A dead fly has been taught to play Mario64 and Dota 2

In early September of this year, scientists managed to obtain a complete map of the neurons of the fruit fly, or drosophila. Such a digitized brain is called a connectome — it can be trained like a neural network and made to perform various tasks. Enthusiasts around the world have started doing exactly that, since the connectome was made publicly available. And now the dead fly, revived thanks to modern technology, is learning to program, cook food, control drones, and play various games, including Doom, Minecraft, and Counter-Strike 2.

Creating a working simulation of a living creature's brain is a very painstaking task, since every neuron must be accounted for, along with its synapses and connections to other nerve cells. The tiny drosophila is perfect for such a project: its "brain" is not as large as, for example, that of mammals, yet the fruit fly is capable of rather complex behavior — its controlled flight alone is quite something. Such research will in the future lift the veil of mystery over the higher nervous activity of more advanced species and even humans. But for now, scientists intend to test exactly which tasks the drosophila connectome is capable of solving — that is why they made their work available online.

The opportunity to test the digitized insect in action attracted a large number of enthusiasts from different countries. Gaming fans especially distinguished themselves: they train the model using the most popular interactive entertainment and publish the results on social media. Among other things, the connectome has already shown itself in Doom, Minecraft, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Mario64, and Beat Saber. Researchers note that the learning speed and effectiveness are higher in all cases than when interacting with a regular neural network.