Recently researchers finished mapping the central nervous system (CNS) connectome of not just the female Drosophila melanogaster (i.e. fruit fly) brain, but also that of the male D. melanogaster for a comparative analysis. Here the sexually dimorphic changes turned out to induce specific mating behavior that ensures that there will only be smooching between genetically fit D. melanogaster males and females, while the rest of the connectome remained effectively the same.
Of course, with this connectome in hand it led some people to ask themselves what else one can do with this connectome graph of about 160,000 neurons other than make a fruit fly into a fruit fly. So far we have seen [Nftechie] turn this connectome into a crypto stock trader with the Stonkfly project that uses the connectome’s reward circuits to potentially make profitable trades, though [Nftechie] says that they haven’t verified yet how good a fruit fly is at trading stocks, only that it does said stonks.
Over at [PC Gamer] they summarized a number of things that people have also done, including trying to make the connectome control a game of DOOM and Beat Saber. Each game frame stimulates sensory neurons, with the generated outputs then mapped to game controls, with dopamine-producing reward circuits wired in for reinforcement learning.
Although the D. melanogaster brain is only the merest fraction of the size of the human brain, it does provide us with a glimpse of what actual artificial intelligence research may lead to, as we unravel how even a 160,000 neuron connectome is enough to make these terrors of rotting plant matter do their wonderful things.
LOL, you made me look up smooching. I know the term quite well. But I was wondering what context it had that applied to fly reproduction. There is none. But I did learn about the mechanical details of fly reproduction.
Hubba hubba
i had to look up “connectome” — which is a term used as if everyone knows what it means
Interesting if unintentional commentary on the modern stock trader. Will we be calling them “fly brains” as an insult?
I mean the problem with that industry (if you can call it an industry) is that it vacuums up a lot of people with a talent for math, because the other places they’d like to go pay so little. People who should be designing bridges are instead figuring out new and spectacular ways to count cards in the casino. So it doesn’t feel very sincere to call them stupid. Opportunistic maybe
So swatting them should be no crime….
i did watch a video where a “fly’s brain” is used as a chess bot, i assume that’s built off of one of these two models
video: https://youtu.be/OFtVdbxJI2Y
If average insurance agent/peddler can become a CEO of a bank, then I see no reasons why average fruit fly brain cannot do advanced stonking whilst high on fructose. Sadly, we won’t see Warhole masterpieces on fruit flies traders, but AI can probably hallucinate one.
Does the male fly refuse to ask for directions and is that hardwired in?
It is, but it’s mostly vestigial since he got an iphone with GPS
wouldn’t it be a…fliphone?
Ha ha ha ha
What about flight control? That would be interesting to drone builders I would think.
But can you play doom on it (i didnt read the whole article, so if they already did that i would not be surprised
You, me, the baby and the fly brain connectome. together as one!
One considers a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings pretending to be AI as the interface to their experiment mapping the complete connectome of a human then throwing various hallucinations at the simulated connectome and asking leading questions each turn, just to see which ones drive it towards Doom.
[They changed to AI as ‘in mice’ usually led to junk papers]
Remember back when our Planoforming ships were piloted by laminated mouse brains that replaced the Gocaptains?
They’ll do it with our brains next.
This has been the year of the fruit fly since spring. In my face like never before, all over even non food things. Almost hard to swat. No bananas!
This is equal parts interesting and foreboding. Who would want to be a subconscious Subjected to life of that kind. Eeep!
I’m curious how much compute power it takes to run and if anyone has set them up in a virtual environment yet.
It would be cool to see a simulator that allowed them to function as they would in the world and let us look at fully virtual fruit flies.
I haven’t found any details so I’m wondering how the networks function. Presumably these are spike neural networks? If so, is there an open source library?
Lets hope they manage to extract very old one from piece of amber and compare if/how they have evolved.
Let me guess the sequel, AI running one of those bioengineering labs outside of the US/EU regulating agencies decides to fork this virtual brain into real fruit flies, and then accidentally sets them loose in some kind of local market selling foodstuffs that only the poor eat. The poor eat that, go work for the rich, spread the thing far and wide, and now bam, we have fruit flies making billions stonking, whilst we end up working for the fruit flies’ casino.
Awesome scifi soap opera, might as well tell AI to write a story and hallucinate me a movie “The Fruitfly Watch” with chick scientists in red swimsuits working in labs, while other ones are tasked with exterminating the said stonking fruit flies worldwide. I’ll tell AI to hire 007 to run the gamut, and might as well set their headquarters in Bali or Madagascar, white sand beaches and all. Should sell on Netflix. Maybe.