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 video of a fly flying away. That would probably be less misleading too.
Yeah, this is pretty misleading from them. IIRC we can't even really simulate much smaller connectomes like C. Elegans'. Claiming to be able to simulate a fly on a consumer machine would be a huge breakthrough.
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.
I have no exposure to connectomes - or really anything quite like this (as opposed to good ol’ fashioned perceptrons) - so forgive my following uninformed question:
> Can someone explain if this software is ethical?
Probably not. People have been coming up with ethical frameworks for thousands of years and we have yet to come to a consensus. So it’s very unlikely that someone can say conclusively whether this is ethical or not, because that would require us to either 1) prove a single ethical framework is correct and then apply that framework to this software or 2) prove that under all possible ethical frameworks this software is either ethical or not ethical.
Interesting work! There's NeuroMechFly (https://github.com/NeLy-EPFL/flygym/) available, you might try using that to simulate the fly body in real time as well.
> Infinite Pain is a computer running a deterministic neural simulation of a microscopic nematode worm’s brain (c. elegans), subjected to regular pain stimuli.
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 several versions ago (in February, so this would have been Opus 4.5) to browser, so it can do so. This will run on the browser. I'll have it make it so that on mobile you can tap the fly or turn on the camera and it sees you, and same on desktop actually. Since the connectome is only 668 neurons, this will run super fast. Actually I'll make it allow for several flies, and let you drop food. I did something like this before here[1] but using the real connectome is something very different and very amazing. I'll have it add an experimental 3D mode with threejs, I'm not sure if that is also possible or not, we'll have to see it. This size of task usually takes Claude a few hours, so check my comment in the morning for the implementation, I'll reply here once it's done and hosted.
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 video of a fly flying away. That would probably be less misleading too.
Can someone explain if this software is ethical?
Probably not. People have been coming up with ethical frameworks for thousands of years and we have yet to come to a consensus. So it’s very unlikely that someone can say conclusively whether this is ethical or not, because that would require us to either 1) prove a single ethical framework is correct and then apply that framework to this software or 2) prove that under all possible ethical frameworks this software is either ethical or not ethical.
But "The Amazing Digital Circus" explores this concept relating to human brain scans, and how the 'simulated' brains would react under simulation.
If you do not think of fruit flies as moral patients, sure, yeah, who cares, they're like just fruit flies you know?
> Honesty section:
I wouldn’t mind an human written README
https://youtu.be/A8fDr7Rr7yM?is=cHwOQVrli9oXLdqY
https://www.instagram.com/p/DMfi-9Vsl-u/
> Infinite Pain is a computer running a deterministic neural simulation of a microscopic nematode worm’s brain (c. elegans), subjected to regular pain stimuli.
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 several versions ago (in February, so this would have been Opus 4.5) to browser, so it can do so. This will run on the browser. I'll have it make it so that on mobile you can tap the fly or turn on the camera and it sees you, and same on desktop actually. Since the connectome is only 668 neurons, this will run super fast. Actually I'll make it allow for several flies, and let you drop food. I did something like this before here[1] but using the real connectome is something very different and very amazing. I'll have it add an experimental 3D mode with threejs, I'm not sure if that is also possible or not, we'll have to see it. This size of task usually takes Claude a few hours, so check my comment in the morning for the implementation, I'll reply here once it's done and hosted.
[1] https://stateofutopia.com/papers/1/evolving-brains-cull-long...