Male Fruit Fly Brain Trained to Play Doom (pcgamer.com) 51
Last week, Google announced that it managed to produce a detailed 3D reconstruction of an adult male fruit fly's brain and central nervous system. A few days later a software engineer at Coinbase said the fly brain was being trained to play the original Doom. "Each Doom frame stimulates sensory neurons," says Alex Wormuth. "Neural activity is mapped to game controls. Damage triggers a stimulus to two PPL101 dopamine cells as reinforcement." Since then, the digital brain model has been repurposed to control other games like Beat Saber and Super Mario 64. PC Gamer reports: You can even watch the fruit fly play in real time via Wormuth's website, and it not only shows the point of view in Doom, but can also show a third-person render of the fly going around Doom maps. As of the time of writing, the fly is on round 6385 and, well, it's not very good. Sorry, fly.
But modders aren't done here. They have also somehow managed to make the fruit fly play Beat Saber, and play it pretty well. Lyra Bubbles on X has used the brain and replays of a song in Beat Saber to teach the fruit fly where to hit and why, via Reinforcement Learning. That does mean it's not organically reacting to the notes popping up on screen, but it is receiving input and responding to stimuli. Lyra says, "Further training is to reduce reliance on external signals and allow it to play fully reactively with no input data."
And, after "pivoting to fly engineering in 2026", Jessica Paquette also shared on X their experience running the digital fly brain through Super Mario 64. If you think that is all the game's modders made the fruit fly play, think again, as YouTuber Ro0oney even put it in Minecraft. But this time, Ro0oney used Flywire.AI, a similar project made in collaboration with Princeton University. The number of neurons are different (160,000+ vs 139,255), and Google analyzed a male brain whilst Flywire analyzed a female brain, but the basic idea is the same.
But modders aren't done here. They have also somehow managed to make the fruit fly play Beat Saber, and play it pretty well. Lyra Bubbles on X has used the brain and replays of a song in Beat Saber to teach the fruit fly where to hit and why, via Reinforcement Learning. That does mean it's not organically reacting to the notes popping up on screen, but it is receiving input and responding to stimuli. Lyra says, "Further training is to reduce reliance on external signals and allow it to play fully reactively with no input data."
And, after "pivoting to fly engineering in 2026", Jessica Paquette also shared on X their experience running the digital fly brain through Super Mario 64. If you think that is all the game's modders made the fruit fly play, think again, as YouTuber Ro0oney even put it in Minecraft. But this time, Ro0oney used Flywire.AI, a similar project made in collaboration with Princeton University. The number of neurons are different (160,000+ vs 139,255), and Google analyzed a male brain whilst Flywire analyzed a female brain, but the basic idea is the same.
Train robots to play doom (Score:2)
But not as the Doom guy.
Re:Train robots to play doom (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is funny that the tech community tends to take a very dim view of AI drones and other weaponization of artificial intelligence, and yet, the very instant we get our hands on something that we can train to play doom, we do.
"If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
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I think the distinction they are making is between technology that kills people, and technology that entertains people. If someone fitted actual weapons to a Doom engine, they'd probably object.
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Re: Train robots to play doom (Score:2)
People who object to an emperor tend not to stay around long.
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Roman emperors used to enjoy fitting actual weapons to some guys in the Coliseum. Nobody objected.
There's at least one guy [wikipedia.org] who pretty famously objected.
X is paywalled (Score:2)
X has now essentially paywalled everything. Unless you're one of them, you get nothing.
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I am sure you know this and are just trying to shit on the editors, as one does on /.; but here, use this in case you didn't know: https://xcancel.com/_lyraaaa_/... [xcancel.com]
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If you need a legally gray area (at best) third party website to use a service, i don't know how that's somehow a net positive
Wuhan energy (Score:2, Funny)
Insects trained on first person shooters escape from a lab...
What could possibly go wrong?
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Insects trained on first person shooters escape from a lab... What could possibly go wrong?
I'm looking forward to the movie and finding out. :-)
I have no proboscis and I must scream (Score:3)
"You will live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension."
Actually, I think I've got this one, other than whether this was really necessary.
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Scientists map fly brain; headline loses its own (Score:5, Informative)
They used actual fly wiring data, added simplified neuron behavior, and hooked the output up to game controls. That's pretty cool already. It doesn't need the implied "we uploaded a tiny gamer" upgrade.
The developer's own notes [github.com] are refreshingly honest: the baseline doesn't learn, and the experimental learning version hasn't demonstrated improved survival. Sending a signal to something labeled "dopamine neuron" isn't, by itself, evidence that anything learned a lesson.
Also, in three very short baseline tests, it killed more enemies with black visual input than with the actual game image. That doesn't settle much scientifically, but as someone who's played public servers, I recognize the strategy.
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No surprise but - isn't the headline misleading? (Score:4, Informative)
Am I misunderstanding this? It sounds to me like they're using a computer model of a fruit fly's brain to do this - not the actual brain of an actual fly.
The new AI CLI limiters. (Score:2)
Am I misunderstanding this? It sounds to me like they're using a computer model of a fruit fly's brain to do this - not the actual brain of an actual fly.
You are not confused.
The clickshitsell headline wants you to believe a new 6 billion dollar fly-man was just born. Who can play Doom, which is apparently the new Rorschach test in any cyborg system.
The reality looks more like the AI CLI command “IQ bandwidth 30” with the result of something more like Doom-scrolling.
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I watched the output for a little while. The "fly" keeps turning right and moving forwards whether that makes any sense or not. I presume this is a phase but whatever, the point is it isn't so much playing doom as leaning on the keyboard.
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"Killer Bees" will soon have (Score:1)
AK47's
Dodging Training Day. (Score:2)
AK47's
Why do I get this feeling somewhere a beekeeper named Patches is emptying AK mags into the apiary air yelling ”If you can dodge a bullet..”
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AK47's
I think this was a black mirror episode.
For what definition of "play"? (Score:2)
I've watched the "runs". This isn't playing Doom. This is the "fly" sitting in the middle of a single room with four opponents that shoot at it and lasting about six or seven seconds of game time.
This was by no means a fruit fly brain playing doom. It was an exercise in interfacing Doom to a fruit fly brain which gets squashed in Doom about as fast as it does in my kitchen.
What a colossal waste of time. Predictably, when you take 139,255 neurons and place them in a situation they are utterly unequipped
Re: For what definition of "play"? (Score:2)
I find the fact that it can play some games interesting and there's probably something to follow up there for those smarter than me.
(Though I don't care enough to see how well it plays the games it's "good" at).
What exactly was created? (Score:3)
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Immortality. Dead billionaires in cryo.
You model how a brain would respond to stimulus before training it on actual brains.
According to Futurama, by the year 3000 we'll have Richard Nixon's head in a jar running for the US presidency.
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Humans are not humane (Score:2)
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I mean they didnt do it to an actual living creature, but yeah its still pretty fucked up if you think about it, we emulated a brain and then dropped it in literally a virtual recreation of 'hell'...
Do not create the Torment Nexus.
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I mean, ultimately, they're going to need to take a real fly brain, and hook it up to the Doom simulation, to see how accurate the fly brain simulation is.
That's amazing. (Score:3)
So it's overqualified for the presidency of the US. A milestone indeed!
May I suggest the following mod distribution? I think it's fair.
5 x troll
6 x off-topic
3 x funny
And since there are some people who will think I'm making some devastatingly clever statement they agree with, instead of just being a jackass...
2 x insightful
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So it's overqualified for the presidency of the US. A milestone indeed!
I'll let that stand. But my first reaction when I saw the headline was that it reflected on people who play Doom.
[JK!]
Re: That's amazing. (Score:2)
I don't have any mod points, else 1x Informative
Male (Score:2)
no surprise its the males that are gamers
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Plenty of female gamers.
In fact most online games have a span of 45% - 55% of both genders, one game more in one direction the other one more into the other.
There might be male dominated online games, but that would most likely be games no one really knows about.
Background: World of Warcraft, Eve online, Grand Theft xyz ... they are all full with females.
Fruit fly plays Doom? (Score:2)
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Just wait until they connect it up to a Robin Hood game.
transmogrification (Score:2)
"I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords." (Score:2)
In Other Words (Score:2)
"Male Fruit Fly Brain Was Not Trained to Play Doom."
Next will be "Biohacker gets Doom Running"... (Score:2)
On fruitfly brain.
Those guys re crazy.
Females flys trained to play bejewelled ? (Score:2)
Is there some reason they a) Picked male over female fly brains, and b) mentioned it?
Just seemed weird tome.
Time flies like the wind. (Score:2)
Fruit flies like a BFG.