- The CL1 “biological computer” was shown playing Doom
- It’s basically 200,000 human neurons placed on a microchip.
- This brain soup has apparently learned how to find and shoot enemies in the game, although skeptics argue over the definition of “play” here.
Living human brain cells are capable of playing Doom, and by that I mean a group of cells not inside a brain (of course, that wouldn’t really be a revelation), but in a laboratory – although there’s still some debate over the definition of actually “playing” a game.
As posted on Reddit, this is the work of Cortical Labs, a company that used a “multi-electrode array” to achieve this feat, which essentially consists of 200,000 human neurons placed on a microchip.
This is also known as the CL1 “biological computer,” which is a “high-performance closed-loop system in which real neurons interact with software in real time.” In this case, Cortical Labs worked with an independent researcher called Sean Cole to get the CL1 to run Doom – or rather play Doom. Well, sort of, and therein lies part of the controversy.
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These brain cells don’t play the game through some sort of controller, but rather are directly engaged in navigating Doom’s maps and dealing with its grumpy demonic inhabitants.
What happens is that the video feed of the game is directly mapped to the neurons using electrical stimulation patterns. As Cortical Labs explains in the YouTube video below, demonstrating this, when a monster appears on the left side of the screen, certain electrodes stimulate the left side of the CL1 neural soup sensory area. The neurons then respond to the stimulation, and this cellular activity is interpreted as motor commands, i.e. controlling the Doom type (moving and shooting).
Four years ago, Cortical Labs conducted a similar experiment with Pong, although Doom is obviously much more complicated.
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Analysis: learning skills
While this is fascinating, it’s also a very abstract way to play Doom. Theoretically, brain cells learn to play the game, albeit using a very direct interface, as shown.
As Cortical Labs explains in the video, the CL1 is able to find enemies and shoot them in Doom, or turn around if hit from behind – but it plays the game poorly. If you look at the footage, there’s a lot of clumsiness and shooting at walls. As Cortical Labs puts it: “Cells play a bit like a beginner who’s never seen a computer,” adding “and in all honesty, they haven’t.”
This makes the whole thing seem rather random, which is why some of Reddit’s detractors aren’t so impressed with the demo, essentially saying that we have no evidence that the neural soup is actually honing his skills or gaining an “understanding” of some sort about the game. Sure, it’s a reaction, they claim, but is he actually reacting or learning in any meaningful way? Or is it just waving a gun around, shooting here and there and getting lucky every now and then?
Still, whatever the arguments about intent or what’s actually going on beneath the surface of the neural soup, Cortical Labs concedes that, when it comes to Doom, the learning capabilities of brain cells need to be improved, but he’s confident it can be done.
For now, it’s an eye-opening demo (but not the only one of its kind) – certainly more so than Pong’s effort – and we’ll see where Cortical Labs takes it from here.
As we saw last year, the company’s big vision is to enable cloud access to its CL1 biological computers. You can rent a CL1 for $300 per week through Cortical Labs’ Wetware-as-a-Service offering, or buy one for $35,000.
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