
Scientists have grown a brain in a petri dish and taught it to pilot an F-22 jet simulator - seren6ipity
http://frostfirehive.com/scientists-have-grown-a-brain-in-a-petri-dish-and-taught-it-to-pilot-an-f-22-jet-simulator
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palish
No, they haven't. It's hard to explain what they did do since it was so
overcomplicated, but bear with me.

They took a few thousand rat neurons and placed them on electrodes. At that
point, each neuron's charge could be measured as it fired. A neuron doesn't
fire instantly and stop - its charge rises sharply, then falls over time. The
graph of a neuron firing resembles a bell curve.

Now that the charge of an individual neuron could be measured, they selected
two (one to control the F-22's roll, and one to control the elevation) and
began the simulation.

First, imagine a steady, level plane. We say that the plane's error is 0
degrees. Now roll the plane 5 degrees clockwise (or counterclockwise). The
error is 5 degrees. So the plane's error is known, and maxes out at 180
degrees (inverted flight).

Second, imagine the graph of a neuron firing:
<http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3873/graphet3.png> ... We'll say that if
we sample from the left side of the graph, we've sampled at X=0 degrees. If we
sample from the right side of the graph, we've sampled at X=180 degrees.

Third, a technique exists to deaden a neuron's response. This technique is
applied throughout the simulation, so the graph you're looking at is slowly
being squished toward the bottom (the dashed line).

Let's say our plane has an error of 10 degrees. Go ahead and sample the graph
at X=10. You know what X=10 was at the start of the simulation (the solid
line), and you know what it is currently (the dashed line). They use the
difference between those values to determine the airplane's corrective action.

Since the simulation starts with the solid line equal to the dashed line, our
airplane takes no corrective action and continually plows into the ground.
Eventually, the dashed line departs from the solid line enough to cause
significant corrective action, and the plane flies straight and level. There
is no learning involved, and no decoding of neural communication protocols.
They're just decrementing a variable - only the variable is a firing neuron.

It's basically a hi-tech Rube Goldberg device.

You can read the paper here:
<http://neural.bme.ufl.edu/page13/assets/NeuroFlght2.pdf> ... If you can't
read a scientific paper, try. It's good to be able to know when a scientist is
full of it.

~~~
dcurtis
This "journalist" should be ashamed of him/herself. What a load of crap.

This is no more amazing than putting a rock on a string and telling a computer
to correct the plane's roll when the rock moves away from 0 degrees.

Also, the article has the greatest use of hyperbole-by-parentheses ever: "...
what scientists are calling a 'live computation device' (a brain)."

~~~
whacked_new
I don't find this report noticeably bad. The paper did call the brain a
"computational device." It was a "simple" experiment and simple paper. There
is also nontrivial effort going into the numerous little steps, crammed into
the methods section, that brought about this experiment.

palish's comment is informative but not absolute: depending on your
interpretation, the headline may not be sensationalist at all. The software
was, as described, an "F-22 flight simulator." Confusing to the general
public? Yes. Shameful? Not really.

I also disagree that it's a high-tech Rube Goldberg machine. The analogous
term for EECS folks would be "hack." It's like saying a wiimote mod for an FPS
is a Rube Goldberg machine... which isn't _false_ , but misses the point,
don't you think? As a hack, I think it's very interesting. Not surprising, not
epochal, but cool nonetheless. A plane can be flown by software, or by
bioware, neither approach is perfect at the moment, so "hacks" like these
serve their purpose.

~~~
dcurtis
Interesting thoughts.

But the fact remains, they weren't really using the neurons as a "brain",
which is what the article/headline claims, they were just using sophisticated
software to find an ewualibrium point and self-correct.

They were hacking the neurons, yes, but only at the most basic level of neuron
function. The author misrepresented the facts by suggesting it was "learned"
behavior, and that is, I think, shameful.

If the neuron cluster actually learned something, then it would be pretty
amazing.

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daniel-cussen
If this is true, it is kind of ridiculous. That's pretty cool that they can do
that.

edit: I read palish's comment. It _would_ be cool _if_ they could do that.

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davidw
Next thing you know, the brain in a petri dish will be a leading light in the
Church of Scientology. _In to the danger zone_

~~~
noonespecial
Naahhh, a brain in a dish could never raise enough $ to become a high level
scientologist. Plus everyone knows that Hollywood cares nothing about brains!

Although, it would be crazy-cool if scientologists were to go around saying
"Gee, brain, what do you want to do tonight?"

~~~
dcurtis
What the scientologists do every night...

