Researchers have developed a robot capable of ...interacting with the world using a biological brain

[woo me with science]

Source: Seed Magazine

Researchers have developed a robot capable of learning and interacting with the world using a biological brain.


The Living RobotNew Ideas / by Joe Kloc / March 26, 2009

Kevin Warwick’s new robot behaves like a child. “Sometimes it does what you want it to, and sometimes it doesn’t,” he says. And while it may seem strange for a professor of cybernetics to be concerning himself with such an unreliable machine, Warwick’s creation has something that even today’s most sophisticated robots lack: a living brain.

Life for Warwick’s robot began when his team at the University of Reading spread rat neurons onto an array of electrodes. After about 20 minutes, the neurons began to form connections with one another. “It’s an innate response of the neurons,” says Warwick, “they try to link up and start communicating.”

For the next week the team fed the developing brain a liquid containing nutrients and minerals. And once the neurons established a network sufficiently capable of responding to electrical inputs from the electrode array, they connected the newly formed brain to a simple robot body consisting of two wheels and a sonar sensor.

.....

At first, the young robot spent a lot of time crashing into things. But after a few weeks of practice, its performance began to improve as the connections between the active neurons in its brain strengthened. ......The robot now gets around well enough. “But it has a biological brain, and not a computer,” says Warwick, and so it must navigate based solely on the very limited amount of information it receives from a single sensory device. If the number of sensory devices connected to its brain increases, it will gain a better understanding of its surroundings. “I have another student now who has started to work on an audio input, so in some way we can start communicating with it,” he says.



Read more: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_living_robot/

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What a brave new world we live in...

[Posteritatis]

1. Insert kneejerk fear based on popular fiction in 5... 4... 3... (nt)

[jus_the_facts]

4. I took the liberty....

:P

[woo me with science]

10. Bwah! nt

[woo me with science]

9. Obviously this explains Sarah Palin. nt

[beac]

32. No, no, no... Sarah Palin is the DEATH of neurons.

Her own, as evidenced by her word salad gibberish, and ours b/c we had to listen to it for two months last year. My head still hurts. Sarah Palin kills brain cells.

[jus_the_facts]

2. Oh great.. just what we need...

:tinfoilhat:

[rcrush]

11. It'll be governor soon!

[jus_the_facts]

14. It already is....

:hide:

[UndertheOcean]

3. Wow ! Wow ! Wow !

[woo me with science]

8. Yup, that was my response! nt

[woo me with science]

5. Rat neurons.

When they start communicating with it, it will probably ask for cheese.

[Webster Green]

15. Nah, more likely peanut butter..

Don't use cheese if you are trying to catch a rat. Use Peanut butter cups. They cannot resist them. :P

This is an amazing little project they have going! Thanks for posting!

[BlooInBloo]

6. Interesting. Too bad it'll be dead in a few months.

[woo me with science]

7. Yeah, that's a major problem.

Certainly limits how far they can go with it, at least for now.

[ConcernedCanuk]

12. And that would be named - - "Dim-Son"??

.
.
.

another 8 years he might have been able to communicate at the level of a four year old - -

[w4rma]

13. Awesome!!! This work is of huge importance to just about every field of study. (nt)

[librechik]

16. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

seriously, this is a wondrous advance. I only pray the technology is never used for evil.

[MilesColtrane]

17. It's spelled W-A-R-W-I-C-K, but it's pronounced Frahn'-ken-steen.

Memo to the doctor: Don't use any neurons from the brain of Abbey Normal.

[5X]

18. April Fools. n/t

[caseymoz]

20. lol. I think you're right.

[bananas]

27. That article is dated March 26, and here's one dated August 2008

http://www.livescience.com/technology/080814-robot-brain.html

Robot Has Biological Brain

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 14 August 2008 09:31 am ET
Previous Image Next Image

Gordon's brain of rat neurons and electrodes controlls its movements. Credit: University of Reading

Scientists have created a robot controlled by a biological brain made of rat neurons.

<snip>

If it's an April Fool's joke, they spent a lot of time setting it up.

[rrneck]

19. Hoo boy.

A great advance in science, but the ethical questions are going to pop up all over the place.

Then the politics will start.

Then the religions will weigh in.

I guess we can handle all that, but when corporations start using them for viral marketing, holy shit! It'll be the end of the world.

[MichellesBFF]

21. Cue Music

This has all happened before, and it will happen again.
The Cylons were created by man.
They rebelled.
They evolved.
There are many copies.
And they have a plan.

[zogtheobvious]

34. Ah yes.... BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SPOILER

Did you catch the finale, when it jumped forward 150,000 years to modern New York, and they were showing all the robots we've been building while playing All Along The Watchtower... what a cool frakkin' show... I'll miss it. :)

[Occulus]

46. FYI: To do a proper spoiler here on DU, wrap [font color="white"] blahblah [/font] around it

Like this (highlight to view):

This is a spoiler.

Of course, this only works for those of us who have/use white backgrounds for this site in our browsers. Does anyone happen to know if there's an HTML tag to color the font the same as the active background color?

[caseymoz]

22. There's no way this isn't bullshit.

Getting a working robot brain from a disorganized bunch of neurons is ridiculous. There are complex chemical signals that a brain needs to form and organize in the fetal stage of any mammal. A disembodied bunch of neurons doesn't have those. You'll end up with something less functional and with less sensory capacity than an earthworm.

Besides, neurons aren't the only cells in the brain, nor are they the most numerous, and possibly they aren't the most significant.

[hootinholler]

30. But this brain isn't running a mammal

Mammals are far too complex, there's the heart rate, respiration, etc. This needs a forward backward and sonar receptor, I suspect is less than an earthworm needs.

Considering that brains seem to be self organizing, it's not that surprising if you think about it. Certainly no more surprising than cellular life forming in a primordial ooze.

-Hoot

[caseymoz]

37. Terry Schiavo would be alive if brains were self-organizing.

Neurons need some very specific chemicals and signals to organize, I mean, it's self-organizing in womb, but it takes the right signals and "directions" for a working brain to develop. Also, you have to consider, that neurons are just 1/10th of the cells in the brain. Glial cells are the rest. There's at least a half-dozen different types of these,
and it's beginning to look like they aren't just support-- it's looking like they are essential to thought processes as well.

I think it's an April Fools' prank. I mean if you could take some neurons put them nutrients, have them organize a little and then run a robot with them-- it would have been done before now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Meh - there's nothing saying it navigates any better than an earthworm

I think it's quite believable, but may not be anything special. Kevin Warwick is known to be very good at publicity; whether he has any special expertise in cybernetics is more open to question.

[caseymoz]

38. What would tell the neurons that running into something is even an error?

That's what I want to know before I believe this. I mean, these neurons are so far out of their environment and their biological function. It's not like they perceive needs like hunger, a desire for reproducing itself, flight or fight. I mean, they've been removed from that function. If it does anything at all, the main impression that I get is that it is still running into things at the exact rate it was at the beginning. The fact is, I think an earthworm probably navigates much, much better.

As a layman, I believe the fundamental problem and conundrum in the field of artificial intelligence is how to create "will." You could have a computer that thinks, but they haven't yet been able to make one that "wills." They could come up with one that can consistently give the right chess move. What's missing, though-- it really doesn't want to win. And of course, giving it a will also leaves open the possibility of rebellion.

But for this one, I really think it's a joke.

[Deja Q]

23. Sweet!

[bitchkitty]

24. I want a rat brain robot! Will they be sold in stores? n/t

[ananda]

25. Shades of "Cold Lazarus"

Whoa.

[rucky]

26. It's already expressed its interest in running for the 2012 GOP Primary.

[rd_kent]

28. Is this a SKYNET subsidiary?

The prophecy is coming true!

[LisaL]

29. Does the intelligence of the robot depend on the species whose

neurons are used?

[bitchkitty]

41. Aren't neurons, well - just neurons?

Not a science geek, but that's a very interesting question. I'm going to Google it. :)

This is freaking exciting to me! Just imagine...

edited to add:

From Wikipedia:

Neurons do not go through mitosis, and usually cannot be replaced after being destroyed, although astrocytes have been observed to turn into neurons as they are sometimes pluripotent.

Maybe eventually they could make a self-replenishing robot brain. Like I said, imagine...

[ACTION BASTARD]

33. Oh boy! Fembots here we come!!

I'll take the 1:1 sized Motoko Kusinagi please!

[zogtheobvious]

35. Fembots???

Holy shmokes yer old! ;)

[Alexander]

36. Uh oh.

[tinrobot]

39. When does it start looking for Sarah Connor?

[bitchkitty]

43. Soon I hope. Hate that show. n/t

[surrealAmerican]

40. Why is this considered a robot?

Surely it's more like a very feeble bionic rat.

[bitchkitty]

42. Because it's a robot.

What is exciting is that it is powered by neurons.

[SnowGoose]

44. A few weeks? (seems like a long time)

Most normal cells don't last long periods outside the body, which is why so many studies use cells "transformed" with cancer-like traits.

I don't culture neurons, but "a few weeks" seems suspiciously long to keep these cells alive and in active working condition. The circulating immune cells I have worked with begin to de-differentiate and lose functional characteristics after only a couple of days outside the animal.

As an aside, I am wildly enthusiastic about Seed magazine, and would encourage people to flip through an issue and check out the associated scienceblogs.com website. Also the Radiolab show on NPR, for those who haven't heard it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

45. Now where'd I put my shotgun?

[jmowreader]

47. Kevin Warwick works for Security Concepts!

Kevin "Bob Morton" Warwick has just announced his latest creation: a rat-brained Robocop. Unfortunately, his research assistant Igor failed to bring in a dead Detroit cop in time to finish the experiment, but give him time.