Robot has biological brain

Robot has biological brain

www.breitbart.com

Meet Gordon, probably the world's first robot controlled exclusively by living brain tissue.

Stitched together from cultured rat neurons, Gordon's primitive grey matter was designed at the University of Reading by scientists who unveiled the neuron-powered machine on Wednesday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Pretty interesting read but wish they had more information.

www.breitbart.com
(visit the link for the full news article)





[edit on 14-8-2008 by doodle_robot]

Pretty interesting article; I've always been fascinated with this kind of stuff. Should be even more interesting if they achieve one of their goals with this project: to try and make it learn something.

Very cool.

Oooh, I don't think I like this.

This is getting too far into crossing the barrier between life and machine. How many neurons does it take before we consider it alive?

And once considered alive, are we torturing it by restricting it's inputs?

This just gets too eerie. I'd be more inclined to work with AI than real intelligence if it means we're going to be boxing it in a machine.


Outside of robotics. This sets some eerie philosophies for life itself.

I've always stuck to the belief that we have no soul, nothing that separates us from the components that we are comprised of.
Our personality, intelligence, etc... is all in how the neurons in our brain are wired together.
If this mixing neurons with machines goes far enough, (intelligent enough) the religious people aren't going to like the fact that these things have personalities. Once complex enough, they'll be able to reason like the rest of us. And that's going to really irk allot of fundamentalists.

Me on the other hand, I already believed all we are is a series of connections between neurons.


The article points out something... something ALL of us should take note of.
The unused neurons simply died off in a matter of days.
The stimulated neurons flourished.

I've always said, "The day you stop learning is the day you stop living."

This is great and a breakthrough in science...the possibilities are endless with this! Great news!

reply to post by johnsky


I agree completely, why are we giving robots a biological capacity?
that therefore, isnt a robot, is it ?


I like the way we cant harvest stem cells and cure disease etc etc, yet we can attach living tissue to electrons and turn it into a robot.

It sounds like the matrix to me.

Soon we will be developing robots that think we are viruses because of the way we act...

Next stop...

Energy Tubes for the lot of us

Robocop anyone?

Woah robo cop looks just like Putin


Anyways, this is science fiction comingto life, i think it is amazing, how long before we can have memorychips in our brains, imagine having an extra 10tb in your brain(this is also being worked on btw)

reply to post by monkeybus


That's hilarious, monkey. Surprised, though, that no one has mentioned Lt. Commander Data, of Star Trek. Oh, yeah....he had a 'positronic' brain....but he wanted to be more human. Hi-tech Pinnochio....

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
reply to post by johnsky

 

I like the way we cant harvest stem cells and cure disease etc etc, yet we can attach living tissue to electrons and turn it into a robot.

You can harvest stem cells... it is done all the time. You just can't kill a person in the process (i.e., embryonic stem cells). But adult and umbilical cord stem cells can be used.

reply to post by monkeybus


holy cow, he really does look like Putin.

I wonder how far it has to go before it is considered a cyborg.

herer comes the great war between man and machine folks. THis is it.


Sorry for the one liner

Frack those toasters!

reply to post by mastermind77


Ah! A BattleStar G fan!!

Here's where it begins, perhaps. It is inevitable, though, you must admit.

So far, if I read it correctly...they're using neurons from rats. Maybe they should consider using neurons from pigeons, as well....yeah, a 'Pigeon/Rat'!!! Just what we need....a pest that eats everything, but isn't intelligent enough to take over the world. Just make sure it can't procreate.....

reply to post by weedwhacker


There was an episode where Data's status was debated. Someone in Star Fleet wanted to dismantle and study him so he was going to resign. The person said that Star Fleet "owned" him so he couldn't resign. A decision was made that, athough whether or not Data had a "soul" could not be determined, it was decided that he was a sentient being with all the rights of such an individual. In other words, he was not necessarily human per se but not property either. He may not have been considered to have "equal" status with his fellow shipmates but he was not merely a "toaster", an example that had been raised earlier in the episode.

I can't help but "feel" there is so much more to life than just a connection of neurons. Many people say there is an order and symmetry in nature and the universe and that, as humans, we merely fit that pattern. However, there is something quite fascinating to me in the idea that a pool of proteins can become the complex structures of life that it does.

I am not referring to this from a religious perspective either. I just mean that so much around us seems to have purpose and function. Plants use photosythesis, bees pollenate, and humans procreate just as some simple examples.

Are we now headed for a time when humans will create a form of "life" from circuitry and wires? Will there be future "Data"s, with or without emotions, for whom rights will need to be determined? Should we seek to mimic humanity yet react inhumanely to that which we create? I don't suppose to answer these questions but only to hope that we, at least, ask them as we proceed along the track that we seem to be following. We do indeed live in interesting times.

reply to post by trek315



That Star Trek episode was titled "The Measure of a Man" Second season, not sure of Episode number.

It was a very, very well written episode, brings up many of the philosophical debates about 'creating' life....and what exactly is 'sentience'?

Also, entails aspects of dignity, and respect. Personal responsiblity, and individual rights. I highly recommend it to any 'Star Trek' neophytes who wish to get their 'feet wet' and see just how many gems can come out of good TV.....

Then....we have 'Robocop'...respectable, as science fiction....but bastardized just a bit in the sequels.

We have the 'Terminator' franchise....not human neurons, or any biological creature....but a 'warning' about AI.

AND, of course, we have Spielberg's "AI"....which, in the end sequences, shows an Earth devoid of Humans, but in our image, our 'creations' still live...as robots. Very compelling, and likely lost on 85% of the audience who saw the movie.....so, that's sad.

reply to post by weedwhacker


I also think of "The Planet of the Apes" series in regard to the rights of others and the eventual suppression of humanity. While many AI issues spring from the fact that humanity created these robots to serve them, similar issues were raised when viewing apes as "pets" with "masters". What happens when your pet (or robot for that matter) becomes equally as intelligent as you?

In fact, these ideas also have racial echoes. There was a time when it was believed that "biologically", blacks were inferior to whites. This completely erroneous line of thought flourished for a time and lent credence to discrimination of various sorts. If, after all, blacks were inferior, then perhaps other races were as well.

What happens when robots, possibly with biological components or aspects, are created and are also viewed as "inferior?. We are their "masters" and they are our "slaves" or "pets" of a sort. Is humanity forced to repeat history as it so often does and make the same mistakes?
Again, just food for thought before we choke on our own achievements.

I think I could support the idea if these things will be the slaves of the NWO. Then again in my heart I think If its even remotely human I dont think Id want slavery for it.

reply to post by trek315


trek....THAT is exactly the point of that Star Trek episode about Data.

If you haven't seen it, I won't reveal spoilers....it is, though...without revealing too much, about the rights of an individual....but, we must first DEFINE what individuality means.

there is civil discourse (we call it civilization), there is chaos (every person for themselves....very animalistic).

Here's what may happen....with AI....THEY will decide that humans are irrational, and thusly THEY are more rational, and must take control.

See Isaac Asimov, for instance. 'I, Robot'....not the Will Smith movie, read the book!

it IS a bit spooky.
at what point does organic computing or organic intelligence become moral?

when it becomes "conscious"?

i think organic computing is definitely the way of the future, even a golf fish brain can compute an amazing amount of data in milliseconds. but at some point, that "intelligence" will become conscious and alive.

it will be interesting watching how this play out in the future.

Imagine if it was somehow capable of showing it remembered it's past life - as in, the robot persists in bumping into cheese, or whatnot.

Imagine if it knew what it had been and knew what it had become.

Scary stuff!