Software Engineer Alex Wormuth Teaches Simulated Fruit Fly Brain to Play Doom
Software engineer Alex Wormuth has successfully programmed a simulated fruit fly brain to play the 1993 first-person shooter game, Doom. This development follows Google's recent release of a comprehensive map of a male fruit fly's brain and central nervous system, which contains 11,700 types of neurons and 166,000 neurons. Wormuth utilized this detailed neural map to create a simulated brain that processes game inputs. Each frame of Doom generates 3,335 brightness inputs and 811 R8 color inputs, which are fed into the simulated brain's 25.6 million connections. The brain then uses this information to determine the fly's next move, including responding to damage by targeting PPL101 dopamine receptors, which control hunger and aggression in real fruit flies. The progress of this simulated fly brain can be observed on Wormuth's Doomfly website, which displays sensory input, neural activity, and real-time gameplay.
