Robot with a Rat Brain

[Detrevni]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-0eZytv6Qk
AFTER buttoning up a lab coat, snapping on surgical gloves and spraying them with alcohol, I am deemed sanitary enough to view a robot's control system up close. Without such precautions, any fungal spores on my skin could infect it. "We've had that happen. They just stop working and die off," says Mark Hammond, the system's creator.

This is no ordinary robot control system - a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made - and continue to make - connections with each other.

As they do so, the disembodied neurons are communicating, sending electrical signals to one another just as they do in a living creature. We know this because the network of neurons is connected at the base of the pot to 80 electrodes, and the voltages sparked by the neurons are displayed on a computer screen.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926696.100

 

[tathra]

advances in computer-brain interfaces make me feel funny in my pants

i cant wait to see the day when we can decode and translate the firing patterns into something we can understand and use. i expect the field to explode right after that

 

[Swerlz]

Wouldn't each person's firing pattern of the same thing be different? Like the roadmap isn't exactly the same

 

[Binge Artist]

i cant wait to see the day when we can decode and translate the firing patterns into something we can understand and use. i expect the field to explode right after that

Lol...slightly off topic, but some years ago, I had this dream where I was dying, but doctors were somehow able to "decode" my brain, and have me "live on" as a computer program. It was more of a "nightmare" than a good dream, because I was somehow deathly thirsty, as a computer program, yet unable to get water.

 

[tathra]

Wouldn't each person's firing pattern of the same thing be different? Like the roadmap isn't exactly the same

possibly, but there are still certain patterns of firing and timing that seem to be the same for everyone. its still really early into such research though.

and its been a while since i've read up on it, so i cant really say anythign much more/better than that

 

[L2R]

that's cool but i don't trust that robot


it's likely to squeal to the cops

 

[psood0nym]

^You couldn't trust it, but you'd always know when it was around because the contraption squeaks so much.

I don't know about the title of this thread. It's just using rat neurons that respond to electrical signals in predictable ways that can be integrated into a Roomba's circuitry. Cool for all the other reasons, though.

 

[bit_pattern]

Now all we need is for some enterprising clandestine chemist to invent 'nuke' and we're all set to go!

 

[Swerlz]

possibly, but there are still certain patterns of firing and timing that seem to be the same for everyone. its still really early into such research though.

and its been a while since i've read up on it, so i cant really say anythign much more/better than that

yeah i dont know much about it either. I was just speculating.

awesome subject though... good news

 

[Detrevni]

Yeah, I find that sort of science interesting as i've had a really bad, almost delusional candyflip that involved BCI of sorts. Basically thought i saw someone put a computer chip in the back of someones neck and thought what i was seeing was just a virtual reality and my body was elsewhere, lol. But im still fascinated with science in general besides that incident.

 

[L2R]

tbh, i'd prefer it if the machines stayed away from my brain. whilst the potential for greater knowledge and pleasure is apparant, so is the possibility for greater pains and hell.

 

[tathra]

inb4 'Ghost in the Shell' reference
(although i've been wanting to make one myself this whole time)

 

[bit_pattern]

^^ I thought my Robocop reference was pretty cool... I guess that's my age showing

 

[L2R]

^we're only human

 

[bit_pattern]

Robocop wasn't, he was like half-man half-machine SUPER human! (and that nuke stuff looked cool as shit, made me want to try designer drugs from about the age of 9)

 

[tathra]

i want to put my brain in a robot's body.

 

[Cornishman]

^^ Same here.
Imagine how much money you would save @ being able to run everywhere.

Also you could smoke crack all day and never worry about having a heart attack.

Robots have it so lucky.
*sighs*

 

[qwe]

Wouldn't each person's firing pattern of the same thing be different? Like the roadmap isn't exactly the same

yeah, but i am sure techniques of calibration will be found eventually. and at first, calibration may be a manual and tedious process, but at least it will be able to be done in hospitals and research and really launch us into a new era of medicine and tech. and when we can calibrate the BCI's (brain computer interface) automatically, hello next generation of **FUN**

 

[L2R]

would you still stick your brain into a robot if it meant that for the first ten years you have to completely rely on others to survive being as how there is likely to be a steep adjustment/learning curve as you get used to the completely alien existence/environment?

it won't be plug n play

 

[STress[of]Blliss]

It's really a fascinating subject. I've always wondered about the possibilities and practicalities of a relationship in this style between complex biological functions, and arithmetic (Which, in a basic sense, this presentation appeals to).