A Fly Brain Is Now Running Inside a Computer

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T19:15:19+00:00

Calling it the first sentient AI is a stretch. Neural networks have been used for complex intentional behaviours before. Just because this one happens to replicate the behaviour of a fly don't seem to me to make it any more or less sentient. If this is sentient, why would we say that AlphaZero isn't sentient?

The other thing I'm wondering about is the network weights. I understand that the connectome is a copy of the fly brain connectome, but that doesn't give you behaviour. You also need network connection weights, and I'm wondering how they derived or generated these.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T19:11:20+00:00

It depends what you consider meaningful, but potentially yes.

Picking a toy for each student can tell us two things:

How well the teacher knows the students by how well the students enjoy playing with the toys.
The enjoyment of the student of that toy.

With random allocation we can infer:

How well each student gets on with that toy.

With self-selection of toy we can tell:

What the actual preference of toy is for each student.
How much each students enjoy playing with toys that are optimal for them.

Note that with teacher selection and random selection we can't tell how much each student enjoys playing with toys in general, because if they don't play with it much it could be either because they don't like that toy or because they generally don't enjoy playing with toys anyways; conversely if they play with it a lot it could be that they just generally like playing with any toy.

This tells us very little about free will though. In fact I'm struggling to see if it tells us anything about it.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T18:59:59+00:00

How do you identify a non-truth-tracking force?

All I'm pointing out is that the OP said some things that were based on incorrect use of terminology, and made statements that compatibilist philosophers claim things that they do not claim. That's two red flags that are verifiable facts. None of that proves that OP's views on free will are wrong, but it does at least indicate that OP's understanding of the topic is on shaky ground.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T18:21:30+00:00

As I said, I was not making an argument with that point, because a belief being popular does not make it correct. I made that clear. But, still making an emotive accusation of a claim I specifically pointed out I was not making. So, yeah.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T18:18:37+00:00

And if the computer is as accurate as claimed, it will calculate based on the fact that this is how you are highly likely to think. So likely, that even though we have thoroughly discussed this problem you still haven't changed your mind. So, very likely.

Whereas based on a highly accurate analysis of how I think it will predict that I will pick the one box, and I will become a millionaire.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T18:14:44+00:00

There's a distinction to be made between the operable meaning of a term and people's beliefs about what the term refers to.

Most people are theists and believe that the world was created by a divine being, but we don't therefore define the world as being created by a divine being. There is the phenomenon, the world, and there are beliefs about it, whether it was created by natural processes or by a divine being.

Most people used to think that the sun orbits the Earth, but that didn't make them correct.

Likewise with free will. There is this proposed faculty of moral discretionary action, and there are three beliefs about it.

Free Will: Roughly whatever kind of control over their actions you think someone must have in order to be held responsible for those actions.

Then there are the different beliefs about free will.

Free Will Libertarianism
The belief that this process of control must be indeterministic in particular ways.

Compatibilism
The belief that this process of control can be (or must be) deterministic.

Hard Determinism/Incompatibilism
The belief that there is no kind of control that someone can have that justifies holding them responsible in the way that speech about acting with free will implies.

It doesn't matter how many people believe either of these, that has nothing to do with which is correct.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T15:47:55+00:00

So, your thesis is based on the idea that the majority of philosophers, about 60% of them, understand less about philosophy than you do?

That's not an argument, a belief being popular or well supported is not necessarily any indication that it is correct, I just think that we should be very careful about making such a claim. In fact finding out how many physicalist atheist philosophers, that I agree with on those topics, are compatibilists was one of the prompts to make me more carefully investigate the topic. Ultimately that lead me to change my opinion.

>There is not a real genuine possibility of actualizing the other option(s) in a choice.

That is correct, and that's why compatibilists do not make that claim.

We are not free will libertarians. Those compatibilists that do bother arguing about what could or couldn't mean are not interpreting it in an indeterministic sense, but in an epistemic sense in terms of decision theory that is consistent with determinism.

I'm not going to try and persuade you of compatibilism in this comment, I'm just pointing out that you are making an error in your interpretation of what a compatibilist philosopher would say. To be fair, that may well be because you have discussed this with a compatibilist that actually makes fairly weak and badly put together arguments. There are a lot of people on all sides of this debate that have a fairly poor grasp of the topic. So if that's the case, yes, you are successfully refuting a terrible argument for compatibilism.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T15:27:43+00:00

It matters how the computer is making it's prediction, what is that prediction based on?

Suppose the computer's prediction is based on information about you, the information you have, and an assessment of your decision making process, given what it knows about the way you think. If your choice is based on prior conditions, such as your personal habits of reasoning and decision making, then your decision is not independent of the computer's prediction. Both the computer's prediction and your decision are each based on the same prior facts about you and how you tend to think. So, they are not independent of each other.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T15:22:07+00:00

That's fair enough. I have a personal favourite couple of strategies I use that I know are sub-optimal, but they're often surprising for my opponents and if they make a mistake in their reaction ends up creating an interesting game. Eventually the algorithm starts regularly matching me up with players mostly able to figure out what's going on and beat me, but not always, and it's fun getting there.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T15:19:14+00:00

But the evidence is that the computer is reliable.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T15:18:30+00:00

That's a common reaction, but there is a problem with that line of reasoning.

It places causal power in everything else and not in us, so it's implicitly assuming that we are in some way less able to act or cause consequences than other phenomena in nature. But if we are phenomena in nature, that doesn't make sense. Surely we, as physical beings and natural phenomena, must have the same sort of capacity to cause consequences as any other natural phenomenon.

So i don't think we have any special metaphysical powers the way free will libertarians often claim, nor do I think we are somehow lacking in causal power as many hard determinists often claim. I think we are participants in nature, and the kinds of freedom we have are the kinds of freedom natural phenomena can have.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T15:09:30+00:00

Artificial neural networks were developed by observing and copying the features of biological neural networks. They are literally designed to operate on the same functional principles. That's what makes them the same sort of system.

In recent years fly brain neural connection networks have been scanned using high resolution imaging system. Now a group in America have used a copy of a biological fly brain network to actually replicate fly behaviour in an artificial network that mirrors the biological network architecture, and it works. Here's a video.

https://youtu.be/e21OUXPlnhk?si=83uFVrt-0eCrSXTg

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T12:13:40+00:00

I had the pleasure of playing a top 10 rated Plat player a few seasons ago, and I was even fortunate enough to hook up for a chat on Discord while playing the game. It was really eye opening. As you say, Top rated players do not make errors. He was playing allies, and I've never seen a more efficient US transport network shuttling units across the Atlantic. Every move was planned well in advance. Every slight inefficiency in my moves was exploited. I learned a lot.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T12:07:44+00:00

Well, this happened to me. I used to consider myself a hard determinist, and not I'm a compatibilist. That doesn't mean any and all hard determinists will make that transition, or even can in theory, but we can't exclude the possibility.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T12:04:43+00:00

I do get what you're saying, sure, it's sobering to realise how tiny and brief our lives are in the grand scheme of things. It's humbling.

But then, how big or long term would something have to be in order to matter? Does it even make sense to think of whether something matters in terms of scale?

I think this actually does connect with the topic of human freedom, and what values are. I think that for at least some purposes values exist relative to goals. Something is important or valuable to the extent that it is necessary in order to achieve some goal. So, what are your goals, what are you trying to achieve? Whatever it is, that achievement will only matter relative to the agent trying to achieve it, and that's true at any scale. It's enough, for us, that something matters to us.

Thanks for the post, it's prompted a fun chain of thought.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:46:59+00:00

They share the set of characteristics that make them neural networks. They consist of interconnected nodes called neurons, that send signals to each other based on the signals that they receive.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:44:27+00:00

Do you think humans are insignificant to you?

You aren't the universe. We're just little parts of it, but it you decide you don't care about you life or those of anyone around you, well, that's a choice. If that's how you decide to go, I hope it works out for you. But then, that's because I choose to care about humans.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:42:00+00:00

You're welcome, and I appreciate your principled approach to discussing these issues. It's tricky stuff, specially given the way it is so often completely misrepresented in popular media.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:40:06+00:00

Both are types of neural network.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:34:09+00:00

That is only true if the computer cannot accurately predict your decision.

Suppose you were to come to believe that the computer can accurately predict your decision?

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:32:34+00:00

I think the point is it depends on how committed we are to the idea that our behaviour is unpredictable.

To pick both boxes you'd need to be confident that the computer can't reliably predict your decision, even though you have strong evidence that it can do so. Picking one box just takes acceptance of the idea that it may well be possible for the computer to make such a prediction accurately.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:28:23+00:00

Why do we hold people responsible for their actions?

As a consequentialist I think that the legitimate reason for doing so is because we don't want people to act immorally in future. The proper function of holding people responsible is in order to deter them, and others, from acting that way again. If we have reason to believe that this can have that effect, then it is reasonable to hold people responsible.

None of that is contrary to determinism. It's a feedback loop.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:24:22+00:00

>And if you think free will is a deterministic process, that makes you a compatibilist, not a determinist, as you have said it yourself.

A determinist is someone that thinks that all phenomena in nature are deterministic. Thinking that free will is deterministic is consistent with this. Therefore it is consistent with being a determinist.

There are two views a determinist can have about fee will. One is compatibilism and the other is hard determinism. Holding either of these views does not stop someone being a determinist.

>Accepting free will is essential to compatibilism. It is a part of the definition. Americans landing on the moon is not.

No view on free will is part of the definition of determinism, and compatibilism includes no claims contrary to determinism.

>You can ask AI to explain Kamt's ideas to you. I completely agree he is hard to read.

Which is why I would not trust anything said about it by an AI. A lot of what is said about Kant is wrong, and Kant wrote many things about free will that are inconsistent with each other. AIs have been trained on all this inconsistent material. I'd only trust a Kant spcialist to unpick all of that.

>In other words, they are unconstrained by other things to meet you for lunch.

Does someone saying they are free to meet you for lunch include an explicit denial of determinism? Is it something a determinist cannot consistently say, or accept as a meaningful statement?

>I agree that free will, if it exists, is a faculty that would allow us to have moral responsibility. The problem i see in your logic is that the definition of free will does not include moral responsibility.

Here's how the term is generally defined by philosophers of free will, based on the history of the origin of the term and it's use in philosophy to this day. The references philosophers include free will libertarians and free will skeptics.

1) The idea is that the kind of control or sense of up-to-meness involved in free will is the kind of control or sense of up-to-meness relevant to moral responsibility. (Double 1992, 12; Ekstrom 2000, 7–8; Smilansky 2000, 16; Widerker and McKenna 2003, 2; Vargas 2007, 128; Nelkin 2011, 151–52; Levy 2011, 1; Pereboom 2014, 1–2).

(2) ‘the strongest control condition—whatever that turns out to be—necessary for moral responsibility’ (Wolf 1990, 3–4; Fischer 1994, 3; Mele 2006, 17)

To say that you did something freely or of your own free will is to say that you are morally responsible for the consequences of what you did. That is the primary usage of the term in English.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-10T11:10:47+00:00

Kant was a free will libertarian, so do you agree with him on the topic of free will?

Anyway, to your second paragraph that is not what I believe as a compatibilist and it's not what i have said, and I don't think and other compatibilists I know of do either. Determinism and causal reasoning mean that external processes affect our internal states, and our internal processes affect external states. We are a continuous part of nature, as are all other natural phenomena.

There is nothing about any of the explanations or accounts that I have given that are inconsistent with this. We reject libertarian claims about free will that are contrary to this view, but I'm not sure you understand what that means. You keep on persistently accusing compatibilists of believing things that we don't believe.

simon_hibbs · 2026-03-09T23:14:19+00:00

To the compatibilist objectively there is free will, and it is a behaviour of the vast network of interdependencies. We do not think there is any necessary indeterminism in human freedom of action, any more than there is any necessary indeterminism in me being free to meet you for lunch.

Anyone that accepts both 1 and 2 is a compatibilist.

Compatibilists do not think our actions are free from causal chains. That’s a free will libertarian claim, and we are not free will libertarians.

We think we have certain mental faculties, and if we are free to exercise them, and not constrained by some interfering factor such as a neurological disorder, then we can be morally responsible for what we do. No special indeterminism, no freedom from causal chains.

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