There wouldn’t be PlayStation without Pong, but there may not be humans if scientists don’t slow down. Well, not natural ones anyway. A team of boffins from the company Cortical Labs have created a lab-grown brain capable of playing Atari’s classic arcade cabinet.
In what sounds like the premise to a horror movie, the insane scientists grew brain cells and connected them to the video game using electrodes. These electrodes then communicated the position of the ball and its distance from the paddle, enabling the cells to produce an electric signal of their own, and attempt to hit it.
While its success rate wasn’t flawless, the lab-grown brain performed well above random chance. It’s important to note that the cells aren’t sentient, and therefore don’t know they’re playing a video game like a human would. Still, this is proper doomsday stuff, isn’t it?
The scientists now intend to experiment with alcohol, and see what kind of impact it has on the lab-grown brain’s ability to play Pong. The ultimate goal of the research team is create technology which could be used to help test treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. It’s an admirable endeavour, but we’re not entirely sure how we feel about a test tube playing video games.
[source scienceinpublic.com.au, via bbc.co.uk]
Comments 14
Can we collectively as the human race please stop turning dystopian scifi movies into documentaries?
I hope in the future humans are just Pong-playing monsters.
@HotGoomba Probably an improvement to be fair.
As long as these brain cells don’t become sentient, and capable of commenting about how Sony or Xbox is best and always mentioning GamePass, I’m happy.
The collection of idiots we have now is more than enough, we don’t need to manufacture more in a lab.
Creepy, but absolutely amazing!
Okay so the title of this article made it sound like it was saying “The scientists who made the game Kill It With Fire grew brain cells that play Pong” I know what it means but I definitely clicked on the article thinking “the guys who made Kill It With Fire are actual scientists?”
they will have more plats than me before long
If they could create brain cells that can do my job (not that much of a challenge) then i could spend more time at the golf course or playing my ps5..err sorry i mean spending more time with my neglected wife lol 🤣
"It’s important to note that the cells aren’t sentient, and therefore don’t know they’re playing a video game like a human would" - Would we though?? It's getting easier and easier to believe we actually live in a simulation
isnt this how horror movies start 🤣😂
I have some serious moral concerns about this. When the cells are inevitably left alone what happens to their conscious? Who told these scientists that they could breed life just to kill it?
The guy on the right looks normal, the guy in the middle looks kinda creepy, not gonna lie.
This is strange stuff, but I don't really know enough about it to really make an actual judgement call.
Does it feel "sad" when the ball drops? Seriously...
Nice article- what is this, Kotaku?! Actually it's better than a Kotaku article because if this was Kotaku the same information would be presented in an article 3,000 words long.
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