The Mushroom Motherboard: The Crazy Fungal Computers that Might Change Everything

Unlock the secrets of fungal computing! Discover the mind-boggling potential of fungi as living computers. From the wood-wide web to the Unconventional Computing Lab, witness the evolution of mushroom technology.
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[@CaptainSweetheart]

And when it breaks I'm gonna have to start truffleshooting

[@chasjetty8729]

Amazing.

[@testickles8834]

*underrated comment*

[@Vaeldarg]

Mold-based computing certainly results in the fuzziest of fuzzy logic.

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

Why doesnt this have more likes?! 😂😂

[@smidget2323]

Sounds expensive

[@chaseweeks2708]

Bio-degradable fungal computers are all fun and games until several city dumps become self-aware.

[@OdyTypeR]

Garbage-in-carnage-out

[@Jalgmees]

good old GICO@@OdyTypeR

[@cyleleghorn246]

That's actually a crazy thought. I'd be interested in having a garbage dump or landfill dedicated to these fungi motherboards just to see what happens as they all begin to compost together, and their mycelium networks intertwine. This is a great concept. At the very least, I could probably use it to mine a few bitcoin before it burned itself out by consuming all the nutrients lol

[@threadmarkone]

😂

[@alexandercorey850]

The trashpocolyse will happen 😂

[@minimumwrist3546]

Friend: why can’t you play today? Me: my computer is trippin.

[@johannesgent1950]

Your comment deserve more likes

[@minimumwrist3546]

@@johannesgent1950 thanks!

[@TaviTopio]

Bro your comment is way too underrated 😂

[@Aliballer]

This is brilliant

[@lyricsvaultla]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@Brettin]

This video made me picture a type of person in the future, a mix between a PC hardware enthusiast who builds computers with side panels to see how great it looks inside, and a botanist or gardener tending their plants. Imagine some one tending and cleaning the dust off their PC while checking on the "living" components and the light, moisture, etc... People could "grow" components for their PC build. Wild idea!

[@scottsmanonahorse]

Catch me with a plexiglass panel with a door to toss food scraps in, cpu gonna be over cooking.

[@kollynd7860]

Shit, with all the RGB, we have their light source already integrated lolol

[@johnsmithe4656]

Mushrooms are not plants and would not be studied by a botanist. It's a mycologist that studies mushrooms. Mushrooms are an entirely different kingdom from plants or animals. They don't photosynthesize (no strong light needed), they absorb oxygen and release CO2 like animals, they drop spores for asexual reproduction, they require very high humidity, and they can grow to full size in mere days. They also contain protein and are very nutritious.

[@bidyo1365]

@@johnsmithe4656

[@johncribbs8382]

Or the ai builds a humanoid army of shroom people.

[@dubsydubs5234]

The problem with using fungus as memory in computers is there's not mushroom to store stuff.

[@donaldgregg9250]

😃😆😅😂🤣😅😂

[@mykhalhughes4676]

The power of dad joke.

[@nonow1353]

I had to read it out loud before I got it lol 10/10

[@donaldgregg9250]

@nonow1353 that's why I cracked up so much! But I just noticed as typing this, he spelled it 'fugus', now I have to ponder if we're talking about the same thing 🤔 😂😅🤣😆😃🤣

[@dubsydubs5234]

@@donaldgregg9250 My bad, fixed it for you, I'm going to blame spellchecker, it couldn't possibly be my fault.

[@gastonpossel]

The most important question is... can it run Doom?

[@coconutsmarties7916]

Yeahh but not at 60fps

[@dillonlopez6799]

It is doom

[@Jonpilen]

Doom on a shroom

[@Ubu987]

@@coconutsmarties7916 Sixty frames per day, given the latency.

[@Gefionius]

Until it can run Doom, its not a MegaProject

[@thebigpicture2032]

Now I have existential dread about AI mushrooms.

[@lv1543]

I am a monument to all your sins

[@robertkelley8355]

Real life Toad from super mario

[@georgekane6732]

Mushrooms + computers = Terminators. 😂

[@j.d.4697]

Yep, we might get kicked off the evolutionary ladder by GI mushrooms. They could turn the entire planet into a living GI brain. 😵‍💫

[@Hallgrenoid]

I appreciate you adding "AI depiction" to ai generated images. Never stop doing that. Keep being one of the good guys. Cheers.

[@kyledsweeney]

Is it “good”? I suppose it’s better than no disclaimer at all, but is it actually “good”? All of these AI art generators are built on stolen artwork. How much money will this creator make from this video? How much more money will he make with 50 AI images that make it more interesting to look at? And how many of the original artists that the AI was trained on will see any of that money? None. And that’s by design. AI generative art is just a process of laundering stolen copyrighted material. And using it, especially it in a monetized video, is not a difficult moral quandary. It’s literally profiting from theft. -- And I’m not commenting here to make anyone feel bad. These AI tools are interesting and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the technology. The problem is with the work that was stolen to train the neural networks, and the exploitation and circumvention of protections that exist to allow people to make a living from their work. --- EDIT: I appear to be blocked and unable to respond to all these people. ​That's fine. I'm not interested in debating ethics with people who think there's no problem with using AI art in this way. To the people who try to justify it as harmless, or indistinguishable from human creative works, you're simply wrong and there's no moral high ground on your side. Your argument boils down to "it conveniences me enough that I stopped caring about the people it hurts." These AI companies made it easy for you to feel this way by obfuscating every part of their process. But if you think about it for more than 5 seconds you'll realize they had to have stolen most of the art they used to train their models. And by using the tool, especially in a monetized work, you're profiting from the theft of other people's work. That's all.

[@tomsterbg8130]

@@kyledsweeney I look at it slightly differently, while AI has its good benefits (easily do what you want without much investment) and bad "benefits" (take someone's work without their knowledge) and its drawbacks (not being creative, taking low paid/free labor to make datasets for teaching the model, etc.) there's something else to consider. Imagine that someone looks at a picture, they remember the picture so well that they can re-draw it. You can get really close to redrawing a picture, but as long as you drew it and there's obvious differences, you'll rarely be accused of stealing the art, but you'll more often get accused of stealing the idea. You could technically say that AI does the exact same, but differently. Humans can download any picture and reproduce it in their own way, AI while not being creative, can also use real data and reproduce it in a "unique" way. So consider that maybe it's not that important what goes in, but what goes out. Still, AI is rotten to the core and I am in no way willing to defend terrible practices.

[@kyledsweeney]

@@tomsterbg8130 I think reproducibility is for sure a moral argument you can make against AI. I've heard arguments that the process of training a neural network is basically how a human brain learns, and while that may be true at a high level, the specifics of the process of learning/training are inarguably inhuman. And of course there are the ethics of automation replacing people's jobs. Under capitalism, any automation (the means of production) that is under the control of capital will be horrible for the workers that the automation was designed to replace. But most people aren't that critical of capitalism, and of course the creators of these tools have given their best attempts to smooth over the moral question of using a tool that puts someone else's livelihood at risk. --- So, most of my arguments against AI in a comments section like this one are boiled down to the morally unambiguous. Things that, in general, everyone agrees on. Almost every country in the world has laws protecting creators and their work. If you don't want someone to use your art or music or text or creative idea, especially in a way that profits from off if it, you have legal protections. You can tell people how your work can be used and you have avenues for compensation if someone violates those protections. The ethics of the ownership of creative ideas or works are pretty much settled. There's no ambiguity. We basically all agree, to the point that world governments have codified it into their laws. AI/ML fundamentally depends on huge datasets. It's not possible to get the results displayed in this video without collecting an extremely large number of images. And every major AI image generator has admitted that their input datasets contain images where they did not obtain consent from their original creators. There are a number of reasons for that, but at the end of the day, their datasets contain stolen images. Images that *should* be under the protection of copyright and intellectual property laws that have been circumvented. So, that's my argument. AI image generators were created from stolen work. If artists controlled the AI art generators, or if they were awarded something like residuals every time an image was generated from a dataset that contained their original work, it would potentially be a bit less of a problem. But as of right now, profiting from AI artwork is profiting from theft.

[@itoibo4208]

now if they could just get to the point

[@devforfun5618]

@@kyledsweeney worse than that, the ai generated images looked nothing like the real pictures of fungus computers, so the only thing they did was mislead without ilustrate anything, there are around 10 pictures of fungus growing around capacitors

[@tommytwotacos8106]

I'd heard that they tried to incorporate one of those mushroom computers into the brain of a humanoid robot, but the damn thing just sat there looking at its hands for 3 hours while occasionally going, "whoa, dude..."

[@trolly4233]

LOL

[@grimd8788]

😂 Been there.

[@tommytwotacos8106]

You know who the cool kids were/are by who is laughing at this joke. I was going to end it by adding that, "the problem only subsided so that the project could continue when one of the engineers put on 'Dark Side of the Moon' and lit some incense" but I thought that might over sell it a bit and end up encumbering the punchline.

[@tommytwotacos8106]

I must admit that I’ve derived quite a bit of enjoyment from the following picture in my mind: Several researchers, scrambling around their lab and trying to save their robot w/ a mushroom computer as part of its analytical processing array experiment. The problem being that upon activating the completed test subject, all that happened was that the exclaimed, “I finally understand the nature of time!” before becoming inextricably fixated on an art history textbook. Then one of the grad student engineers has an epiphany and puts on “Electric Ladyland” to see what would happen. The robot develops a look of intense concern as the track “and the gods made love” begins to filter through its audio processors where the math of music is then pulled apart and analyzed by its synthetic brain. The head researcher looks over at the young engineer who’d put on the music. Had this young man (or woman, I’m hip) just doomed the entire project? Then, 3 struts of a muted chord and Jimi’s voice, “Have you ever been, to Electric Ladyland…” and all of sudden a visage of instant relief and euphoria appears on the robot’s face as it begins operating within nominal parameters, responding appropriately to all subsequent queries. Folders full of paper thrown into the air, researchers hugging and exchanging hearty handshakes. End scene. If this isn't the future somewhere, somehow, then we’ve made a mistake.

[@bonkgameing]

@@tommytwotacos8106yeah yeah we get it weedhead. Shrooms make you trip. You’re not cool

[@Techsupport243]

When you can't play games because you forgot to feed your computer.

[@DonutGuy640]

Favorite comment!

[@driverjamescopeland]

When the last game you play is The Last of Us... because you were (the last of us).

[@mangaminx9440]

Cheeto fingers becomes a life hack

[@huxleybennett4732]

Kinda the case now, you're just feeding it electricity for now

[@crynauct]

Imagine we went back in time 100 years and told a dude that by 2024, groups of researchers have managed to communicate with fungi, and are undergoing the process of evolving specific, more suited fungi for communication so that they are capable of things beyond human processing, and even, the "ultra-futuristic" super-computing devices that are already capable of processing information at unimaginable speeds. Unc would geek.

[@deathsnitemaresinfullust2269]

Oh neat, like the stuff in Scavenger's Reign. That's really neat, whoever came up with the idea must be a fun guy. 😄👍

[@pewterhacker]

Summary: Humans on mushrooms use AI to generate images of mushrooms on computers.

[@EyeSeeThruYou]

True irony, eloquently delivered. 👏 🏆

[@Kenny2k08]

@@EyeSeeThruYouthe circle of life

[@irbis_rosh]

You're a really fun guy

[@scorpioatx2556]

Videos like this is how Elon Musk successfully ran the biggest Ponzi scheme

[@eaudesolero5631]

mushyshrooms on computers use humans to ....

[@sharpsheep4148]

So if your fungal laptop overheats, you can add some soy sauce and eat it with rice.

[@pearhams2]

Then you'd be looking a way more than 4million colors.

[@josuea.v.4232]

Sounds mellow to me 😂​@@pearhams2

[@Openreality]

Or just become a zombie and try some brains, because that's gonna happen where you like it or not. Laugh now cry later, right?

[@Guts-the-Berserker]

Endocrine disruptive sauce mmmmm

[@bullettime1116]

​@@Openrealityhe's not going to become a cordyceps zombie

[@eminemand50ct]

Fungus is going to start talking to other Fungus, build robots, and take over. Sounds like some terminator stuff lol

[@OwenHooper-mv4fm]

More and more convinced that fungal hallucinations are actually just peering into the universe

[@Fenrir1]

The old game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri took place on a planet almost entirely covered in an alien fungus, and one of the ways to win the game was to use human technology to awaken the vast neural network of the fungus and create a Gaia entity, a conscious planet of alien fungus and millions of uploaded human minds.

[@captain_clark868]

Sounds like a cool D&D idea with wood nymphs that use fungus to process arcane knowledge.

[@muhammadal-khwarizmi6933]

NAILED IT!

[@owen8681]

Oh yeah loved it, using the power of mind worms to control and upgrade your drones. Dont go the drones need you !

[@Nefylym]

Horrifying... the thought of being packed in tight with so many humans ... I mean the smell alone!

[@Fenrir1]

LOL@@Nefylym

[@jasonmasterson686]

There is a company called Ecovative that makes a styrofoam replacement material out of mycelium. They also make a leather like material. Mushrooms are the future

[@captain_clark868]

That's fascinating to know, thanks for sharing!

[@thefloop2813]

they would be if thats a future our collective species was interested in. they could be if we had a positive future at all.

[@Drawperfectcircles]

I remember them. Just forgot their name. Now I can look them up

[@awkwardlyrachel5524]

Are they the same folks who are making a meat substitute with the mycelium? They've perfected the system of growing mycelium or their fruit, depending on what they want to do with the product.

[@OurSpaceshipEarth]

Reminds me of that Ted talk with the girl suggesting people be buried in a suit that's basically a mycelium laced growth substrate. I really hoped we'd see that styrofoam replacement by now, it's just common sense like how insanely removed are human beings from reality to think single use styrofoam is acceptable when it's just purely obvious corporate criminal intent.

[@nOkay986]

Everyone predicted the future would be flying cars but everything really just turns into mushrooms... I love it lmfao

[@gigawattzgamereviews2094]

fungi do not pre-date “any other living organism”. They just pre-date plants and animals.

[@citricdemon]

Do they predate your mom?

[@catherineyonganddavidwilso7176]

Thank you for adding the clarifying note: "AI Depiction" onto any relevant images. I hope others follow suit.

[@ob3ythee.t.128]

Yeah I wish there were better ways of embedding images with water marks or signs that show that its AI however people can just screenshot, photoshop. Even metadata can just be removed, so its the duty of people to state whether or not something is AI unfortunately.

[@PretendingToBeAHuman]

While it’s great they’re at least labelling it, using AI images is still super misleading in a science video. What does it actually look like? Probably not anything like that. I'm very concerned about the amount of false images flooding science/history videos on YT. They are not diagrams, they are not photos, they are not reality.

[@moonasha]

@@PretendingToBeAHuman no it's not? it's just filler that would previously have been stock footage of something entirely unrelated. This filler is just cooler. Calling it misleading is itself misleading

[@rorymoran4418]

It also feels lazy imo. There weren't really any connection from the generated images to specifically what was being said. @@PretendingToBeAHuman

[@pbsixgun6]

@@PretendingToBeAHuman It's faster and cheaper than having an artists 'concept' drawings. As long as it's properly labeled there is zero issues. It's the propaganda that is NOT saying it's 'A.I. generated' that is shameful and misleading.

[@goofysdodgeball]

I love how we’re combining our two biggest world ending fears right now. One zombie AI apocalypse coming right up 😂

[@09Drdray]

The walking inbred

[@tristan8922]

It’s 100% like the WAU from the game SOMA.

[@Mr.-Enigma-]

Eco Friendly Skynet is coming for us😆

[@mikinaakandersen1189]

I mean the real world ending fear where all these other fears come from is... Change. Any new science people yell is going to end the world, lol.

[@jimbeckert7946]

I'm going on vacation for two weeks, can you feed and water my computer while I'm gone?

[@TsaotBananentoast]

Crazy, but so is "I dropped this comuter while it wrote memory, my thesis is gone. I should have written millions of bytes as backup and saved it in the cloud"

[@jimbeckert7946]

@@TsaotBananentoast That problem has already been solved by solid-state drives.

[@johnridolfo2290]

I may have missed it but I think you left out the amazing fact that fungi are actually more closely related and share more DNA with humans than they do any other plants, bacteria, or viruses which I find absolutely fascinating

[@crowbrocaw]

Which is why some people describe them as "meaty"

[@kaitlinhillier]

Also they're the only organism with 3 nuclei per atom. Suggesting extraterrestrial origin.

[@jugro7639]

"Don't you wanna take your moldy sandwich next to your computer to the trash?" "Nah, I'm upgrading the system..."

[@tomsterbg8130]

"That's sick dude, are you making the new MR 3090 FI?"

[@axle.student]

I think my old tower is already self evolving into a fungal computer lol

[@CoolerThanJim]

At first I read towel not tower.

[@jackcarterog001]

Clean yo room!

[@ZephyrAvoxel]

radioactive ☢️ LoL

[@ZephyrAvoxel]

p.s. Ar, sometimes it's not a tower, sometimes it's a lighthouse.

[@axle.student]

@@CoolerThanJim lol That happens to me a lot :)

[@hootinouts]

I knew someone who worked for the railroad as a signal maintenance technician and he told me that they were given a tour of a lab that had some sort of super computer that he described as looking "organic". That's exactly how he described it. He said it was the strangest thing he'd ever seen.

[@marasmiusgoldcrow6746]

I absolutely love this!!! I've been a wild food forager for most of my life and I've always been fascinated by fungi and their capabilities. Awesome topic, awesome research, awesome video. Much love.

[@E3_Kruger]

Hey Simon, thanks so much for covering this. I actually worked on mycelial computation as part of my research work in cognitive computing. One note, it's highly effective at high throughput, parallelised but extremely high latency computation with infinitely configurable IO. We see this as an excellent opportunity for 2 specific Computational/interface problems. 1: AI inference 2: Brain computer interfaces. With the second being particularly important for us. Imagine being able to take a small series of injections, and a brain computer interface will literally build itself inside your head, no invasive surgery, no risk of an EMP or electrocution frying your brain, and the ability to remove it with a small course of antifungal medications. This may sound frightening to some, but to us the idea of non "hard", fully reversible BCI tech that could act as a neural symbiote is extremely exciting. The best of fungal advantages for neural health, the ability to have a functional, near cellular level resolution BCI that is also fully reversible without invasive surgery or potentially any lasting damage is incredibly exciting. Once again thank you so much for covering this topic, it means the world to me and my team. Kruger

[@princess_sarina_aria_elysia]

How would the fungus in the brain of this hypothetical patient be kept alive?

[@LordOfTheTermites]

How hard would it be to make something that can survive from the circulatory system and that also doesn't cause debilitating symptoms?

[@E3_Kruger]

@@princess_sarina_aria_elysia Nutritional exchange. Bioengineer the myclia to absorb some of the same nutrients we as humans may not fully need, and remove the ability of it to process neural/bodily tissue if the specific strain used if the scaffolding for the interface had the capacity to do so.

[@coconutsmarties7916]

Why does this sound like it should be the concept of a Michael Crichton novel

[@Bobbycustom883]

Good lord it’s Kruger from “Archer” haha Seriously though that all does sound brilliant. It’s probably not for me but Im pretty excited to see the inevitable integration.

[@HODGKINSON.]

Brings a whole new meaning to “my computer died”

[@sqeekydemon9569]

I first hear about this on Kentucky Route Zero, then Scavengers Reign, now i'm hearing it's an actual thing? That's wild

[@vanquest5341]

Diary entry 22: After landing on planet 210z, Bob enthusiastically began growing our computers. Some human from the future, probably.

[@Kain59242]

"you cannot kill me in a way that matters", Dave.

[@theicyphoenix_7745]

after seeing this lowkey the Hfy stereotype of humans first encoutners with aliens having aliens appear to use biological computers and then be consufed that we have tricked a rock into thinking might not be that far from reality lol

[@emailformosa]

We are the original self replicating Fungal Computers, creating the next iteration of Fungal Computers.

[@Vectorized_mind]

Your on to something. The intersection of Biology and Computation is theoretically the only logical way to develop actual sentient life(Artificial Biology) that can potentially not just compute faster than a human but can also be self-conscious of the computation it performs.

[@pondurosa3792]

Trippy

[@tygyrlylly8079]

I've had this distinct feeling at time while partaking in cubensis journeys, that we humans are merely an extension of the mushrooms fungal network and are serving to propogate said network.

[@flwznthrtn]

What i thought as well 😂

[@La80R4TQRiii]

When it randomly visually reminds you at an inopportune time

[@officersoulknight6321]

This is interesting, but are we not gonna question how this is potentially really expensive to produce? Not only are you growing a bunch of mushrooms from scratch but you're also electrically training them

[@jadeboswell-rz2ly]

As a doctor of mycology I found your video very intriguing. I usually work with medical doctors in the case of intoxicated patients. Those that have eaten dangerous species.. this tend to self replicate on human organs. Thank you..

[@scottnj2503]

I'm acquainted with human organ transplants. My doctors told me, fungal infections were worse than bacteria or viruses.

[@cyleleghorn246]

I'm getting into mushrooms, this sounds fascinating! I know fungi in your lungs can be catastrophic, but that's about where my knowledge ends. Recently I saw an article that said scientists were shocked by a type of mushroom sprouting from a living frog's skin. I can see how that would be alarming since most mushrooms are saprotrophic, at least the edible ones I'm learning about. Are there mushrooms growing in the woods that have spores that can take root in living human tissue? Other internal organs? Or does it always affect the lungs? I'd be really interested in knowing some of the species or buzzwords I can use to research more into this topic. I've had the idea to recreate MIT's rat brain computer for awhile, but doing the same thing with mushrooms looks a lot more sane to the outside observer. It would be cool to get a mycelium network to fly a flight simulator

[@jadeboswell-rz2ly]

Mycology spans various spectrums. I would recommend Collins and Roger Phillips books on fungi.

[@ajaxthegreatest2191]

I should have never came here. Sleep ruined for the next week.

[@marcbeebee6969]

​​@@cyleleghorn246 the girls in the survival shows are scared of fungi in the wet areas 😅 sounds worst

[@petersaunders5808]

Job security tip: get ahead of the game by learning to program the mold in your walls

[@Nefylym]

i would but it keeps hacking my desktop to look up kittens and guns

[@deebznutz100]

If history has taught me anything, somebody, somewhere is going to try and eat the mushroom computer.

[@LoFiMan1981]

cool so if my future osyter fungus computer breaks down i can either attempt to repair it or fry it up with a knob or butter and some garlic

[@nickolasbrown3342]

Petition: Name the first fungal-based general-AI "Princess Toadstool"

[@Thefan]

I like that joke, you must be a fungi.

[@ZMB-on5ub]

I remember seeing an experiment where a slime mold managed to make the Tokyo subway more efficient. Obviously they didn't change anything but it was the efficiency of transport that was the point. Fascinating critters.

[@chrislaface1973]

I saw the same doc really cool stuff

[@hamstercanibal]

I think you are talking about Paul Stamets

[@ZMB-on5ub]

@@hamstercanibal No. I know who he is. It was a doc.

[@Ubu987]

The slime mold effectively solved the 'travelling salesman' problem, which is a hard problem in combinatorics, becoming practically insoluble very quickly.

[@ryshellso526]

This is just routing and switching... routing protocols would help.

[@Heeroneko]

The AI images are unnecessary filler. I'd much rather see actual examples of what's being discussed or the speaker.

[@Nicole-pt4bx]

THIS

[@Ghostrander]

Same

[@surcettinr2600]

I agree... one or two is okay, but too many kinda cheapens the rest of the content

[@zakbly]

Right. At least it’s not a weird ai person also with mono ai voice

[@j.d.4697]

Then look at the actual examples he showed too, you man-baby.

[@philosophyknits1969]

Fact boy, how many channels do you have now? I love them all!

[@Mike80528]

"Is that a compost pile in the corner of your office?" "No, that's my new workstation!"

[@erasmus_locke]

Computer chips that can evolve? I'm not sure that's a viable business model

[@Pals420]

in b4 fungal ban

[@ripn929707]

It is if they use the EA subscription model. 😂

[@bakedbeings]

They said that about open source. The key is in support services - fertiliser, pest control, damp containment.

[@hansdegroot652]

The chips no the os devolves every update

[@christophvolar3481]

I dunno if its a good idea to integrate corticeps with computers.......

[@dewy330]

Officer, This isn't a grow room, it's my supercomputer.

[@citricdemon]

This isn't a mud pit. It's an operating table!

[@mikinaakandersen1189]

This isn't surprising. Lecture from when I was in college for Computer Science was all about how we have peaked with our computing tech atm besides reorganization and tweaks. He said that the next step was switching to biological computering due to biological electric switches are faster than anything we can fabricate with non-living materials. This is a great path in exploring such progressions in computing tech.

[@brechtstroobant9879]

Been fixing pc's for the better part of two decades and honestly, I'm not surprised someone got the idea if I recall how fuzzy some motherboards were. Pro tip: if your computer doesn't work after being in a damp room for a couple of years, maybe try looking inside. You'd be shocked at what you might find

[@dennisfarris4729]

Had a tower that lived in the garage, the interior was a city of bugs....

[@phillipwilliams3544]

Mould ruined my laptop

[@ATCRyderX]

@@phillipwilliams3544 No It didn't.

[@mariusvanc]

Someone got to go ham on midjourney for this one 🤣🤣🤣

[@yeahitskimmel]

Told it "Mushroom computer" and decided if I'm paying for every result I'm gonna use every last result lol

[@mikestone6078]

Every. Single. Result. Twice. Ngl, it's crossed the line into annoying ...

[@cikame]

@@mikestone6078 I've been thinking this show needs a new editor for a while but between that, the constant whoosh sound effects, exaggerated zooms and the images that require explanation but receive no explanation, something has got to change. Does he still do the voice filter and old timey tv thing? That was super annoying too.

[@adambourne5523]

Dream is just sticking an electrode into a mushroom in any forest and being able to run Crysis off your device

[@reecep4016]

When shrooms and ai combine ‘we have been watching your kind for millennia, waiting in the shadows and the dirt’

[@MattyJ55046]

I had no idea this was even possible let alone this far into the process.

[@4NeoHelix4]

This is a concept that's explored in a recent, adult Sci-Fi show on HBO: Scavengers Reign!!! The organisms on the setting planet invade a robot assistant's hardware, allowing them to become more self-aware and aware of the planet-wide ecosystem itself. Wicked concept that could be integrated into many fields of science one day, I bet!

[@Antonio-xq2hg]

SCAVENGERS REIGN MENTIONED 🗣🗣🗣‼️‼️

[@danielconway7190]

Yes! Great show

[@ahetzel9054]

Yessss!!! Just left a comment telling him to watch it! I absolutely loved that show. So well done

[@srichman5]

the entire universe itself is probably one of these interconnected webs of information transmission and processing.

[@GetMoGaming]

The slime mould can solve tasks of computational geometry, image processing, logic and arithmetics... all this on top of being fun-guys and fun-gals.😏

[@AlexanderLund]

Taking the cordyceps fungi and literally strapping it to our body so it can 'talk' to it sounds like a bad idea

[@joshward3090]

Hmmm....seems like they are looking to play the last of us live action...

[@captain_clark868]

@@joshward3090Absolutely insane!

[@Sciguy95]

This would put a whole new meaning to being "on shrooms."

[@thethirdchimpanzee]

When the AI running on your mushroom based neural network "hallucinates*...it's *really* gonna hallucinate!!

[@Sciguy95]

@@thethirdchimpanzee that would make a cool horror or even comedy movie idea. A mushroom based computer AI starts to act as if it were high on shrooms and goes crazy. The Last of Us (Future Edition): The world has defeated and fully recovered from the Cordyceps fungus outbreak and has advanced to the point of using artificially intelligent robots that just happen to use mushroom based computers to run the AI. Suddenly the Cordyceps fungus returns! But this time it's infecting the robots, and now we have to worry about robo-clickers, NOT AGAIN!!!!!

[@monkeybird69]

Instead of Mario growing when he gets the mushroom he logs onto the internet instead.

[@TrentBrew]

imagine trying to debug a system where the problem could literally be a fungal infection

[@CKILBY-zu7fq]

Now the stories I heard as a little boy come about as a new story, where I heard that the fungus was going to take over the earth, suddenly now we know why.

[@brianedwards7142]

Driving a casserole themed food van through a post-apocalypse war zone crawling with enemy cyber-shrooms. *The Shitake's About to Hit the Fan!*

[@secretagent4610]

😂

[@caliwolf7150]

As a fungus programmer I’m glad that you shed a light on this topic Simon, super excited for the future especially the Fungus Vision Pro

[@hawaiian_judge5113]

bullshit. you're less than 1%

[@stavros222]

As a touchgrass developer i would like to meet a fungus programmer

[@caliwolf7150]

@@stavros222 We fungus programmers live in isolation away from the savage grass touching specimens

[@caliwolf7150]

@@stavros222 We fungus programmers live in isolation, far away from the savage grass touching devs, please do not disturb

[@Mad4BBQ]

Fascinating stuff. I particularly love the heavy metal riff at the end. I subbed. Thanks!

[@brianbrenton1025]

You know it's an intriguing idea when Simon stays on topic.

[@TheFragrantClerk]

But he said “Not by any conscious means, of course” and lost me.

[@Nefylym]

@@TheFragrantClerk doesn't rule out unconscious means tho 🧐

[@TheFragrantClerk]

⁠​⁠@@Nefylym”Not by any conscious means” means (to me) “without consciousness”. There is not ANYTHING that occurs without consciousness, we and everything in our existence is a manifestation of infinite intelligence.

[@Nefylym]

@@TheFragrantClerk ... breathing ...

[@Sp1der44]

Yet another perfect example of "As above so below". I've watched many videos on the topic of slime molds and fungus and it is quite arguable that mycelium already make up the neural pathways of a large portion of the earth and that their topography, a robust desire to branch out, connect and interface with each other and the other plants in their vicinity are demonstrative of this. The idea of mushroom-to-brain interfacing has been ongoing since they were first discovered by hominids and other creatures. Research on the effects of Lions mane, turkey tail, and psychoactive mushrooms sort of lends credence to the idea. This was a completely fascinating exploration of this subject and I would love to possibly hear more from you in the future on this topic. Absolutely outstanding video. Wonderful stuff! 👍

[@supme7558]

No

[@donwall9632]

Explain ​@@supme7558

[@Varunic219]

Yes!

[@alfonsozarate2458]

Absolutely 👍

[@davidlarson3905]

For anyone interested in an animated series that incorporates *this* as one of the main plot points, I highly recommend Scavengers Reign!

[@user-vsmsdos]

We've become orcs and our magic mushroom computers will soon power our new intergalactic spacecrafts.

[@revanamarie7210]

Lol .. Humans are Space Orcs

[@hamhouke]

That was the most information dense presentation I have ever seen where I finished knowing nothing more about the subject than when it started. 😂

[@cacogenicist]

He got some things wrong. Like putting the genus _Cordyceps_ in the phylum _Basidiomycota_ ... it is an ascomycete, not a basidiomycete. And he even sort of suggested that basidiomycota is a single mushroom, when it is actually of group of hundreds of genera and tens of thousands of described species.

[@wildflower1397]

​@cacogenicist Oh... well that clears it all up. 😂

[@Nefylym]

@@cacogenicist well if it isn't Radaghast the Brown, hello old friend!

[@cacogenicist]

@@wildflower1397 - Glad I could be of services. Nothing chaos my ass like people trying to call _Cordyceps_ a basidiomycete, ya know?

[@Kevan808]

Fungus amung us 🍄

[@Freakhealer]

You're a fungy

[@cedhome7945]

There's a song called that by the imperial pompadours ....

[@NA-xg7lf]

Here we are on the verge of combining unparalleled intelligence AI with the capability to reproduce at an alarming rate. It's like if the last of us had a baby with terminator.

[@lii1Il]

If it ever stops working, just disconnect the cooler, sprinkle some cheese and saussge on it and enjoy your pizza board!

[@eriksilva631]

A futuristic robot with a mycelium brain and quantum heart processor would be no joke.

[@VariiCorvid]

Technically that would be a cyborg due to the wetware

[@DntPaNICC]

So the animated series "Scavengers Reign" wasn't just make believe...the robot was 1st invaded then intergrated with fungi and became self aware and also developed the ability to touch/feel and express emotion/desires.

[@user-kf9ud5tv3b]

Ahhhh somone else noticed very interesting that this is possible so holy shit we gonna see new spices fr fr with this ohhh boyyy get your fungus ai girl friend lol

[@starblaiz1986]

Alternative title - the coolest D&D tabletop map you've ever seen 😅

[@TimP-eu3vp]

You have amazing content. Thank you for reviewing for the people who are watching you. Not the companies who are pushing out bad products and pay for internet hype up.

[@alecwilliams1556]

Once you see mushrooms as little flying saucers firing down tractor beams, you cant unsee it.

[@pinnacleexpress420]

This video propbably couldve been a lot shorter given how it feels like half the script is "It's beyond me but there's some proof of concept" repeated in different ways, but that was pretty fascinating.

[@juliank475]

Zapping mushrooms to force them to communicate with sophisticated technology. So we're in the fungal universe of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. And Am is a giant oyster mushroom.

[@stavros222]

Ok... wdym?

[@tomcushing3619]

Oh Simon! Thank you so much for including "AI Dipiction" in the corner of every picture! I, for one, was ready to believe that they were real computers!😁

[@micahstarnes3327]

It’s gonna be like 20 years and we’re gonna have quantum fungal computers growing out of our desks

[@Yabroproductions33]

Ask the right mushroom it would have told you this itself Fungus been on this kick since day one

[@Valentin_Teslov]

That's kind of creepy. If this is the reason people see machine elves when on shrooms, maybe humans were just a stepping stone for future techno fungi to create themselves all along

[@Yabroproductions33]

@@Valentin_Teslovask the next mushrooms you encounter and see what they say.

[@tsbrownie]

Wouldn't it be interesting if Ophiocordyceps became our future computers. It's potentially deadly traits being ignored for profits and usefulness. I think I saw a documentary on that titled "The Day Of The Triffids."

[@reubynmcnaught9973]

I literally walk past that computing lab on the way to the engineering block most days, wouldn't even know they're researching that funky stuff until I watched this 🍄🖥

[@Adonisius_Kavata]

next thing you know we'll have a mushroom supercomputer that wants to wipe out humanity called FungiNet

[@thespicemelange.1]

Now we need a mushroom-powered quantum computer. That shit will be insane. Thus unlocking the key to life itself. Now that sounds pretty trippy.

[@ButtSnorkler9000]

What do you even mean the key to life? You have to have an actual question to find an answer

[@thespicemelange.1]

@@ButtSnorkler9000 you want to ask me a question with that handle? You need to do some serious soul searching.

[@jamesbannerman4804]

Star Trek Voyager, the ship has living tissue for their computers storage and processing, Star Trek leads the way again. LOL

[@littlebuddha.co.]

Star Gate Atlantis has an entire alien race that's recurrent in the series who uses living technology! I came to this comment section looking for anyone talking about it! The Wraith even use these face masks that look like they could be made of a crust fungus

[@TaBunnie]

"Bro what's your specs?" "Uhh... Portabella"

[@connecteddthoughts]

There's a book that has a species of living circuitry-- it's one of my favorite science fiction series. It's called The Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The book involves a certain insect forming living computing parts-- I won't spoil which one because this series is absolute peak hard science fiction, and it feels like a shockingly realistic future.

[@dupirechristophe7703]

When you're tripping on mushrooms so you get the idea to give shrooms to your computer so you can trip together x'D

[@aqdrobert]

Michael Burnham: I travelled back in time to inspire past generations into developing Spore Drive, Princess Peach. Luigi: Will you make lots of SPAGHETTI with mushrooms?

[@Nefylym]

Looks like someone started microdosing :)

[@steelymodz1834]

sounds amazing love this idea. if we end up with a computer like this in the future just think what els they would incoprate this into . the answer is just about everything

[@TubularTortilla]

Interesting to find this video. I once seen a video where scientists were playing with the idea of moss being used as a rudimentary solar battery. Plants are cool.

[@mishiou7244]

Next thing we know we will have starships traveling through space powered by a mushroom network 😅

[@reddog-ex4dx]

I personally welcome our new fungi overlords.

[@Nefylym]

... underlords? fungal lords? fungal ladies? wait no. now i'm traumatized

[@JL-gg5ib]

Mushrooms creep me out and I don’t know why but I do love tripping on them.

[@Renatus_Eruditus]

Although it's my fault for not looking closely at the thumbnail, I was so disappointed when I didn't hear "Hey VSauce, Michael here."

[@ukdocdeath]

After watching this i had to make sure it wasnt posted on the 1st April - then star trek discovery come to mind, amazing how star trek objects are becoming part of the real world.

[@OurSpaceshipEarth]

That's a deep rabbit holoe

[@aurorajones8481]

Yea... but can you eat them? A nice white wine butter sauce?

[@PlebiasFate1609]

a pc that has an infinite supply of snacks inside of it? thats 2 in 1 baby

[@user-su5uf5yv1w]

I suppose you could if you were depressed enough.

[@snedler]

Can you imagine the day when you will be able to harvest mushrooms for your pizza in your computer? It sounds like a fascinating concept 😂

[@Kopie0830]

As a fungi connoisseur, fungi is really the best, takes you to other worlds you've never seen before lol

[@flaparoundfpv8632]

As both a professional mycologist and a physicist with an electronics background, your brain is as smooth as your scalp. Your channel is pop science.

[@thomcm12]

Same here. True and real. Absolute trash mega channel.

[@thomcm12]

Good game using midjourney to free generate a hundred pictures of wet fungus fruiting out of a motherboard... If your channel is not doing good come up with real material instead of making shit up and acting like your crazy strings of hypotheticals are fresh news.

[@OurSpaceshipEarth]

Best burn ever. Someone has got to out this talking head fraud single headedly lowering the bar for what constitutes acceptable truthiness based _info-tainment_

[@Jonny11299]

I would be thrilled if you made a video with better information.