I know this seems pretty awesome but doesn't it kind of scare you? What if the "brains" are actually able to think and even communicate? I'd love to see what would happen if you put two or three of these things together in the same box.....
Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:16 am
Urch
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:15 am Posts: 720 Location: A fucking desert.
Re: So, Robots With Brains
This does not scare me in the slightest. Also, I remember hearing about it quite some time ago.
Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:27 am
Metal Chao
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 6:04 pm Posts: 2901
Re: So, Robots With Brains
Pantera1993 wrote:
I'd love to see what would happen if you put two or three of these things together in the same box.....
They would do what happened in the video except also stop and turn upon encountering eachother as well as the walls
I remember hearing about this some time ago aswell but I do think its pretty Amoral using animals like this, in other words I hate it
Gotcha! wrote:
Using a brain once used by a living organism to create a 'mindless' drone. Yes, it scares the ♥♥♥♥ out of me. People playing god like that. Sickening.
Gotcha said it nicely
Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:21 am
Asklar
Data Realms Elite
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:01 am Posts: 6211 Location: In your office, earning your salary.
Re: So, Robots With Brains
Technically it's not amoral, it would be morally incorrect, but anyway.
Why limit the agile movements of a rat with such slow and wonky wheels? Legs were way better.
Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:34 am
nicolasx
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2011 6:17 pm Posts: 646
Re: So, Robots With Brains
also true sorry for my bad grammars or should I say grammar
Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:37 am
Metal Chao
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 6:04 pm Posts: 2901
Re: So, Robots With Brains
Ok guys there's some pretty stupid misinformation floating around in this topic, probably because the OP was irresponsible enough to link only a video and provide minimal explanation
They are not able to think and wouldn't be able to communicate even if they could because rats can't communicate anyway. They have not removed a rat brain from its body, stuck wires in it and made it drive a robot around a course. They have not turned a brain once used by a live organism into some kind of mindless drone. This is not an attempt to make any kind of organic computer. A rat has not "woken up trapped inside a box on wheels" because it never knew it was anything except a box on wheels and it is only a tiny piece of the brain of a rat. It also has no nerves or emotions. There is no suffering involved here.
The project marries 300,000 rat neurons to a robot that navigates via sonar, it is not even an entire rat brain. The blob of nerves forming the brain of the robot was taken from the neural cortex in a rat foetus and then treated to dissolve the connections between individual neurons. Because keeping a living organism alive is hard, the brain is not even located inside the machine but in a special cabinet in the room, moving the robot via bluetooth.
The scientists have taught the robot how not to bump into walls and are trying to teach it how to recognise where it is and the entire point is that they could do this without specifically programming it for this action. A "mindless" drone would therefore be useless for the experiment. The idea is then to disrupt the memories in a bid to recreate the gradual loss of mental faculties seen in diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Studies of how neural tissue is degraded or copes with the disruption could give insights into these conditions and unless you want scientists to start experimenting on pensioners there is literally no other way to test the effects of memory degradation other than to make some memories and then degrade them inside a brain.
Last edited by Metal Chao on Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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