The Latest Weird Thing to Play Doom Is the Mapped-Out Brain of a Fruit Fly
Google Research mapped a male fruit fly’s brain, and it only took a few days for modders to start making it play Doom.
The brain of a fruit fly has been rendered digital and put to the task of playing the classic first-person shooter Doom. This unusual feat began when Google partnered with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus to map the complex neural structures of a male fruit fly, generating 166,000 neurons in the process.
Software engineer Alex Wormuth took this breakthrough further, creating a simulated brain inspired by the map and teaching it to navigate Doom's treacherous levels. The simulated brain processes the game's visual inputs, activating specific neurons to perform actions like shooting enemies. Wormuth's experiment can be observed on the Doomfly website, displaying the fly's sensory input, neural activity, and performance metrics.
The same approach was replicated for other games like Super Mario 64 and Beat Saber, demonstrating the potential of this technology beyond Doom. The fly brain's capabilities even extended to trading Bitcoin and even deploying its own cryptocurrency token. While the long-term implications of this research on neuroscience are significant, for now, the fruit fly brain continues to amuse and challenge enthusiasts on social media platforms.
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