Researchers at Reading University have made intriguing advancements in artificial intelligence by using a novel approach involving a water-based gel that exhibits “muscle memory.” This study builds on earlier work that used brain cells to play the classic game of Pong, but the Reading team has taken a different route by employing a soft, flexible gel.
The gel, composed of charged ions that respond to electrical currents, was set up to mimic the game environment of Pong, a pioneering video game from the 1970s. In Pong, players use paddles to hit a ball back and forth, with the goal of keeping the ball in play. The researchers designed an experimental setup where the gel was divided into six rectangles with electrodes that simulated the game’s paddles and walls.
When a small voltage was applied to the gel, the ions within it migrated towards the current source, causing the gel to swell. This movement was interpreted by a computer as the location where the paddle needed to be positioned. Over time, the gel’s ability to respond to the ball’s movements improved, with its accuracy increasing by up to 10% and the length of rallies extending.
The team observed that the gel retained signs of swelling, which they described as a form of “muscle memory.” This characteristic allowed the gel to have a persistent memory of the ball’s motion throughout the game, rather than just responding to its current position.
Vincent Strong, a robotics engineer at the University of Reading, highlighted the significance of this discovery. “Instead of just knowing what’s immediately happened, it has a memory of the ball’s motion over the entirety of the game,” Strong explained. “It gains an experience of the ball’s general motion, not just its current position. It sort of becomes a black-box neural network that has a memory of the ball’s behavior.”
Dr. Yoshikatsu Hayashi, the biomedical engineer leading the research, emphasized the broader implications. “Our research shows that even very simple materials can exhibit complex, adaptive behaviors typically associated with living systems or sophisticated artificial intelligence.”
While traditional AI algorithms are inspired by the intricate workings of the human brain, this study suggests that ionic hydrogels could offer a simpler yet effective form of “intelligence.” Strong noted, “Ionic hydrogels can achieve the same kind of memory mechanics as more complex neural networks.”
Looking ahead, the researchers plan to delve deeper into the hydrogel’s memory mechanisms and test its capabilities in other tasks. This pioneering work could pave the way for new, simpler algorithms in the field of artificial intelligence.