Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-06-24)

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Bloomberg Businessweek

Jaguarisa mouse.HelivesatHarvard’s

RowlandInstitute,where,fromtime

totime,heplaysvideogamesona rig

thatlookslikeit belongsinA Clockwork

Orange. Metalbarspositionhiminsidea

smallplatforminfrontofa metallever;

hismissionistofinda virtualbox’s

edgesbyfeel.Todothis,hereaches

withhisrightpawtograbthejoystick,

which can rotate 360 degrees, and

maneuversituntilhefeelsfeedback

fromthemachine.Whenhereaches

therighttargetarea—say,anedgeofthe

box—atuberewardshimwitha dribble

ofsugarwater.

To track Jaguar’s brain activity,

researchers havegenetically altered

himsohisneuronsemitfluorescent

lightwhentheyfire.Thislightis visible

througha glassplatefusedtopartofhis

skullwithdentalcement.A microscope

affixedabovetheplaterecordsimagesof

hisbrainlightingupasheplays.“Within

onesession,youcanteachthemnew

rulesandliterallywatchthousandsof

neuronslearnthisprocessandseehow

theychange,”saysMackenzieMathis,the

neuroscientist leading the experiments.

In decades past, Mathis’s insights

would have served only to advance

what we know about mice and brain

function. Today, however, she’s one of

a growing number of specialized animal

researchers assisting in the development

of artificial intelligence software and

brain-computer interfaces. She wants to

discover how mice learn, in part because

it could inform how we teach computers

to learn. Watching mice react to unex-

pected situations in video games, for

instance, could someday let her pass on

similar skills to robots.

Other neuroscientists are study-

ing zebra finches’ songcraft. Some are

becoming expert in the electrical con-

ductivity of sheep skulls. Still more are

opting for the classics of high school biol-

ogy: fruit flies, whose neural setup is rel-

atively simple to behold, or worms, who

wring considerable juice from their few

neurons. Over the past few years, tech-

nology companies have been raiding

universities to hire away such people.

Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter

all hired doctoral candidates from one

of Mathis’s recent fellowship programs,

she says. “The Ph.D. students would

havejobsbeforetheygottheirdegrees.”

Animalshavelongplayedimport-

antrolesinadvancing corporate sci-

ence, of course, particularly for medical

treatments. But the leap required to

translate insights from the zebra finch’s

sound-processing anatomy into Siri’s

voice-recognition software—or mouse

gaming into a future when Amazon

.com Inc. runs all-android warehouses—

is of an entirely different order. With

wholenewindustriesatstake,therace

tounlockthesecretsoftheanimalmind

is gettingweird.

In 1958, Cornell neurobiologist Frank

Rosenblattunveiled theperceptron,

oneoftheearliestattemptstomimic

insidea computerthearchitectureof

a brain.Itsprocessingelements,which

hecalledneurons,coordinatedtofig-

ureout,say,whethera particularphoto

depicteda manorawoman—aprimi-

tivestabatimagerecognition.Thelingo

usedtodescribetheperceptronstuck,

andFacebook,Google,andothercom-

paniescontinuetodescribetheirvastAI

computingsystemsas“neuralnets”with

millionsofneuronsworkinginunison.

Theshorthand vastlyexaggerates

theoverlapbetweentherealmsofcom-

putationandcognitioneventoday.It’s

toughtoreplicatesomethingyoudon’t

reallyunderstand.Thetrueworkingsof

thebrain—forinstance,howa groupof

neuronsstoresa memory—remainelu-

sivetoneuroscience,sotheneurons’dig-

italcounterpartscan’thelpbutbeflawed

imitations.They’rerudimentaryprocess-

ingenginestrainedtoperformreamsof

statisticalcalculationsandidentifypat-

terns,withtheimprimaturofa biologi-

calname.

Still, with the technologyindus-

trychasingwhat’sknownasartificial

generalintelligence,orAGI,thewalls

betweenthetworealmshavegrown

moreporous. Theimplicitgoalisa

functionallysentientmachinethatcan

figureoutthingsbyitself,insteadof

relyingonhumanstotrainit,andthat

independently wants things. To the

relief of some ethicists, we’re a long way

fromAGI,butmanycomputerscientists

and neuroscientists are betting that

brains will show us the way.

Separately, several companies

are battling to build brain-computer

interfaces that could help prostheses

behave like natural limbs or allow peo-

ple to download knowledge into their

minds. Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. is

one such company; another is Kernel,

run by tech multimillionaire Bryan

Johnson. Neuroscientists are advising

these startups on everything including

how to blast information through skulls

and make sure electrodes don’t cause

infections in test subjects.

The scientific principles common to

both endeavors are evident at Mathis’s

Harvard lab. “Here’s our mouse pal-

ace,” she says, opening the door to a

room filled with dozens of mice in plas-

tic cages. The animals scamper around,

cocking their heads and twitching their

whiskers as they inspect visitors. Their

clean quarters emit only a mild whiff

of rodent. A red light fills the habitat to

make sure the creatures, nocturnal by

nature,stayawakeduringtheday,ready

tocontributetoscience.

Thatscienceincludesthevirtual-box

game and a much harder one that looks

like a primitive form of Mario Kart. For

the latter, a mouse straddles two cus-

tom, motorized circular plates, its paws

nestled into grooves on either side.

Miceplayingvideogamesareh elping researchers puzzle

out the secrets of neural netwo rks

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