49
submitted 3 months ago by mo_lave@reddthat.com to c/science@lemmy.world
all 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 3 months ago

4ish orders of magnitude’s between fly neuron counts and a human’s. Not to mention mammals tend to have more synapses per neuron than invertebrates.

So I’d say, no humans are not next.

Probably easiest to go to fish next for simplicity, but with the prevalence of mice in neural studies, maybe we’ll skip fish and move right on to mice.

Then to some primate(s), maybe working our way up through several species.

Then humans.

[-] AmidFuror@fedia.io 3 points 3 months ago

Seth Brundle would be a good intermediate.

[-] redsand@infosec.pub 1 points 3 months ago

Say a server is an order of magnitude faster(it probably isn't you can put an i9 in a laptop). A rack is two orders, 10 racks, 100 racks for a human ballpark if this scaled and it doesn't.

[-] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 months ago

I said it in another thread and I'll say it in this one.

Holy. Shit. The terror. The unknowable terror. Is digital-fly conscious? Have we any way of knowing?

[-] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

We've already been at this point, with these questions.

https://openworm.org/ you can run your own simulated worm buddy! With complete nervous system/connectome and muscle cells

[-] lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 months ago

Warning: You can't download the whole virtual worm, we're not quite there yet! :)

You lied to me.

[-] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah, I believe so far they have all of the neurons and muscle cells and have modelled the motor behavior, so the worm will wriggle and crawl around. I don't think they have yet simulated other biological processes. But the full "brain" is implemented and running.

There's also this which is a complete worm "brain" but even more simple motor behavior, that runs in your browser. https://heyseth.github.io/worm-sim/

[-] Whelks_chance@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

I feel like this will rapidly become a question of definitions. What is consciousness? Is a real fly conscious?

[-] flandish@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

questions that have been asked for thousands of years, actually. heck “cogito ergo sum” and all of that.

[-] Codpiece@feddit.uk 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The laptop, was it a ThinkPad?

[-] 0ops@piefed.zip 2 points 3 months ago

Why did I read this in Christopher Walken's voice?

[-] sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 1 points 3 months ago

he was gay, gary cooper?

[-] ElysianBladeRunner@piefed.social 13 points 3 months ago

So you’re telling me those are not just someone’s booty cheeks viewed from the back?

[-] pageflight@piefed.social 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Shiu put his in silico fly brain to the test by simulating the activation of neurons that sense sugar or water. The model predicted that specific neurons would fire to extend the fly’s proboscis and initiate eating — a result he and his colleagues showed is true in real adult flies. When simulating activation of sensory neurons from the fly’s antennae, the model predicted the firing of neurons in the circuit involving grooming with the legs, exactly the behavior a fly exhibits when it gets dirt on its antennae.

That is impressive.

How does this deal with learning?

Getting a sense of the scale:

139,255 neurons and 50 million connections [...] 10 year effort [...] It was assembled from 7,000 thin slices through a female adult fly’s brain, imaged with electron microscopy and annotated by AI to identify neuron types and connections.

Compared to house mouse at 71M and human at 8.6×10^10.

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The model predicted that specific neurons would fire to extend the fly’s proboscis and initiate eating — a result he and his colleagues showed is true in real adult flies.

Wow the program did what is was programmed to do?!?!? WOWOWOWO!! \s

That is impressive.

Not really.

How does this deal with learning?

Not at all.

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 months ago

No, probably a slightly more complex animal, like a gecko. Then a bird or rodent. Then a dog, then a chimp, then finally a human.

[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Maybe they can then give the simulated human brains to the Powers That Be so they can start making smart decisions.

this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
49 points (100.0% liked)

science

27497 readers
440 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

dart board;; science bs

rule #1: be kind

lemmy.world rules

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS