Scientists have put the brain of a worm into a robot .... kind of !
Scientists have managed to simulate the entire neural network of a roundworm and put it in a robot !
This network is composed of 302 neurons which were simulated in a computer, which then was uploaded to a little Lego robot that had only sensors to tell if a wall was close so it could turn around. So if you think of a brain as an amalgamation of electrical signals, that if rightly cataloged, that can be reproduced in a digital program. What's interesting is that after uploading the digital version of the roundworm's, the scientists didn't need to add any further instructions to the simulated brain. The program knew how to use the sensors attached to the little Lego vehicle.
The animal, called Caenorhabditis elegans, was a very well studied and well cataloged worm in the OpenWorm project. The goal is of course to one day map the complete organism in all it's details, however, as a starting point, mapping a complete brain, ain't that bad.
The robot was also built in a way so it would have the same amount of isolated body parts as the worm did. So the wheels are correspondent to the worms motor neurons and the sensors acted like the sonar the worm uses. So the network as fed information that was more or less equivalent to what it used to decode.
What if ?
Now if, or rather when, scientists manage to simulate a human brain outside of it's body, the possibilities would be endless. Not only could you transfer yourself into a body that has been upgraded to work in space or something equally cool. You could also have your mind be analyzed over time in a program so you can prevent crime Minority Report style. Also, as shown in one episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror, you could simulate and copy someones mind and put the copy through torture or huge time frames, or just into a situation were they feel safe in order to get information or to get someone to admit to what their original has done. There will be less than no secrets. Your
behavior will be anticipated years before you know what you want to do.
This asks some deep questions about what i means to be human, because part of our evolutionary advantage comes from the fact that we can anticipate the future with precision giving as a clear advantage being able to plan years ahead. Now if you could digitize humans 100 %, combined with enough computing power, could render all future possibilities that we have into certainties. Effectively robbing us of our humanity.
What do you think are the prospects, application and possibilities of this technology ? Will it be doom or gloom ?
Sources
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-put-worm-brain-in-lego-robot-openworm-connectome
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