Artificial Intelligence Made From DNA

[The Vegan Marxist]

Test Tube DNA Brain Gets Questions Right
by Nic Halverson
July 27, 2011

Eat your heart out Steven Spielberg -- turns out artificial intelligence is not just a figment of your imagination.

A team of researchers lead by Lulu Qian from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have for the first developed an artificial neural network -- that is, the beginnings of a brain -- out of DNA molecules. And when quizzed, the brain answered the questions correctly.

They turned to molecules because they knew that before the neural-based brain evolved, single-celled organisms showed limited forms of intelligence. These microorganisms did not have brains, but instead had molecules that interacted with each other and spurred the creatures to search for food and avoid toxins. The bottom line is that molecules can act like circuits, processing and transmitting information and computing data.

The Caltech used DNA molecules specifically for the experiment, because these molecules interact in specific ways determined by the sequence of their four bases: adenine (abbreviated A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). And what's more, scientists can encode the sequence into strands of DNA molecules, essentially programming them to function in a predetermined way.

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.

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.

The team published their results in the July 21 issue of the journal Nature.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/artif...na-110727.html

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I am not super knowledgeable about this but as I understand their was a theory in the 90s that DNA may act as a nano computer, enabling a species under stress to evolve a different survival strategy and that this may be a vehicle for evolution. I am not sure if this idea still has currency or not.

[OhYesIdid]

I am not super knowledgeable about this but as I understand their was a theory in the 90s that DNA may act as a nano computer, enabling a species under stress to evolve a different survival strategy and that this may be a vehicle for evolution. I am not sure if this idea still has currency or not.

It's actually the plot of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio, Forgive me if I'm slow, but how exactly did this neuron "think"? I'm courious as to the mechanics of the game.

[scarletghoul]

Wow, thats so cool.

[The Vegan Marxist]

It's actually the plot of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio, Forgive me if I'm slow, but how exactly did this neuron "think"? I'm courious as to the mechanics of the game.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news...he-brain.shtml

[OhYesIdid]

Amidst the background hum of electrical signaling generated by neurons in the brain, scientists have found that local groups of neurons, firing in coordination, sometimes create a signal that is mirrored instantaneously and precisely by other groups of neurons across the brain. These transient episodes of coherence across different parts of the brain may be an electrical signature of thought and actions.
[...]
In this research, Dietmar Plenz and colleagues at NIMH and Duke University pinpointed LFPs in the cortex that surpassed a minimal size threshold, and then searched the rest of the cortex to see what was occurring at the same time. In each case, they found other answering LFPs across the brain that mimicked each other with high precision: there was no degradation or loss of power (amplitude) in the signal. Unlike what is observed after dropping a stone in a pond—with wavelets getting smaller farther from the stone—the intensity of the LFPs was the same across the brain. The investigators call these LFPs coherence potentials.
[...]
These findings emerged from recent work that demonstrated that, like other systems in nature, the cortex exists at a critical state between stability and instability. A characteristic of this state in the brain is the presence of neuronal avalanches—if a stimulus reaches a certain threshold, it will set off cascades of neuronal firing.

ooh, how to set off a brainstorm... reach critical stimuli mass and watch the inner self light up

[The Vegan Marxist]

ooh, how to set off a brainstorm... reach critical stimuli mass and watch the inner self light up

I think you'd really enjoy reading neurological scientist Dr. David Eagleman's latest work, "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030...SIN=0307377334

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I think that results like this, while only tangentially related to true Artficial Intelligence, do help to shed light on how we might construct a biocomputer.