The nematode worm, like you said, has 302 neurons, two of which don’t appear to be connected to anything. It functionally has 300. Don’t you think that amount of sophisticated behavior… do we even have a model for how 300 neurons [work]? Even if we don’t know the mechanics of it, a neuron can fire. It can fire on an analog basis. It’s not binary. The interplay of 300 of those can create that complex behavior of finding a mate and moving away from things that poke it and all of the rest. Does it seem odd that that can be achieved with so little when it takes us so much more time, hassle, and energy to get a computer to do the simplest, most rudimentary thing?
I think it’s amazing. The exponentialism of the nematode worm and real neural networks is incredible. For anyone who hasn’t spent time at openworm.org, which is the crowdsource effort to understand the nematode worm, I encourage you to spend at least an hour there. It’s fascinating. You think: ‘302 neurons, that’s simple. I should be able to figure it out.’
Then it’s all mapped out. Each neuron connects between a couple or maybe a couple dozen other neurons. You suddenly have 7,000 synapses. Wait, that’s not all. Each synapse is different. Figuring out how each synapse works becomes even more complicated.
Hear the full podcast here: https://gigaom.com/2020/04/16/voices-in-ai-episode-111-a-conversation-with-robert-brooker/