Growing Rat Neurons to Play Video Games [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw

by jstanley • 3 years ago

108 66 3 years ago

youtube.com

yoyopa2• 3 years ago

why rat neurons and not people neurons?

claytonwramsey• 3 years ago

It's explained in the video. Rat neurons are more than enough for this application and are much cheaper to come by.

yoyopa2• 3 years ago

the video is half an hour long. probably the worst way to convey information

ramraj07• 3 years ago

I’m not sure a more fundamental point is explained or addressed: when forming ad hoc networks like this do we expect anything different at all with human neurons ?

FrustratedMonky3• 3 years ago

But, funny that the reason was they were 'cheaper', not that you can't buy human neurons if you wanted to.

xkcd-sucks• 3 years ago

It's a lot easier to work with rat neurons. TL;DR a bit like "why use Postgres when you could be using Oracle?" ... or something, just thought of that because process overhead really does lead to safety and compliance audits

Opinion that's years out of date:

    * The biosafety level is lower (all human tissue is automatically BSL2 or BSL2+ because it might have HIV and stuff)
    * The best neural cultures (neurons + supporting cells) come from actual tissue, there aren't good stable immortal cell lines for neural cells. So this generally means fetal cells which for human tissue involves a boatload of process and bureaucracy. Fetal rats, *comparatively* have little bureaucracy.
    * iPSC cells (Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / "stem cells harvested from adults") can generate neural cells but it's several stages removed, and still more process overhead if it's human tissue
    * It's better to harvest actual brain tissue than grow them from progenitor lines. You can grab partially or fully differentiated cells by dissecting them out of specific locations (i.e. hippocampal neurons, dopaminergic neurons, ...). Forcing a population of progenitor cells to develop into what you want is a massive pain / still an "unsolved problem" in the sense that you can't buy a grow-a-brain kit. (NOT facetious, most labs that aren't dirt poor use kits as much as possible and it is TOTALLY worth it)

dehrmann• 3 years ago

Didn't I see someone fake this with dog cells ~15 years ago?

palad1n• 3 years ago

Well, that's horrifying

throwuwu4• 3 years ago

It’s a funny one.

At first: how horrifying to subject brain cells to the world of Doom!

After more info: oh, they don’t perceive the horrific setting nor possess the context to know they are in a simulation. They just have inputs and outputs, comfort and discomfort. That’s not so bad.

Upon deep reflection: oh God! We are just a scaled up version of this! Our perception of the world is just a tiny slice of reality filtered through limited senses. For all we know we could be trapped in a simulated hellscape with no chance of ever breaking free!

oneTbrain23• 3 years ago

Likely we are in simulation with ppi resolution set to planck constant. Matrix isn't so far fetch. Now we have to wait for Neo.

mdp20216• 3 years ago

"On that day, throwuwu discovered philosophy. He immersed himself in Descartes, Kant and Schopenhauer - in a world of doubts and cheating demons, phenomena and noumena, representations and suggestions of transcendence. Things would never be the same for him."

koromak• 3 years ago

The crasiest part is that they train the neurons by just pulsing them in a "pleasing" way.

...what? Are they experiencing pleasure? It sounds a lot like they're experiencing pleasure.

wnkrshm• 3 years ago

To be very cynical: We are trapped in a hellscape with no chance of ever breaking free, it does not matter one bit if it's simulated or not.

Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods (or simulation) and raises rocks.

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

Wait till you see what we do to actual rats.

codeulike• 3 years ago

Its like the setup for one of those episodes of Doctor Who that involves lots of running down long corridors

guptarohit2• 3 years ago

Other videos on his channel is also quite interesting

mcast3• 3 years ago

Thought Emporium, Nile Red, and Styropyro are YouTubers who are a few degrees away from being dangerous criminals (I say this in the lightest way possible) but channel their talents for educational videos.

jona-f2• 3 years ago

Are you serious or trying to make a joke? I don't get it. Generally nice people, maybe slightly narcissistic, like any youtuber, maybe irresponsible. These people are nowhere near being "dangerous criminals", that's just slander.

29athrowaway• 3 years ago

How so

mrtksn2• 3 years ago

Interesting is understatement, it's a channel which is one of the closer ones to hard science on the hard science - pop science spectrum and still having more than a million subscribers.

Some outstanding videos IMHO:

The channel owner applies himself a gene therapy to fix his lactose intolerance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3FcbFqSoQY

How exactly the Covid Tests work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_usIkrVQwE

Growing Human Neurons Connected to a Computer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2YDApNRK3g

Especially the Covid test video was eye opening against the conspiracy theorist propaganda during the pandemic because knowing how tests actually work on practical level makes you see through the claims effort free.

goodbyesf• 3 years ago

The channel owner applies himself a gene therapy to fix his lactose intolerance.

Is he an infant? Otherwise, lactose intolerance isn't something to fix as it is the norm.

guptarohit2• 3 years ago

Couldn’t agree more! I’ve been following his channel from very long time, it’s one of the underrated gem YT channel.

dharma1• 3 years ago

maybe Tesla could finally do FSD with a bunch of rats neuralinked to the car

waste_monk• 3 years ago

Can't wait to pre-order my 2024 Tesla RatKing

fahadkhan• 3 years ago

Imagine not being able to get somewhere because your car has caught a cold.

BasedAnon• 3 years ago

i hate this, it makes me viscerally angry

akomtu• 3 years ago

This was the plot line of Quake: an unholy union of organic lifeforms and machines went rogue.

Narishma• 3 years ago

I think that's Quake 2. I don't think Quake 1 had any kind of plotline.

boondoggle16• 3 years ago

Untrue, you kill the big demon at the end. Spoiler alert? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shub-Niggurath

shrubble• 3 years ago

Are gamers going to have expensive RNPUs (rat neuron processing units) plugged in via Thunderbolt in addition to GPUs in the future?

treprinum• 3 years ago

Imagine instead of a coop multiplayer using rat brains as your teammates. That might actually work commercially.

FrustratedMonky3• 3 years ago

So, autonomous kill drones?

Are we sure military hasn't gone further than a video game?

FrustratedMonky3• 3 years ago

I'm a rat. I've been trained to sit at a desk in front of a monitor and type. They feed me coffee to set my neural weights on positive feedback.

Really, does no one see the connection to AI, and how humans are nothing but feedback loops. It's all just scale.

admjs• 3 years ago

It sounds like you might have read it already, but you might enjoy “I am Strange Loop”

Sporktacular• 3 years ago

As Stephen Colbert would say: "Hey scientists, how's the cure for cancer coming along?"

belter• 3 years ago

The new version of React took some priority...

ohwellhere• 3 years ago

What is the role of stimulus during the growth phase of organoids?

Meaning: is it sufficient to grow an organoid and then connect it to the electrodes and go through the training process, or is there an advantage to growing the organoids _while_ connected to stimuli?

Naively, it seems like our brains are growing while receiving input and that could guide the growth process.

Growing Rat Neurons to Play Video Games [video]

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