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A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

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Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#51

Post by dullcrisp »

causal wrote: post #12

I appreciate the open source approach over the startup's sensational claims. This is more transparent. That said, I think it still presents itself as if the fly is being controlled by the connectome, when (if I'm reading the source correctly) it's more accurate to say scripted behaviors have been hooked up to be triggered by the connectome. Put another way, you might as well have the "escape" trigger open a YouTube v…

Yeah I don’t think it’s clear if the connectome is modeling real fruit fly behavior or is just being used as an entropy generator.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#52

Post by melagonster »

squibonpig wrote: post #23
ramraj07 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that this is pretty disingenuous (as is most connectomics research I suppose) since its implying we have a fully wired connectome of the fly thats actually meaningful.

Why isn't it and what do they have? I'm not really informed on this stuff.

We only know which neurons are connected, not the weights.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#53

Post by rossy »

a1o wrote: post #11

> What's modeled vs. measured > Honesty section: I wouldn’t mind an human written README

> Honesty section:

This one gets to me. Not only is it useless (paragraph would have the same meaning if it was removed) but wdym "honesty section," Claude? The whole readme should be honest! One of the many causes of psychological damage when reading AI-generated technical writing is the reminder that one of its tics is that declares when it's being honest or real, casting doubt on the rest.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#54

Post by logicallee »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #39
logicallee wrote: post #14

This is absolutely astounding. What an implementation. A connectome is like a full brain scan! I am asking Claude to port this to the browser and I'll host it, so you can try it without installing anything. Some details about the port: Claude is able to do porting tasks like this. I'll put up a link when you can try it in your browser. I was able to get it to port the complete BitNet b1.58 2-billion parameter model s…

It's pretty amazing stuff! I was very excited the first time I saw a connectome as well. Years ago I managed to get most of openworm running and connected to some Lego Mindstorms to let the worm roll around my house. I'm not even sure the connectome was finished at that time. Honestly, I barely had any idea what I was doing and we didn't have AI tools so I was never really sure what I wired to what. I did manage to h…

I can't imagine why people hate my comment so much (4 downvotes), when I linked an existing fruitfly project I already did, and Claude is working on what I wrote now, just as I wrote. Maybe people thought I was being sarcastic when I wrote "A connectome is like a full brain scan!" but I wrote that since maybe not everyone knows what a connectome means.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#55

Post by fluoridation »

j16sdiz wrote: post #45
lp4v4n wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could this be anti-ethical? You're just running a very complex algorithm in your machine.

When one truly believes: 0) Subjecting fruitfly life to this kind of treatment is unethical. 1) Life is just physics in action. 2) Physics are just algorithm (or our physical world is a simulation) It is not hard to understand why they think it is unethical. My question are 1) is all life equal? 2) is all suffering unethical? 3) is this world materialistic or are there something out there? 4) should a list of items b…

If life is physics and physics is an algorithm, it doesn't follow that an algorithm reproducing the physics of life contains life, even if we grant that it actually reproduces it completely and perfectly. That's just confusing the symbol for the thing.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#56

Post by jamilton »

jasonjayr wrote: post #26
_def wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, is there like a simple list of competing ethical frameworks?

Not to drop any spoilers (hide this comment before reading further ....) But "The Amazing Digital Circus" explores this concept relating to human brain scans, and how the 'simulated' brains would react under simulation.

It really does not "explore" the concept, it just features it as a plot element.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#57

Post by logicallee »

twothreeone wrote: post #32
ramraj07 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it wont be?

Well, one obvious question is if the simulated brain experiences pain, or more generally can it suffer? And if so, how would we tell.

I've ported it to the browser and connected a squash functionality behind an ethical guardrail (you have to lift a cover to engage this functionality). need to iterate on the ui but will share it soon. you can squash the bug and cause it real pain. it also sees you if you turn your camera on and reacts to your movements. this is all wired up and I'll post it shortly.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#58

Post by solid_fuel »

melagonster wrote: post #52
squibonpig wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't it and what do they have? I'm not really informed on this stuff.

We only know which neurons are connected, not the weights.

More than that, real neurons don’t behave anything like the ones we model in neural networks - real ones signal with pulses, in a manner where the timing seems as significant as the magnitude of the impulse. Typically simulated neural networks use continuous analog values instead of pulses and a sigmoid function to shape the output.

Basically, the “wiring” might be the same but nothing beyond that is.

- - -

Actually, I may have spoken too soon. Looking over the code this does look like it implements spikey activation, which is more similar to living neurons. You are correct they don’t have the original weights though - in as much as the concept maps to biology.

I am curious if this has a way to dynamically modify the weights as it runs - I consider that a major missing gap between real brains and computer simulated neural networks.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#59

Post by idiotsecant »

solid_fuel wrote: post #58
melagonster wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We only know which neurons are connected, not the weights.

More than that, real neurons don’t behave anything like the ones we model in neural networks - real ones signal with pulses, in a manner where the timing seems as significant as the magnitude of the impulse. Typically simulated neural networks use continuous analog values instead of pulses and a sigmoid function to shape the output. Basically, the “wiring” might be the same but nothing beyond that is. - - - Actually,…

I feel like probably a graph of sigmoid or whatever weights of sufficient size can probably model a network of biological neurons signaling frequency and phase and magnitude.

Re: A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

#60

Post by idiotsecant »

fluoridation wrote: post #55
j16sdiz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When one truly believes: 0) Subjecting fruitfly life to this kind of treatment is unethical. 1) Life is just physics in action. 2) Physics are just algorithm (or our physical world is a simulation) It is not hard to understand why they think it is unethical. My question are 1) is all life equal? 2) is all suffering unethical? 3) is this world materialistic or are there something out there? 4) should a list of items b…

If life is physics and physics is an algorithm, it doesn't follow that an algorithm reproducing the physics of life contains life, even if we grant that it actually reproduces it completely and perfectly. That's just confusing the symbol for the thing.

If it reproduces it perfectly it's not a symbolic representation of the thing, it is the thing, by any definition that makes sense.
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