Link: Discovery Channel :: News :: Brain in a Dish Flies Plane.
The brain can learn, just as a human brain learns, he said. When the system is first engaged, the neurons don't know how to control the airplane; they don't have any experience.
I heard this on the radio this morning and I was stunned. Goes to show you how far our current technology has to go. The idea that single brain cells (neurons) immediately start connecting to eachother in a Petri Dish and then start instinctively start working together really makes you wonder.
To think these cells start learning how to fly a flight simulator level and straight with only 25,000 neurons is incredible. Even more incredible is the knowledge that a common housefly only has about 200 neurons and look what it can do! Try catching a housefly. The fact that it's neurons react so quickly to outside stimuli makes you wonder where all this is going.
My first reaction to hearing all this are that brain cell neurons must by nature optimize for efficiency and for risk avoidance (flying the plane level and straight; not getting hit) without really knowing what it's doing. It's a react-first understand-learn-apapt system vs. our current technology of understand-first and program-react-perform system.
Being the parent of a 4 yr old and 1 yr old, I see these neural network "systems" in action everyday....continuously learning and adapting to their environment.
I wonder what artificial neural networks will be controlling 10 yrs from now? 50 yrs from now?
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