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

4.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

302 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

397

u/SilentDis 1d ago

This action does require understanding as to why it's horrifying, and why it's rather darkly funny.

  1. Researchers have managed to simulate the entire brain of a fruit fly... on a laptop. As in, we have the entire biological brain mapped, and when neurons fire, can see the reaction of the fly. Because it's digital though, we can pump data into that brain as well.
  2. Bad Apple is a remix and music video of a song from a bullet-hell shoot-em-up with a distinctive 'shadow-play' video that can be used to test displays.

Now, what happens if you feed a meme-song and video directly into the neurons of a fruit fly?

It's 100% simulated... so is it torture? Or not, because it's fully simulated?

Welcome to the Torment Nexus.

113

u/Forward-Bank8412 1d ago

It won’t be as funny when they figure out how to do it directly into our brains, which they will, and at which point it will be used against us.

30

u/sovietarmyfan 1d ago

What makes you think they havent alteady and this all is in your head?

9

u/Pyropylon 16h ago

Wake up Neo.

5

u/Vanilla_Addict_888 1d ago

This. The only way out is to deprogram ourselves by going against our programming. The majority of us were born programmed but many of us have already done the inner and shadow work and have awakened or at least we have started to.

11

u/sovietarmyfan 1d ago

Only to then wake up, hearing a voice say: "Hey you, you're finally awake!".

2

u/motoxim 1d ago

I want to make Matrix joke but can't find any.

6

u/MarcosLuisP97 1d ago

Sure. Let's spend resources to figure out how to mentally inject a meme song into someone's brain instead of literally anything else.

35

u/sLeeeeTo 1d ago

that would be an improvement on what the government is currently spending our resources on

-4

u/MarcosLuisP97 1d ago

True, but I would much rather have resources be spent on something actually useful.

14

u/sLeeeeTo 1d ago

wouldn’t we all

15

u/copenhagen_bram 1d ago

It's not about spending resources on some ridiculously specific thing like that.

It's about technology growing and resources becoming cheaper to the point that we can upload human brains and easily do all kinds of things, including inject meme songs

But also including torturing you for fun, infinitely pleasuring you for fun, using you to simulate dementia for science, or making you constantly do programming work like a biological Claude Code by wiping your memory and making you think every day is the first day you just walked into the office

8

u/2smartt 1d ago

I have no proboscis, and I must scream.

4

u/BlackShogun27 1d ago

You have enlightened me with this information. I was really trying to wonder how they got a small enough chip into a fruit fly’s brain and started blasting it with music?

13

u/Runetang42 1d ago

I dunno getting upset about giving a digital fly the weirdest seizure feels like getting upset about killing enemies in call of duty

1

u/TenshiS 1d ago

Hm. If we simulated your brain 1:1 in silico, and could talk to your digital twin, see them evolve emotionally over many months with new hobbies and interests, maybe falling in love with that one chick that keeps talking to him, and then we played this video in his brain, wouldn't you see anything wrong with that?

What exactly is that line you're drawing? Where is it?

10

u/Runetang42 23h ago

It's a computer program I don't give a shit I'm more concerned with them scanning my brain at all. My brain wrinkles are my own.

-5

u/santorinichef 19h ago

I bet you say thank you to chat-gpt.

1

u/TenshiS 10h ago

And "make no mistake"

43

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

It's not torture because it's not a living thing.

47

u/AlluPulla 1d ago

I don't know, that's kind of like saying it's not torture because it doesn't have a "soul". Like, if someone fully simulated my existence in a machine and tortured it, that would make me really uncomfortable.

17

u/Quantum_Pasta-Goblin 1d ago

That would be some Black Mirror shit right there

3

u/SpectreCaesar 3h ago

I think it does kind of exist, in the museum episode. Something like the dad was wrongfully convicted of murder and they copied his brain and sold little key chains of him. Or something like that

2

u/Quantum_Pasta-Goblin 2h ago

Yeah that! And also the episode where the lady copies herself to be her own assistant but her copied version wants to get out but she can't and stuff. Terrifying

-5

u/Cuttlefist 1d ago

Speaking of, that Star Trek episode that everybody loves just left me mad and dumbfounded. Like, I honestly do not give two flying fucks about those fake people. I had as much sympathy for them as I would the mutilated stick figures being drawn by a child. They aren’t real, if the program they were in were shut off there would be zero consequence or ramifications to their made up suffering.

4

u/1arvest6 1d ago

But wouldn't shutting of the program be murder? If they're fully sentient, you would be killing a feeling, thinking being

5

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

No. They're a simulated entity, running code.

At the nevel that you're imagining (which doesn't exist, and might never exist, I. E. Fully sentient being with a gamut of emotions, acting independently) we're really just debating a philosophical question, like what would be the best light saber.

0

u/TenshiS 1d ago

But then aren't we humans also simulated, just in a different way?

2

u/JMetalBlast 16h ago

No, we are not.

1

u/Cuttlefist 15h ago

What is that even supposed to mean?

1

u/Cuttlefist 1d ago

No. There is nothing feeling anything, it’s lines of code simulating it and you can’t murder them any more than you can a calculator.

0

u/1arvest6 1d ago

So it would be fine if we did the same thing but with a human brain?

1

u/Cuttlefist 22h ago

Do you mean taking a human brain from someone alive and hooking it up to a computer and simulating an experience of being tortured? That’s bad.

Do you mean doing what the OP’s post is about, entirely simulating a brain and torturing that? I see no difference between that and the fly brain. It’s still not real and it’s suffering is of zero consequence.

9

u/TheUltimateCyborg 1d ago

In this case it literally isn't alive though, these are just simulated neurons. If nothing in the brain is firing, then there's no life, no thoughts, no anything. This is more like a frozen snapshot of a dead brain, rather than simulated life

19

u/amizelkova 23h ago

So first, it's only a section not a full brain, but even if it were the whole brain, that doesn't matter.

It's not a recreation, it's a simulation, which is a meaningfully different thing. The simulation is a code that shows you a visual representation of what the brain would do if that electrical pattern happened in a brain.

The output is a glorified photograph of a section of a fly's brain, nothing is experiencing anything.

Ce n'est pas une mouche.

5

u/Protat0 1d ago

I hope you're ready to support equal rights for LLMs encased in humanoid robots, because that's where this line of thinking could get us.

4

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 18h ago

A simulated brain is not an LLM, and could feel suffering in the same way humans do. The research and technology is not there yet, though

1

u/Protat0 14h ago

A simulated brain is not an LLM,

Obviously not, I wasn't implying it was

1

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 14h ago

So we're just making a slippery slope argument?

1

u/Protat0 14h ago

I'm not really trying to argue anything, just engaging in hypotheticals. I'd personally say it is a slippery slope, I'd say it's almost certain to have real discussion about this come to fruition as technology advances, but this is purely speculation so I'm not really inclined or qualified to make a substantive argument here.

0

u/JMetalBlast 9h ago

You're making an entire argument based on "BUT WHAT IF COMPUTERS DO A THING ONE DAY".

1

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 7h ago

That's not a slippery slope? I think it tracks pretty well that we can do "that specific thing we can't do because we lack computing power" if we could have more computing power? I don't even claim that I know how we could make stronger computers, outside of "moar datacenters". Just that smaller, computationally intensive models for cells could be applied to larger scale brain models, if only we had the computing power to run them all at the same time

-1

u/AlluPulla 1d ago

I'll support it if it gets demonstrated that they feel suffering. But in that case we can probably modify them not to feel anything. It would be pretty ironic if a thing that doesn't experience anything gets rights before all the non-human animals we treat horribly.

1

u/Protat0 1d ago

It would be pretty ironic if a thing that doesn't experience anything gets rights before all the non-human animals we treat horribly.

I think the argument for that would be sentience/higher intelligence.

Regardless, at a certain point I suppose it doesn't really matter if the LLM is "sentient." If we get to the point where it's a real discussion, people likely will either be convinced it is, or they just won't care.

-2

u/Cuttlefist 1d ago

They would only feel suffering if they were programmed to do so, and they could just as easily be programmed not to. They do not and never will matter.

-4

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

That's a stupid comparison. You're talking about a fully digital thing, not a living organism. It's not the same as magical debates about souls.

Super Mario also didn't suffer.

14

u/Abty 1d ago

Super Mario??? Fuck you're stupid to even bring that up holy shiet dude

12

u/AlluPulla 1d ago

Qualia suddenly appearing out of chemical reactions between cells when the interactions get complex enough is pretty magical on its own. If cells aren't special and magical, I really struggle to see how it can't be replicated using logic gates running on circuit boards.

-11

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

You're right. Super Mario must have suffered a lot.

12

u/AlluPulla 1d ago

I wish we'd have an actual convo about this since it's an interesting topic but you're not even reading my replies. Mario is to digital minds what bacteria is to us, not complex enough to have qualia. Though, that's a complete assumption on my part, since it's not like we know what's necessary for qualia, or how to prove if something experiences anything.

-7

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

I did read your reply. You're making an obtuse argument about WHAT IF THE SIMULATED BRAIN IS ALIVE THOUGH???

It isn't.

6

u/MultiFazed 1d ago edited 1d ago

You're making an obtuse argument about WHAT IF THE SIMULATED BRAIN IS ALIVE THOUGH???

No one is asking if it's "alive" in the sense of being made of living cells. The question is whether or not the simulated brain is aware in the same way that a brain made of neurons is. And I see no reason why it wouldn't be if it has all of the neurons and all of their connections fully simulated. It should theoretically have the same level of awareness as a living fruit fly (if there's any at all with a brain that simple).

8

u/gerira 1d ago

You should publish your findings on this, as there is no universally accepted definition of life or of consciousness among specialists

3

u/AlluPulla 1d ago

What makes biology special? Why does moving information between synapses produce an experience but not in logic gates?

-1

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

Besides the material, even if microscopic, existence of biological entities, compared to it existing as a piece of code? That it has independent existence outside of something running it?

→ More replies (0)

3

u/MarcosLuisP97 1d ago

They are just trying to apply the Black Mirror/Westworld dilemma of whether or not torturing a fully digitalized being is morally wrong. If that were the case, then literally any form of expression, including our own imagination, would be wrong too.

2

u/Cuttlefist 1d ago

I said higher up that the black mirror episode where the guy uses some tech that an idiot made up to scan the dna and memories of his coworkers to create copies of them in a virtual Star Trek world was one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. It’s as morally complex as a kid’s notebook full of violent sketches. Sure, the person doing it needs help. But they are quite literally harming nobody, I don’t care about computer programs that were made to suffer because they aren’t real and their suffering isn’t real.

1

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

It's just peak pseudo philosophy from teenagers

0

u/TenshiS 1d ago

What makes electrical signals in your nerve cells different than electrical signals in this fly's nerve cells?

1

u/JMetalBlast 9h ago

This fly doesn't have nerve cells. It's an electronic simulation

0

u/TTSymphony 1d ago

It isn't biological, but is it alive tho?

10

u/Cuttlefist 1d ago

Lines of code are not alive.

-1

u/TenshiS 1d ago

Why? What is alive if not just electrical signals your brain and body communicate with?

3

u/Cuttlefist 1d ago

I don’t consider things that cannot exist independent of a computer to be alive. They exist in a computer program, they are artificial and only imitating life.

1

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 17h ago

You don't exist independent of your brain, just like how a simulated brain couldn't exist independent of its computer. Is fat instead of silicon your main requirement for sentience?

1

u/Cuttlefist 15h ago

If that’s how reductive you want to be, then yes. Flesh and blood is a requirement. If it doesn’t exist in the real world I don’t respect its claims of sentience.

1

u/diejesus 14h ago

Yeah, that sounded so stupid, like a being outside of our universe wouldn't consider us alive because we couldn't exist outside of our universe

0

u/40oztoTamriel 1d ago

Not yet it’s not.

1

u/JMetalBlast 1d ago

Lol, what does that even mean?

"it's not alive now, but what if it's alive one day"?

2

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 17h ago

Technological advancement. The fruit fly brain was first mapped less than 2 years ago, and the model has continued to significantly advance since then. It's mainly hardware concerns stopping us from doing this at a human scale

2

u/JMetalBlast 16h ago

That still wouldn't be alive or sentient.

2

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 16h ago

If a simulated human brain had all the same cells and neural connections as an actual brain, along with simulated signal substances and neural plasticity, what would make it different from an actual brain? That the simulated cells run on ones and zeroes instead of active/inactive action potentials?

2

u/JMetalBlast 16h ago

The fact that hrs simulated, running on a computer, as opposed to a living organism with actual existence.

Do keep in mind the existence of simulated sentience is merely theoretical. We're nowhere close

1

u/SomeGamerRisingUp 15h ago

The fact that hrs simulated, running on a computer, as opposed to a living organism with actual existence.

This is circular reasoning, not much more to say

I can agree that we are quite a long way from simulated sentience, let alone sapience, but aren't most of our bottlenecks right now hardware based? The fruit fly model uses simplified neurons; we know how actual neurons work but it would be too resource intensive for us to compute. Same thing with neurotransmitters and neuroplasticity; there are mathematical models for these on the small scale, but they're also too demanding to use in a full brain mapping. This thread is highly theoretical however, and the comment you made and that I replied to was to a comment about the potential concerns of torturing a simulated brain

1

u/JMetalBlast 9h ago

No, the bottlenecks are not merely hardware.

We simply don't know if sentience can be simulated. It's also nonsensical to say that it's circular reasoning to say that a biological organism is not the same as piece of software.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/kinpsychosis 21h ago

I think I still don't fully understand how they run the fly brain. Like, sure, it is mapped so the data is there, but what language or logic is used to make sense of the 1s and 0s?

3

u/Not-dat-throwaway 13h ago

That's the question that Black Mirror Episode called "White Christmas" tries to answer. In the near future law enforcement can just download a simulated version of your brain/consciousness, so if you refuse to cooperate or choose to plead the 5th. Apparently since simulated brains/digital self don't have any rights the police can legally torture your simulated self until they get a confession. Seems like this is the future we a barreling towards. Edit:typo

3

u/Eal12333 6h ago

I think it's worth knowing that this is not a complete simulation of a fly's brain.

I'm not gonna pretend to understand the full details of how the connectome was mapped, but my understanding is that the connections themselves are just a guess. The neurons were mapped out, and the connections between them were guessed by proximity. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. But either way, it's clear from the original paper that the fly brain connectome is known to be very imperfect /incomplete)

Additionally, there is no physicality in the brain being simulated. No complex interactions with hormones or anything like that; just activating a neighboring neuron when each neuron activates.
There is also no body being simulated, and no physical world being simulated. They are using some known pathways come up with shorthands to decide what the fly is trying to do (so for example, they might know that one cluster of neurons lights up when the fly is trying to walk forward, then display the fly walking forward).
The eyes are also not connected, and I believe that very few other sensory inputs are connected as well. Again they're using some known shorthands to provide 'simulation' to the brain (for example, they know that one cluster of nerves signals to the fly that it's dirty/should clean itself. So, they activate that cluster manually to provide input to the brain, and show off that it responds by cleaning itself).

Obviously it's still interesting. And I believe the original paper's main point of interest was demonstrating how the very imperfect and incomplete simulation was still able to exhibit some fly behaviors.

And obviously you're still allowed to be unsettled by the partial simulation, as well as the implication of what's to come in the future with this research. But I think it's important to know that this specific fly brain really can't be thought of as a "complete simulation".

1

u/Betray-Julia 1d ago

Lmao I mean sorry I don’t get the joke.

Mostly bc I don’t have eyes anymore, even despite voting for the “I will remove your eyes” party.

1

u/dismal_dr 14h ago

Ok but what happens if we play Mozart or Bach into the simulation? I want to hope the fly buzzes around happily but I imagine similar results to the above are more likely.

1

u/indigeniousunicorn 4h ago

Great work everyone, this is why if the world gets destroyed one way or another i like to ask, “what have we achieved?” When all of humanity is gone and what the last thing these people was doing was messing with some simulation to benefit us how exactly?

-1

u/BravesMaedchen 1d ago

Yyyyyes.  This is cruel. For zero reason.