Matrixims (a portmanteau of Matrix from The Matrix and Sims from The Sims) is a digital world where entities (non-player characters or NPCs) are controlled by brain cells on a petri dish.
Matrixims has collections of biological neurons controlling avatars in a video game. A collection of neuronal stem cells is allowed to form a clump of cells called an organoid. This organoid is densely connected with needle-like electrodes. Electrical signals picked up from these electrodes are based on neural activity in the organoid. These signals are parsed to generate actions for a non-player character(NPC)/avatar/sim in a simulated world. In the game (The Sims 1), these avatars can eat, sleep, form relationships, have children, go to work, interact positively or negatively with other avatars, form relationships etc; but they're mostly controlled by digital logic. They have a mood meter composed of 8 primary needs (including hunger, sleep, social) which are on a linear scale. Certain actions like eating, sleeping, interacting with other avatars increase specific numbers on the mood meter, while a lack of those activities decreases them. The mood meter is converted into electrical signals and relayed back to the organoid through electrodes as feedback. This feedback may be fed back to the organoid using other electrodes connected to different areas of the organoid, as compared to electrodes connected to take input signals from the organoid. These organoids have demonstrated an ability to manage internal signals to learn how to play Pong. The resolution of their activity needs to be significantly increased to achieve optimization of the mood meter, which is the goal of Matrixims (demonstrate ability of neurons in a dish to optimize their behavior in a digital world). How they optimize it should have insights into intelligence and brains. Matrixims is a model system of the brain in an cohabitated environment. An organoid controls one avatar in the shared game (possibly The Sims 1) and collections of organoids control multiple avatars that exist in a shared neighborhood of The Sims. A society fabricated in petridishes breathing the ether of digital life.
Are we imprisoning minds with consciousness in a prison cell or are we breathing the ether of an unreal reality into cells?
Matrixims plans to store versions of dead people's minds through Lucidna biobanks. The idea is to capture DNA and cell structures of human brains that were previously alive (mummies like Tutankhamun, cryopreserved individuals like those in Alcor's tanks, humans whose cells have been stored in biobanks), artificially replicate those structures in neural stem cell organoids, and hook them up to a shared version of The Sims. This will also use a lot of data. Each NPC has a chatbot program for human interaction. Each chatbot is trained on data each human generated throughout the course of life, obtained with wilful consent from personal databank. Data includes client's self-generated texts, artworks, literature, thesis etc. We'll make an interactive version of a client's Wikipedia page to make a 3D public library of people.
Our plan is to bootstrap consciousness as we go along. Why? Intelligence arises as a consequence of the central nervous system, and I hate how little is left of people who die. This is a testbed for peer-to-peer transfer learning in a digital society of bots. This isn't immortality but it's an interesting experiment if we have wilful consent.
Matrixims plans to use organoids to help the journey to preclinical trials for medicines. We maintain a line of replicable and sustained organoids through our automated labs. These organoids exist in small bioreactors, have artificially controlled blood flow throughout the organoid to deliver nutrients and therapeutics like human blood vessels, and can be networked together to form organ systems. Human-derived tissues and organs to test drugs on instead of mice and monkeys. We have ethical dilemmas about brain organoids.
Is this right?
Matrixims combines research in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, computational biology, cognitive science, philosophy, lab automation, and molecular biology. Matrixims aims to provide 2nd person perspectives to humans across history.
NPCs are simple infinitely looping programs on normal server machines. Interaction between NPCs is recorded and used in model retraining (for other-awareness). Each NPC has a ledger of all its own questions and answers, which it can use for retraining (for self-awareness).
A publicly visible and interactive world, existing for its own sake