The team claims that without any additional
programming, the robot worm behaved identically to a
real one, recoiling from touch and moving toward food.
It’s not an exact analog, as the nerves in the worm’s
body are approximated by hard-wired sensors, but it
proves a point.
Already, we’re raising some pretty intense questions
here—is this Lego replica of a roundworm a sentient
being? Is it distinct from the worm it was copied from?
These are the kind of issues that will come to the fore as
we get closer and closer to whole brain emulation.
That hasn’t stopped some people from trying to sell it
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had developed a method to preserve the human brain
until the date that advanced scanning methods are
practical. Only one issue: The brain has to be fresh. As
in, you have to be alive when they do the process, which
kills you.
That’s a pretty bold bet to take on the future, but
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technology, pitching it as a way to save your precious
memories rather than create a full digital simulacrum of
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Other researchers are taking a more granular approach
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electronic prosthesis for the hippocampal region of the
brain, generally recognized as the area that manages
memory. The device monitors and encodes the
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The robot
worm
behaved
identically to
a real one,
recoiling from
touch and
moving
toward food.