR LORD AND SAVIOR' but I'm probably wrong.

There was once an individual, name escapes me, that said "If a man can dream it, he'll make it happen."

This is a good case in point....

Thanks for the read Nydia...

Fandros

I have been telling everyone I know about this. I have to say, this is some of the most fucked up and yet amazingly cool stuff I've ever heard about.

Imagine the (not scary) posibilities. We could use rat brains to replace clerics and they'd never screw up during a cheal rotation. We could use rat brains to twist so you don't need bards anymore. Hell, entire guilds of rats could beat Thott and Furor and all those twits!

Or even cooler, instead of using bot programs to train in counter-strike you can play against a creature that actually improves every round. In Everquest, Rallos Zek will one day wake up and realize that if he kills the clerics instead of focusing on that one warrior, he'll win -- and the game will evolve in front of your very eyes.

Reality side, they can learn a lot about the process of learning and eventually decode the language of the brain. The utilization in education and medicine, as well as stuff like law (learning when someone is lying) and every other aspect of society ...

Too wild for words.

I can't remember where I saw it, but there was an hour long documentary type thing on awhile back about how many completely fictional things were introduced on the original Star Trek and then became real products many years later.

Abstract creativity is certainly more of a limitation than the technical.

Cell phones for example Sanchek. People thought that hand-held communications devices were far-fetched and now look, every person and their dog seems to have one no matter where you walk.

There was once an individual, name escapes me, that said "If a man can dream it, he'll make it happen."
Actually, it was Napolean Hill and he said

"Whatever the mind of man can concieve and believe, it can achieve."