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Mon 25 Oct, 2004 07:58 am
Wired News reports this slightly sickening story:
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65438,00.html?tw=rss.TOP
Is That a Pilot in Your Pocket?
By Lakshmi Sandhana
02:00 AM Oct. 23, 2004 PT
Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.
These neurons are growing on top of a multi-electrode array and form a living "brain" that's hooked up to a flight simulator on a desktop computer. When information on the simulated aircraft's horizontal and vertical movements are fed into the brain by stimulating the electrodes, the neurons fire away in patterns that are then used to control its "body" -- the simulated aircraft.
"It's as if the neurons control the stick in the aircraft, they can move it back and forth and left and right," said Thomas DeMarse, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida who has been working on the project for more than a year. "The electrodes allow us to record the activity from the neurons and stimulate them so we can listen to the conversation among the neurons and also input information back into the neural network."
Currently the brain has learned enough to be able to control the pitch and roll of the simulated F-22 fighter jet in weather conditions ranging from blue skies to hurricane-force winds. Initially the aircraft drifted, because the brain hadn't figured out how to control its "body," but over time the neurons learned to stabilize the aircraft to a straight, level flight.
"Right now the process it's learning is very simplistic," said DeMarse. "It's basically making a decision about whether to move the stick to the left or to the right or forwards and backwards and it learns how much to push the stick depending upon how badly the aircraft is flying."
The seed idea for DeMarse's autopilot came out of earlier work with Steve Potter on the Animat project, where researchers used living rat neurons to control an animated object in a virtual world. They also connected the neurons to a robot and tried to teach the brain to track and approach objects.
The bigger goal is to figure out how neurons talk to each other. MRI scans, for example, show millions of neurons firing together. At that resolution, it is impossible to see what's happening between individual neurons. While scientists can study neural activities from groups of cells in a dish, they can't watch them learn and grow as they would within a living body unless the neurons have some kind of body to interact with.
By taking these cells and giving them back a "body," the researchers hope to uncover how the neurons communicate with each other and eventually translate that knowledge to develop novel computing architecture.
"Granted, this is just a handful of neurons in a dish," said Potter, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech's neuroengineering laboratory. "It isn't a full-blown brain. It doesn't have a real body. But with this kind of system you can literally watch these things compute and you have a chance to learn how the brain does its computation."
DeMarse plans to make the autopilot more competent by having the brain use a horizon to judge how it controls the plane. But the true breakthrough will come about when the researchers detect how neurons communicate in a network.
"We know some of the rudimentary rules," said DeMarse. "We just don't quite understand the language that they use to do their computations. We can extract the general features from it to control the aircraft but there's a lot more information buried in the signals that they are using, and we simply don't know what that is. So there's a lot more to do in terms of understanding the language of the network."
Poor li'l ratties!!!
Deb, does Roger know about this? <smile> Just goes to show you how rat-like man is or the inverse thereof.
Aside: I saw on CNN that in Australian public schools, students are mandated to vote. Some prof. in the U.S. got in trouble requiring that, and had to retract the assignment.
Sorry for the interruption, Aussie.
Students mandated to vote? If they are 18 or over they are! What was the "public" sposed to have to do with it? Prof "requirung" that? Help! I do not understand!
Deb, I was relying on my memory. It's probably Australian colleges. I need to try and find that news item. I know it was a college here that the prof required her students to vote as part of the course requirement.
Yikes. Sorry, honey. Back later.
The phrasing of this article might be very misleading to some of you.
The parts of the brain that are being utilized here do not have any capabiltiy for thinking or making decisions or understanding knowledge or anything like that.
The only thing that this can do is recognize patterns.
While it is connected, a person can control the plane while this ANN (artificial neural network) simply monitors the flight information data. It looks for patterns in the data whenever the person controlling the plane does something. Then when it is hooked up without a person, it will do the same thing that the person did when it notices the same patterns as when it was trained.
This can all be done very simply using any old regular computer...it could even be done on a simple programmable calculator.
The only difference is that they are using biological neurons this time, which aren't really any different than the abstract digital ones which we use all the time in computers regularly.
The thing is, the more neurons you use, the more complicated the patterns which can be recognized...so by using biological neurons we could probably recognize very complex patterns.
Do we really think that pattern recognition is the best way to go about flying a plane? In my opinion...it is not a very efficient or good method for a few reasons. First of all, there are likely very clearly defined rules for flying a plane...not a lot of winging it...so a clearly defined algorithm could be written which would be much more secure. With an ANN, you never really know what it's going to do. It USUALLY acts the way you trained it, but when the data it gets isn't quite the same...well...it could do something horribly wrong. I don't really see any reason to take that chance, when we could just define clearly what we want it to do in all circumstances.
Stuh, is there any particular reason that you are not responding to my SOS.
I learned to do the attachment thing and here you are discussing the patterns of neurons. Amy Lowell's patterns. Takes me back a bit.
Deb, whatever. I love the title of your article. <smile>
Poetry of Amy Lowell
Men, Women and Ghosts
Patterns
I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles
on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon --
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.
Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.
In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.
In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?
My, my, Deb, how has this turned into a digression?
Fascinating story, Dlowan. Biotech is insane. I don't understand the questions let alone the answers.
Aside: Deb, we had a college professor. assign her students vote in the coming election and it started a stink. I'm sure you know half the people here don't, and some of these fools thought their rights were being trampled to be forced to. So the Professor backed off and told them they just have to go in the voting booth. Smart Professor, eh? :wink:
I think that was the story to which I was referring, wild Bill. Do you have a link?
Na, I just recalled hearing it, too, and she seemed to be asking for clarification. You do realize all Aussies vote don't you?
Letty, I'm not sure what SOS you're talking about....but keep that illogical poetry out of the science zone!
I will, then, stuh, but poetry is probably the only illogical logic that is left to any of us.
Goodnight.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Na, I just recalled hearing it, too, and she seemed to be asking for clarification. You do realize all Aussies vote don't you?
Nope - not so.
Those who
choose (most do) to register themselves on the electoral rolls must turn up and get their names crossed off at the polling booth and pick up voting papers- whether they vote or not is up to them!
stuh505 wrote:The phrasing of this article might be very misleading to some of you.
The parts of the brain that are being utilized here do not have any capabiltiy for thinking or making decisions or understanding knowledge or anything like that.
The only thing that this can do is recognize patterns.
While it is connected, a person can control the plane while this ANN (artificial neural network) simply monitors the flight information data. It looks for patterns in the data whenever the person controlling the plane does something. Then when it is hooked up without a person, it will do the same thing that the person did when it notices the same patterns as when it was trained.
This can all be done very simply using any old regular computer...it could even be done on a simple programmable calculator.
The only difference is that they are using biological neurons this time, which aren't really any different than the abstract digital ones which we use all the time in computers regularly.
The thing is, the more neurons you use, the more complicated the patterns which can be recognized...so by using biological neurons we could probably recognize very complex patterns.
Do we really think that pattern recognition is the best way to go about flying a plane? In my opinion...it is not a very efficient or good method for a few reasons. First of all, there are likely very clearly defined rules for flying a plane...not a lot of winging it...so a clearly defined algorithm could be written which would be much more secure. With an ANN, you never really know what it's going to do. It USUALLY acts the way you trained it, but when the data it gets isn't quite the same...well...it could do something horribly wrong. I don't really see any reason to take that chance, when we could just define clearly what we want it to do in all circumstances.
Yeppers - I knew it weren't lil rats in there thinking "Where's the cheese!"
Still sorta Frankensteinian though.
Interesting. I definitely recall hearing Australia as an example of democracy where people have to vote. Thanks for the clarification.
Lol - well, they LIKE you to!
I got fined once for forgetting to! ($10) Talk about embarrassed. I FORGOT to VOTE!!! I tried to plead previous good behaviour.
10 bucks, eh? We should do that. We could raise an extra Billion Dollars this year!
Wow Deb, I guess you haven't seen your new super fancy avatar JPiM made for you yet... I'm jealous!
and to think that I got chastised for posting a poem.
ok, sry guyz, i konw this is the wrong place, but i need to know this answer and people are here, so can you help me plz??
I think i know the answer, but i dont get it.... show your work plz
The average age of a group of teachers and students is 20. The average age of the teachers is 35, and the average age of students is 15. What is the ratio of teachers to students? Express your answer as a common fraction.
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