Scientists' fruit-fly brain map fuels quirky AI demos from Rubik’s cubes to car parking

An open-source connectome of the adult male Drosophila, detailing all 166,000 neurons, was completed by Janelia Research Campus at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute together with Google and released to the public. The dataset has sparked a wave of creative experiments, with programmers using AI-enhanced tools to make the simulated fly perform tasks such as solving a Rubik’s Cube, dancing to the Village People’s “YMCA,” parallel-parking a car, and even shooting enemies in the game Doom.

Mark Unthank, based in Italy, programmed the fly to use car blinkers, while Alex Wormuth employed an OpenAI system to create “Doomfly,” rewarding the insect’s dopamine receptors for kills. Critics note that these virtual models omit real muscular and physiological interactions, but researchers like Nelson Spruston view the unexpected applications as evidence of open science’s reach. The team plans to extend mapping efforts to zebrafish and Danionella, hoping the insights may eventually inform studies of human conditions such as Alzheimer’s and depression.