By Charles Carter, 13/10/22
Live human and mouse neurons integrated with a silicon electrode array in a petri dish have learned to play the video game Pong.
The DishBrain innovation comes from Australian startup Cortical Labs with their findings recently published in the journal Neuron.
How does it work?
Embryonic mouse or human brain cells (neurons) are placed in a nutrient rich culture layered on top of a multi-electrode array and allowed to grow for up to 90 days.
The array is connected to a computer with a simulation of the Pong video game running.
The computer records electrical signals from the neurons which direct the Pong paddle and the result is fed back to the neurons through electrical stimulation.
When the undesired behaviour occurs – the paddle missing the ball – a random input is fed to the neurons. This takes the form of a 150mV voltage at 5Hz for 4 seconds across a random set of electrodes.
The self-organising system of neurons will always try to minimise the gap between what it predicts its sensor inputs will be and what it observes. This is called the free energy principle.
Because it can’t predict the electrical feedback when it misses, it learns to avoid that eventuality.
Different DishBrain setups played 486 sessions of Pong altogether over 3 days with some showing learning through an increase in the average length of rally.
What are the potential benefits?
Cortical Labs terms what they have created with DishBrain, Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI).
Integrating ‘wetware’ or live cellular neural networks with digital computing hardware could accelerate the performance of A.I. over the coming decades.
This is due to the inherent efficiency and evolutionary advantage of leveraging cognitive biological systems.
Questions for you. Comment below
- First thought that comes into your head?
- Pros and cons according to you?
- Other applications of this approach?
- What could this be combined with?
Links
https://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/corticallabs/dishbrain#more-27309
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)00806-6
