Scientists Gave a Mushroom a Robot Body And Let It Run Wild

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-gave-a-mushroom-a-robot-body-and-let-it-run-wild

"By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment," said senior researcher Rob Shepherd, a materials scientist at Cornell, when the research was published in August.

16 points · 5 comments · view on lemmy.world

5 Comments

Spacehooks@reddthat.com · 7 pts · 1y

Someone watched scavengers reign and said let's do it.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y (3 replies)

It's just randomly moving around.

It needs a "mouth" so it can be rewarded for moving towards food and then we can see if it can move the robot towards food

TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

If you can turn a story this cool into "it's just randomly .." I don't know what ever would impress you

wolfshadowheart@leminal.space · 3 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Idk, humans could be food and that could cause problems...

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

Yeah. But without something to reward it for specific movements, it's just random noise.

I guess you could give it some type of photosynthesis and a light that slowly moves, see if it follows. Then eventually give it complicated paths where it has to travel to a light and not just stay under it.

But the human nervous system is basically the same thing, if it can control a robot it could hypothetically control humans.