200,000 Living Human Brain Cells Just Learned to Play Doom and This Is Just the Start of It

ZME Science ^ | 3/3/26 | Mihei Andre

[Callahan]

Researchers at Australian start-up Cortical Labs have taught human neurons grown on a chip to play the classic Doom game. In 2021, they had already used 800,000 neurons to play Pong. Now, with four times fewer brain cells, they can play a much more complicated game.

… The technology making this possible is the CL-1, a “biological computer” chip. The biological component of the CL-1 system consists of human neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These cells, typically repurposed from adult skin or blood samples, are differentiated in a lab into functional cortical neurons. Once matured, approximately 200,000 of these living cells are integrated onto a high-density microelectrode array (HD-MEA), essentially creating a specialized silicon chip featuring thousands of interface points.

The CL-1 is the major innovation, because it acts as a bridge that connects the brain cells to the world. But the magic is done by the neurons themselves. Through a process known as synaptic plasticity, the neurons physically restructure their connections over time to minimize “random” or chaotic feedback, effectively hard-wiring a logic path that corresponds to the game’s objectives.

… Silicon-based AI, like the stuff that powers ChatGPT or self-driving cars, requires massive “training sets.” You have to show a computer a million pictures of a cat before it knows what a cat is. These neurons, however, show “adaptive real-time goal-directed learning.” They figure things out on the fly. And they don’t need a million “games”; they just need a few hours of feeling the “vibe” of the corridors.

…

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: ai; computers; wetware

[BenLurkin]

How is this even legal?

[rod5591]

sounds like Frankenstein...

[left that other site]

I hope they weren’t Abby-Normal Neurons.

[fruser1]

I'll wager 100,000 quatloos they won't find the secret level.

[mass55th]

What a thrill.

/sarcasm

[Round Earther]

If adults donate their own stem cells, then I have no problem with this.

[Callahan]

that was my immediate thought as well. The three brains from that awful episode of TOS.

If you read the article, they are putting this in the cloud with an API. You can code with it using Python.

I think when they make the next major breakthrough to are the Singularity it will be with this stuff.

Livin’ in the future kids.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

How are they even keeping the cells alive?

[Parmy]

Why?

[Ciaphas Cain]

When I was in high school I was reading William Gibson's sci-fi novels. In his Count Zero (the sequel to Neuromancer) there were companies that were developing biosoft: computers merged with human human functioning via lab-grown cancer cells. It was speculative fiction based on some then-fringe ideas.

What Cortical Labs has now done is beyond that.

[one guy in new jersey]

To inure the human race to atrocities inflicted on human life after lab-induced conception.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

Insanity

[epluribus_2]

SkyNet’s preschool training.

[freefdny]

I’ll fight as long as I get to work out with the hot chick as my thrall.

[yesthatjallen]

Previously. With links to videos:

A Dish of Neurons Playing DOOM Is the Wildest Thing I’ve Seen in Ages

[mythenjoseph]

Cortical democratized biological programming / adaptive real time goal-directed learning? / They obtain/make these from “pluripotent stem cells” to create a “wet fabric”.....what the hell is wrong with people? Instead of making practical improvements in fields we need these clowns are trying to invent a machine that will try to become independent....I see nothing positive coming from this / anyone here in Freeper land see something I don’t?

[desertsolitaire]

It reminds me of research published a long time ago now, that had scientists merging human brain cells into mice brains ostensibly to create animals to better study Alzheimer’s disease, etc. The throw away line in the article about it was that the scientists were watching the mouse human hybrids carefully and if they seemed to show any signs of intelligent, human-like behavior, they would destroy them immediately, because that would be unethical not to. What?

[posterchild]

It would be interesting to compare in a similar setting human neurons vs pig neurons vs octopus neurons ...

[Axenolith]

Newtons Wake, by Ken Macleod

Beginning of the plot synopsis:

“In the late 20th century, at the start of a war between the European nations and the United States, a US Army AI directing weapons overcame its programming to become self-aware. Then followed the “Hard Rapture”, an explosive expansion and evolution of computer systems that left most of humanity dead or devoured while the AIs and assimilated persons progressed into posthumanity beyond human comprehension and departed for parts unknown.”

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There is some type of software/programming now that can overcome other language/operating systems. In the SciFi work the AI realizes a capability to overwrite/hack human brains and subsequently advances orders of magnitude with the processing capacity of millions of citizens.