Engineers hook up Google's newly mapped fruit fly brain to play Doom and Beat Saber
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
Developers have taken Google's newly released fruit fly brain connectome and successfully trained it to play classic games like Doom and Beat Saber.
Google recently made headlines by releasing the first fully mapped male fruit fly brain connectome, giving researchers a monumental new tool for neuroscience. It did not take long for the developer community to put that digital brain to work in the most internet way possible. As detailed by PC Gamer, engineers have successfully wired the simulated neural network into video games. A Coinbase engineer named Alex Wormuth trained the fly brain to play the original Doom, while another developer named domi got the model slashing blocks in Beat Saber.
The early results are equal parts hilarious and fascinating. The simulated insect is not setting any speedrun records in Doom just yet, but the Beat Saber experiment shows the digital model successfully waving lightsabers and clearing incoming tiles. Modders even mapped the fly's biological behaviors to in-game actions, with one creator noting that the digital insect fires its weapon more frequently based on simulated arousal levels derived from its courtship programming.
While Google originally envisioned this massive mapping project as a foundational resource for future neuroscience experiments, seeing it pilot classic games highlights the creative crossover between tech and gaming communities. It is a wild reminder of how quickly open access data turns into community sandbox projects. We might still be a long time away from fully sentient AI companions in our favorite live service titles, but watching a fruit fly brain fumble its way through a retro shooter is a brilliant start.
Tags: Gaming News, AI, Tech, Retro Gaming
Original article: Eurogamer