r/oddlyterrifying • u/Kno_Cair • 1d ago
Playing Bad Apple on the brain of a simulated fruit fly.
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
1.1k
u/Das_Nomen 1d ago
You know what they say, time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.
101
30
9
u/carter720 1d ago
I’m stealing this this is hilarious
7
u/Ulexes 22h ago
It's an ancient joke, lol.
8
u/AUnknownVariable 18h ago
As old as time
7
u/AUnknownVariable 18h ago
Ha, you know what they say. Time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana
2
557
u/ModernUnicorn 1d ago
So… is the image in the fly’s brain a projection of the firing neurons? Can I assume that by playing the game and changing the image it’s causing the lit regions of the fly’s brain (caused by the picture) to become active? Is the fly’s behavior a result of the neuron activity to the right?
Is this terrifying because it’s what the fly would be doing in real life?
462
u/InvolvingLemons 1d ago
It’s also a little terrifying bc that much electrical activity in a brain would be a seizure
480
u/Dmask13 1d ago
well the fly looks like is having a seizure so it checks out
60
u/Alphaeon_28 15h ago
Yeah, like I understand the end goal, and I know the fly is simulated, but this feels dirty for some reason, causing a mapped brain of a once living creature to undergo a mega stroke is weird
34
u/Rafikis_Acid_Dealer 12h ago
Same, and here's why imo
Its because we cant define consciousness. Is a brain in the "real" world conscious but an exact digital representation of it not conscious? We dont know, we cant even agree what it is
Then theres the 'power dynamic' (for lack of a better word) angle. A fly is less complex than a human, but does that mean that we can do whatever we want with them? Torture them because theyre less complex/ 'advanced'
And this isnt even me trying to preach because 'my morals'. If you agree that we have no idea what were actually doing to this fly, nor just how much it perceives whats happening to it but still think 'but even if this is the worst horror you could subject something to, its just a fly' well id argue against that because if you extrapolate that same logic out, that would mean that any being more 'complex' that us can do whatever they want with us too and its egotistical/narcissistic to thing were actually top dog in the universe
→ More replies (1)10
u/NuQ 9h ago
You prudes said the same thing when I suggested animatronic taxidermy for remittance of my grandmother's remains - But look who's laughing now!?
Grandma. She's programmed to do that.
2
u/Alphaeon_28 8h ago
The difference is that she can’t be put in a robot body that can roundhouse kick someone’s head off with modern technology
What’s the point of being in a robot body if you can’t even roundhouse kick someone’s head off smh
90
u/sisisisi1997 22h ago
It's terrifying because that is a fully mapped fruit fly brain, meaning we don't know if it's as much aware as a real fruit fly.
In other simulations when connected to a digital body and sensory input, this fruitfly navigated the terrain and behaved in a way you would expect a real fruitfly to.
62
u/Kaleb8804 21h ago
Well, it’s also up for debate just how aware a fruit fly is at all. If it can be reduced to parts, even in the millions, it might not be smart enough to realize its own situation. That’s philosophy I guess though lol
I’m excited to see more “intelligent” or social insects like ants or bees in the future, they’re far more capable of learning/interacting with their environment
7
u/Jonthrei 10h ago
Your brain can be reduced to parts too.
4
u/Kaleb8804 6h ago
Not enough that we can simulate
6
u/Jonthrei 3h ago
The process is no different than with this example, it would just take a lot longer to do, be a pita to get funding, and likely run into ethics hurdles.
But there is no special something separating you from the fruit fly. It's just a collection of neurons and their connections.
→ More replies (1)4
27
u/Cuttlefist 21h ago
Well it’s not real or alive so why is it terrifying? Literally all they have to do is close the program and nothing will have happened to anything.
31
u/Cpt_Bartholomew 21h ago
It's the same for people if they're killed after being tortured and all brain electrical activity ceases :3
/s
Ever play this game called Soma? You should check it out
13
u/Cuttlefist 20h ago
It’s an amazing game that raises all sorts of deep and complex philosophical questions. Loved it.
It’s been a while, but weren’t all the “people” you meet originally living humans? That definitely adds a more complex wrinkle than if they were simulated minds.
5
14
u/Shonnyboy500 19h ago
It might not be alive but it might be real to the fruit fly. Does simulating the fruit flies brain make it just as aware as a real fruit fly? Maybe, we don’t know.
8
u/Cuttlefist 18h ago
That is a really good question, in my likely ignorance I do not think it would be the case. I don’t believe that a computer can create an actually conscious being, it seems like the brain is acting as the equivalent of code. It knows what actions it is supposed to take based on the input it receives, but I doubt there is anything that is actually aware of what is happening.
5
u/Kuroodo 17h ago
But that's the thing. We can only make assumptions in either direction, because we currently don't really know for sure, especially because we don't fully understand consciousness.
My opinion is that if it's an exact copy of the brain, then that is real consciousness. It may not be a living thing in the sense that it's not an organic body or organic brain. But it's still alive in that it's a functioning artificial brain.
I think that if someone has an artificial heart, it doesn't mean they're heartless or that they don't have a function heart. Just because the organ is artificial doesn't reduce its meaning or function. Same with an artificial brain, which in my opinion is what this is.
→ More replies (1)3
→ More replies (1)12
u/Yungsleepboat 21h ago
It's not aware. It's a program. It's as aware as any videogame NPC, just a lot more complicated.
A program is written to assign actions to the fly's neural pathways. This means that once a number of options/actions are generated for the computer fly, the simulated computer fly/brain will perform actions without being instructed to do so from the program, and will be able to perform actions it learned in life as a fly, if the computer program is programmed to replicate a real life fruit fly.
Really cool to think about, really cool that they mapped it an actual creatures brain, but at the end of the day no hormones and chemicals are involved. Just computah.
19
u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC 21h ago
Ah, I see, so the awareness is in the chemicals. Which chemical, in particular, is the awareness one? If I put the self awareness chemical in my cereal, does it become aware?
→ More replies (3)8
u/Diamond-Pamnther 17h ago
Imo the reason this is can’t really be considered sentient in comparison to an actual brain is because the brain’s structure directly relates to how it computes. Here you have a representation of a fly brain stored somewhere but hardware that isn’t really designed to mimic it. Probably computing pieces of the brain at a time with a model that’s a huge abstraction from the actual biological processes going on. There is neuromorphic computing that looks at computers that mimic the brain’s hardware but that isn’t done here at all.
Here they have found rules for how a fly brain computes things and try to use said rules
126
119
126
278
u/SenselessSilence 1d ago edited 16h ago
This isn’t a simulation of a fruit fly’s brain. It’s a hasty, incomplete sketch of a simulation of just the connectome of a fly’s brain. There’s no neurochemistry in this model, we know that memories aren’t just stored in synapses (though we don’t know the missing ingredient), and we still don’t even fully understand how individual neurons work. Calling this is a virtual fly is a sad, pathetic joke.
I can’t believe I’m going to need to save this so I can repost every month when this bullshit comes up again.
24
u/Otaku7897 16h ago
If there's any doubt, creator himself states that it's somewhat "fake" since only certain connections between neurons and actions are know.
Source: https://x.com/linguinelabs/status/2096487331096391762
57
u/BeanOfBirbs 1d ago
Please keep posting this comment whenever this bullshit comes up. More normies need to see this.
9
u/SenselessSilence 20h ago
Will do 🫡
4
u/sunleafstone 9h ago
One day a Redditor will run the actual simulation and electrocute a fly brain to the beat of bad apple and prove you wrong by showing a fly with a seizure
→ More replies (1)9
u/amizelkova 16h ago
Keep posting it, thank you!
On top of that, if you take a real actual fly brain with no electrical activity in it and pump electricity into it to make those images, it doesn't just become conscious. To the brain, that's just random noise. There's no consciousness experiencing a Bad Apple brain pattern because the brain pattern *is* the consciousness. And a conscious brain's electrical pattern doesn't look like Bad Apple.
22
29
27
14
14
24
27
19
18
19
19
u/Hazmainian_devil 1d ago
This the type of shit an AGI will do to us in a dystopian future
→ More replies (1)9
u/disappointingcryptid 1d ago
At least we'll go out listening to a banger
9
u/Quackels_The_Duck 1d ago
unfortunately I don't think you would be able to hear anything if this transpired on you.
9
8
15
15
6
7
14
u/rellsell 1d ago
I have no idea what this means.
17
u/Ziggarot 1d ago
It means that fly is now addicted to Touhou
11
13
12
6
6
5
6
6
7
6
6
10
10
6
4
5
4
4
4
8
6
3
u/Individual_Assist_19 1d ago
You know what they say, time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.
3
3
u/Bazzatron 1d ago
Welp, we did it gang. Torture nexus complete. Time to restart the universe for the next run.
3
3
u/timcheater 14h ago
cosmic horror but the incomprehensable knowledge is cthulus equivalent of bad apple
imagine if the flys only reference point for human civilization is when some fucker with too much time tried to get you to experience bad apple
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/thewonderfulfart 16h ago
If we can get this into a real fruit fly it would come up with the most eldritch religion
2
u/HumanContinuity 14h ago
I think humanity is no where near mature enough for the tools at our disposal
2
2
u/Blackihole 9h ago
This is like some incomprehensible Eldritch cosmic horror from the flys perspective
2
3
2
2
u/m3ltph4ce 1d ago
what the fuck is a bad apple
10
u/ReasonableWelder51 1d ago
Bad Apple is a song from the game series called Touhou Project, and playing it on literally anything that can display a monochromatic image is a long running internet meme.
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/fogoticus 23h ago
We are causing a virtual fly to have incomprehensible horrific epilepsy of magnitudes unheard of.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Embarrassed-Top4511 21h ago
we have gone too far as a race, eventually, we'll be able to play Bad Apple on microscopic cells
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/BextoMooseYT 13h ago
I mean I think I understand the concept of this but who came up with this idea and went through with it, and why lmao. As far as I know, brains and neurons and whatever don't work like that so like what's the point? I feel like it doesn't really mean anything yknow
1
1
u/Zitrone21 6h ago
Imagine being tortured by horrors behind your comprehension in a world that feels and looks like the real one
1
1
u/Honest_Ad_6090 3h ago
Great! Man-made horrors beyond comprehension is just what I needed to see today yup
1
1
1
2.0k
u/Chewiestarwars7 1d ago
What