Parking a Car with 12 Neurons

A remarkable simplification, with images.  Note the pointer to biological neural nets.

 Parking a Car With Only 12 Neurons 
Technische Universitat Wien
Florian Aigner in TU Wien, MIT

Researchers at TU Wein in Vienna, Austria collaborated with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the development of a new approach for programming neural networks, which models the time evolution of nerve signals in a completely different way. The approach, inspired by the roundworm C. elegans, simulated neural circuits from the worm's nervous system, then adapted the model with machine learning algorithms, enabling it to solve challenging tasks with a small number of simulated nerve cells. Said TU Wein’s Ramin Hasani, “This is an architecture that can capture sequences, because it makes neurons remember what happened previously.” .... '

Modeling a Simple Organism

The nematode Caenor Elegans makes up about 80% of the animals on earth.  Yet it could be called the  most successful animal on earth.  Lives in most any environment.   We have completely sequenced its DNA.  We have been studying it for decades.  It has just 959 cells in its 'Brain',  302 neurons, each of its neurons are connected to 30 others.  So about 10K synapses.   (Humans have trillions).  So we should understand how a nematode's brain works?   No, not even close.   And we have been trying very hard. (Via Byron Reese in his book: The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers and the Future of Humanity)  Good book on the direction, challenges and cautions of AI.

OpenWorm is an open source project dedicated to creating the first virtual organism in a computer.

Why?
Because modeling a simple nervous system is a first step toward fully understanding complex systems like the human brain.

How?
By rejecting red tape and building a community of engineers, scientists, and other motivated volunteers from around the world. ... "