An attempt of a babbling-dialogue-agent, depending on the "feeling" of a cultured living neural network.

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K22883
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 61:Human informatics and related fields
• Research Institution: Kwansei Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Kudoh Suguru 関西学院大学, 工学部, 教授 (10344110)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: ニューロロボット / 培養神経回路網 / 内部状態 / twitter / 感情極性 / 自発性神経電気活動

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We developed an interactive neurorobot provided the electrical activity in the neuronal network as an emotional unit by connecting a living cultured neuronal network and a smart speaker. It was confirmed that the system operated almost as expected, and the prerequisite electrical activity status of the cultured neuronal network was also analyzed. As a result of conducting a dialogue experiment with an agent core of the cultured neuronal network (DIV7-9).
The babbles-talk-response of the agent did not always make sense, but since the human side unconsciously complemented and understood the meaning, there were cases where a conversation that felt natural was established. Actually communicating with the agent with a biological unit, it was suggested that this would make it easier for human to feel something emotional things with this agent.

Free Research Field

神経工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で開発した半生体の対話エージェントは，生体要素を含んで構成されている．脳と同様にネットワークを構成して，揺らぎを含んだ相互作用を発現する培養神経回路網でモデルを作成すれば，それは人とより類似した意識状態を持つに至るのではないかと言う仮説のもとに，心のハードプロブレムに構成論的実証科学で挑んだ．本システムは，ユーザーに人の脳とより類似した性質を持つ要素によって構成されたシステムとの対話を体験させることで，人の意識状態について考える機会を提供する．未だ限定的な結果ではあるが，対話エージェントの向こうに「心」が感じられるシステムが実現された可能性があり，工学的にも有用である．