Scientists taught a petri dish of brain cells to play pong faster than an AI

As a lover of tough single player games, I’m quite accustomed to getting my butt handed to me by AI, and usually not even a real one. I also happen to be the owner of a full sized human brain, and though it’s not without its problems, its ability to learn and change is usually why I eventually overcome those difficult in game challenges.So when I read about a few human brain cells in a petri dish that are already performing much better at a videogame than AI can, it’s concerning to me and my gaming future. New Scientist reports that a team in Australia has been growing these small puddles of brain and now one has learnt to play Pong, in fairly impressive time.Cortical labs is a company working on integrating biological neurons with your more traditional silicon based computing hardware. They grow brain cells on microelectronic arrays, so the cells can be stimulated. These hybrid chips are said to be able to learn and restructure themselves to get past problems, like stopping a sneaky ball that wants in your goal.According to Cortical labs, AIs typically take 90 minutes to learn Pong, whereas this ‘DishBrain’ (yes, that’s what it’s called) managed to have it down in five. Though the researchers do note that a good AI would still absolutely demolish the cells, once both properly trained.