If this could be done for a human, I think there is a realistic prospect of perhaps being the first human "brought back to life inside a computer". Sure, the connectome isn't the whole story, but I think it possible that a few hundred years from now we might understand the brain sufficiently to simulate it, and then by inputting this connectome, together with guesses/approximations for the information not captured, t…
An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
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Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#152Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#153If this could be done for a human, I think there is a realistic prospect of perhaps being the first human "brought back to life inside a computer". Sure, the connectome isn't the whole story, but I think it possible that a few hundred years from now we might understand the brain sufficiently to simulate it, and then by inputting this connectome, together with guesses/approximations for the information not captured, t…
Long before bringing people back based on analysis of their neurons, there will be many people 'brought back' by something like an LLM acting like them similar to how a human actor sort of becomes someone. There have already been crude efforts and I guess as time goes on they will get better.
(eg. the Kurzweils in 2016 https://www.pcmag.com/articles/how-ray-kurzweil-and-his-daug...)
Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#154What wondrous secrets of knowledge await us in such a mighty neurological architecture?
Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#155My (maybe very ignorant) question is: can this connectome be used to “run” simulations of a virtual fruit fly, a la MMAcevedo?
It’s a neural network without weights. And it doesn’t have a body. Figuring out the behaviour of the neurons could take decades, although I have no doubt that people will eventually. And simulating a whole fruit fly body seems like it’s going to be out of reach for a very long time.
> It’s a neural network without weights.
It has approximate weights. Neuron connection strength is determined by the number of synapses (1-100s, sometimes 1000s), the type of synapse neurotransmitter, and the number of receptors. The connectome has 1 and 2 and is only missing 3. The number of receptors may not even be that important- the fact that the number of synapses is important may well mean the number of receptors is unreliable.
Neurons also don't transmit scalars to each other. The synapse is stimulate by frequency of action potentials much more than strength.
> And it doesn’t have a body.
It does have nervous connections outside the brain. That behavior is not as complex.
> Figuring out the behaviour of the neurons could take decades
Neurons are not that complex in terms of matching in->out behavior. Since spiking is frequency-based, you can verify it quite well by ensuring the frequency of spikes in->out matches; you can even measure single neurons with implanted electrodes. You don't need so much precision to see individual spikes, since the size of the spikes does not matter much at all.
Long term potentiation also makes measuring individual neuron strength even less important- if you model potentiation correctly, then over time you'll converge accurately as understimulated connections weaken and vice versa.
The real issue is we have barely any clue how potentiation works and can't model it well at all. It's very important to brain behavior and most of the interesting things brains do. Its kind of an issue.
Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#156Related: my favorite HN comment ever from a similar submission a year ago:
> There's lots of very exciting work going on around the fully mapped fruit fly connectome. For example, I'm a CTO of a stealth startup that aims to do for utilitarianism what carbon credits did for environmentalism. We are selling 'utility credits' which translates directly into us simulating trillions and trillions of fruit fly brains in a state of constant orgasmic bliss, which you can then buy to offset any actions your company has undertaken that damage global happiness or well-being. We've seen a lot of interest from some pretty large industry players.
Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#157Related: my favorite HN comment ever from a similar submission a year ago: > There's lots of very exciting work going on around the fully mapped fruit fly connectome. For example, I'm a CTO of a stealth startup that aims to do for utilitarianism what carbon credits did for environmentalism. We are selling 'utility credits' which translates directly into us simulating trillions and trillions of fruit fly brains in a s…
Why!
Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#158Related: my favorite HN comment ever from a similar submission a year ago: > There's lots of very exciting work going on around the fully mapped fruit fly connectome. For example, I'm a CTO of a stealth startup that aims to do for utilitarianism what carbon credits did for environmentalism. We are selling 'utility credits' which translates directly into us simulating trillions and trillions of fruit fly brains in a s…
They have a branding opportunity.
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Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#159A big reason for my imminent-AGI Skepticism is the fact that our understanding of the currently existing, Biological intelligence is so, so shallow. We're here at "Systems level sketch of a fruit fly brain". It's incredible work! But as other comments detail, there is far more to the function of a fly brain than this "map". It's quite a long way from "Deep understanding of a Human Brain, to the point where we can beg…
I don't think you need to fully understand how the brain works to be able to create AGI. Did the invention of the wheel/cart/car require us to fully understand how we walk? Did we need to fully understand how fish swim before we could make a boat? The only caveat would be that the AGI we build would be entirely unlike human minds. In the sane way a car going 100 kph is different from a running person.
It's surprising in a way how similar some generative AI seems to be to human parts of human minds like the dream like images produced some times and the reasoning in o1 being kind of human like.
Re: An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped
#160Related: my favorite HN comment ever from a similar submission a year ago: > There's lots of very exciting work going on around the fully mapped fruit fly connectome. For example, I'm a CTO of a stealth startup that aims to do for utilitarianism what carbon credits did for environmentalism. We are selling 'utility credits' which translates directly into us simulating trillions and trillions of fruit fly brains in a s…
They have a branding opportunity. Karma Kredits Perhaps a co-branding opportunity with Krispy Kreme donuts? Buy a donut, and experience some Joy, which handily comes with Karma Kredits to offset that Joy. Have some KK with the KK!
And those who have a lot of Karma Kredits can enter the exclusive Karma Kredits Klub!