Thursday, July 28, 2011

Artificial Intelligence using Human cells? Check

"I'm kind of parts a person!"
Researchers have successfully created a rudimentary artificial neural network using human DNA strands...

This sparks both my scientific curiosity and my love of cool scifi... and now those 2 sides of my personality are fighting to the death!

This does not mean Skynet has been created, however. As that was  100% synthetically derived artificial intelligence. This is more playing god... giving the drive of life towards organic building materials.  Nobody should have a problem with that.

From the article:


Without getting too complicated, Qian and her team created four highly simplified artificial neurons in test tubes comprised of 112 strands of DNA, each strand programmed with a specific sequence of bases to interact with other strands. The interactions resulted in outputs (or not), basically mimicking the actions of neurons firing. In order to see the DNA neurons firing, the scientists attached a fluorescent molecular marker that lit up when activated.

You knew this picture was coming
Next, the researchers played a trivia game with the neural network to see if it could identify one of four scientists based on a series of yes/no questions. Basic information related to the identity of the scientists was given to the tiny DNA brain in the form of encoded strands of DNA.


To quiz the brain, a human player placed DNA strands that hinted at the answer into the test tube. With these clues, the neural network was able to produce the correct answer, which was visible thanks to the fluorescent markers. In this way, the network could also communicate when it lacked enough information to correctly identify one of the scientists, or if any of the clues contained contradictory information. The research team played this game using 27 possible ways of answering questions and the neural network in the test tube answered correctly each time.


Source -> http://news.discovery.com/tech/artificial-intelligence-made-from-dna-110727.html

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