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Comment by sidewndr46 | Hacker News Reader

A question for someone who understands the neurology and biology of this much more than I do:

Once I have a group of neurons like this trained to do something, can I actually count on them to continue performing that task until they die? Or is it possible they spontaneously reorganize or "learn" a previously unseen behavioral pattern?

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They're biological. A lot can happen :) Remember this includes weirdness like viruses, tumors, aging... as well as specifically neural stuff like habituation (diminished sensitivity to repeated stimulation), sensitisation (increased sensitivity to repeated stimulation), spontaneous misfiring, reorganisation (basically creating/destroying or upweighting/downweighting synapses) etc etc etc.

Of course, then you'll need to debug problems by dripping antidepressants (or psychedelics, or stimulants, or depressants, or various hormones, or....) into the Petri dish.

Biology is wonderfully crazy.

“Did you send your computer in for repair?”

“No, therapy.”

Robopsychology is an emerging field which will become increasingly important in coming decades.

TIL I’m somewhat of a Petri dish myself.

Skip the SSRIs and let them loose on Red Dead 2. In a couple weeks they'll be talking to a horse in ways we never imagined.

So the short answer is no

Hm. That's a very good question. I haven't kept up with neurobiology research but I imagine as long as the same neurons keep their connections to the same other neurons then it would be possible for them to keep performing the task. And neurons will do keep these connections if the stimuli was strong enough and showed up repeatedly.

But when the task is not required for a very long time the circuit that turns this task on will weaken, at least in the brain. And neurons will be forming other connections, but that doesn't mean they will necessarily "forget" about older ones.

Here is a journal article that might be relevant for you:

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(14)01362-2

Abstract: ”Neuronal plasticity in the brain is greatly enhanced during critical periods early in life and was long thought to be rather limited thereafter. Studies in primary sensory areas of the neocortex have revealed a substantial degree of plasticity in the mature brain, too. Often, plasticity in the adult neocortex lies dormant but can be reactivated by modifications of sensory input or sensory-motor interactions, which alter the level and pattern of activity in cortical circuits. Such interventions, potentially in combination with drugs targeting molecular brakes on plasticity present in the adult brain, might help recovery of function in the injured or diseased brain.”

A related question: can I indefinitely test they're performing their task correctly? When operating these neurons for actual tasks, real time challenge-response-like testing is probably a good idea. But if they can learn, eventually they may be able to trick the tests. How would one design automated tests to evaluate the state of learning-capable systems?

>How would one design automated tests to evaluate the state of learning-capable systems?

A question many call center managers ask themselves.

The nightmare of AI is it's a black box. The nightmare of people is that they're people. (or, per Sartre, "hell is other people" ... but that's such a freighted human perspective).

Gee if only we could grow meat to eat in a lab and grow brains on substrate to answer phone calls and generate images, we could do away with the complexity of other humans we might have to interact with. Except... you have even less understanding of what motivates that clump of cells than you do what motivates your office secretary.

Don't get me wrong, it's a super cool idea. I'm just not sure exactly when bioethics went completely out the window.

Welcome to the field of QA automation

What's more, you can apply evolution to your Petri dish.

Disclaimer: Also not a neurologist.

I believe they certainly will reorganize in case of a (local nutrient) scarcity or damage event. That might result in "unseen" patterns as well, and by "unseen" I mean kinda random.

Glial cells are fascinating components of the brain.

Artificial NeuroGlial Networks could be really interesting.

I guess they can become tired also, just like humans. (Not a biologist)

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