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Fringey Minis: Memes DOOM brains · Journey to the Fringe

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  I have totally abandoned whatever the hell I
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  had going on there. I'm working off a list on
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  my phone that I've put together here. Now I just
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  have a choice similar to what you are usually
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  dealing. Let's take a choice of brains or dolphins.
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  That's the choice I'm going to give you right
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  now. Hmm, and not dolphin brains. No, no, you
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  can't intertwine the two. You know what? I only
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  like porpoises if they're attacking yachts, and
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  I don't think dolphins have that kind of capacity.
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  So let's go with brains. OK, this is from The
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  Guardian. I hope we like them. You know, I have
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  such a short memory for things. You know that.
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  I think you all might know it now. I don't know
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  if The Guardian is good or bad. I don't know
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  what ones we don't like because I don't memorize
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  the list. As soon as you tell me, I forget. So
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  I hope we like The Guardian. This one is titled
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  A Petri Dish of human brain cells is currently
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  playing doom. Should we be worried?" And this
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  was published 16th of March, 2026. I'm impressed
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  so far. Let's read. It sounds like the opening
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  of a sci -fi film, but US scientists not missing.
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  These are ones that are actually commenting maybe.
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  I don't know what they're doing. Let's just fucking
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  read it. Recently uploaded a copy of the brain
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  of a living fly into a simulation. A fly. Yep,
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  I read that right. In San Francisco, Biotechnology
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  company Eon Systems created a virtual insect
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  that knew how to walk, fly, groom, and feed in
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  its virtual environment. Researchers in Australia,
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  meanwhile, get out of here Anne. Researchers
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  in Australia, meanwhile, have taught a petri
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  dish containing 200 ,000 human brain cells to
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  play the iconic 90 -shooter Doom. One experiment
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  has pushed a brain into a computer. The other
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  has plugged a computer into brain cells. What
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  the? Well, I'm glad it's human and not fly brains
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  playing Doom. Really? Yeah. That's better to
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  you? I don't know why I would think that. Actually
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  I was gonna comment on that but then I kept reading.
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  I don't know why I would think that. Okay. I
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  really don't know why I said that. It just felt
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  like the right thing. I just go with feels most
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  of the time and I said it. Okay. Both stories
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  have been hailed as scientific breakthroughs,
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  but have also sparked inevitable fears about
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  the prospects of lab -grown humans and digital
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  clones. Should we be concerned? But we're just
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  doomed. Like, I thought we were concerned about
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  doom. It was Australian startup Cortical Labs
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  in Melbourne that taught a dish of lab -grown
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  neurons to play Pong in 2022. This is fucked
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  up. Now it has built what is described as, quote,
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  the world's first code deployed biological computer,
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  end quote, running on living human tissue rather
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  than silicone chips, which is happily playing
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  the 1993 shooter Doom. quote at first it didn't
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  know how to move aim or shoot then it would shoot
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  two enemies and stop so it's definitely learning
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  i think that's an end quote and then a re -quote
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  in computer science nerd land there's this obsession
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  with getting doomed to run on everything from
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  calculators to microwaves and quote han wen chan
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  ceo of cortical labs tells me over zoom from
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  melbourne quote as soon as we managed to get
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  pong to work the first thing people said was
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  what are you gonna do do The average human brain
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  contains about 86 billion, maybe, neurons. It
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  says BN next to 86. Roughly 430 ,000 petri dishes
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  worth. But how do you harvest 20 ,000 brain cells
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  without resorting to a hacksaw and an ice cream
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  scoop? I can't believe what I am reading right
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  now. I'm so happy they made light there. They
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  made funny. They did do that quote. They're my
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  brain cells actually at least most of them are
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  what and quote Chong says proudly I can picture
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  him saying that to you There's no scraping or
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  brain extraction. It's a very cool technique
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  that was developed by Professor Shinya Yamanaka,
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  who won the Nobel Prize in 2012. All you need
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  is 10 milliliters of blood, in this case Chong's,
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  from which around 100 white blood cells can be
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  harvested. These can then be reprogrammed into
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  induced pluripotent stem cells, IPSCs, the body's
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  biological building blocks, which can then be
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  reproduced exponentially. Quote, essentially
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  we reverse the biological clock back to an embryonic
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  state, induce them into neurons and put them
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  in a glass chip roughly the size of a 50p piece.
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  50 pence maybe, end quote, explains Chong. Quote,
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  because they're on a chip and electricity is
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  the common language between neurons and the computer
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  system, we can interface with them and get them
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  to play Doom, end quote. Cortical Labs conducted
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  its Pong experiment experiment in -house, but
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  this time it reached out to 24 -year -old Singaporean
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  Sean Cole, who has just completed an MSc in artificial
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  intelligence at the University of Sussex, and
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  whose dad happens to be mates with its CEO. Cole
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  wrote the code remotely, which the team then
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  tested on their local machines. Quote, I was
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  a bit surprised it worked the first time around,
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  end quote he tells me over Zoom. So how does
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  a petri dish of brain cells play doom when it
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  doesn't have any eyes or fingers? Quote, we take
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  a snapshot of the game with information like
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  the player's health and the position of enemies,
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  pass it through the neural network, convert it
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  into numbers, and send the data. Explains Cole.
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  This is called encoding, essentially turning
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  the game state into signals the neurons can understand.
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  Isn't that binary code? Yeah, more or less. That's
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  what my neurons understand? They would understand
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  like, nah, they I would understand like input
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  versus no input, which is ones and zeros. This
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  is messed up. The neurons then fire an output,
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  move left, move right, walk forward, shoot or
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  not shoot, which the system decodes and converts
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  back into actions in the game. If you think about
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  how humans operate, we have information going
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  into our retina, which is converted into electrical
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  signals, processed in the brain and then an output
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  happens, adds Chong. It's really no different
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  from that. If a computer full of brain cells
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  is playing a video game and making decisions,
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  does that mean it's sentient? Or is it just behaving
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  like the average Doom player? People have different
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  perceptions of what sentience is, says Cole.
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  I definitely don't think it's conscious. At first
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  it didn't know how to move, aim or even shoot.
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  Then it would shoot the first two enemies and
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  stop, almost as if it was preserving itself.
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  So it's definitely learning. We've managed to
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  control a brain to learn in a very controlled
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  environment the next step could be something
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  like Neuralink where you inject a chip into the
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  brain to train someone to learn a language faster
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  this goes on still for a little bit so I'm just
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  gonna end it there we can link it up okay super
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  interesting it brings up some very interesting
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  philosophical points that I'd be interested and
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  ethical questions it really does yeah it would
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  seem to me like it does have sentience just it
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  does I think they can't say that it has sentience
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  because then they couldn't study it anymore exactly
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  or they might bring ethics into the question
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  with what they could do but you gotta love this
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  cutting -edge science is being pushed by like
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  a 15 year old meme of can it play doom Yeah,
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  that's literally what they said is this thing
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  used to be a meme. Yeah, and now we're doing
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  it now. We're gonna do it with you It was just
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  the logical next step to do with human brains,
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  but yeah, if there's any way to best like Show
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  how modern society is? Yeah, that's it a 15 year
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  old meme being done in a very weird ethical way.
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  Yep, that makes total sense for Humanity at this
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  but I guess the next question really is could
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  you play do? on a woolly mammoth or could you
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  get a woolly mammoth to play Doom? Bet you could.
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  Is the one they're gonna be answering next. I
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  don't know which one they're gonna ask though.
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  That's the next one that is gonna come up. Yeah.
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  You guys got 48 hours. Would you rather see a
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  woolly mammoth play Doom or play Doom on a woolly
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  mammoth? Let us know. Bye. Bye.