I did not expect this to be as thoughtful as it is. Kudos to the thought put into the setup and training. Building custom hardware for the rat is amazing.. I need something like this for my own setup.

Well, the most cyberpunk thing I have read today. No video of rats killing Daemons though, only a promising but broken link.

How can he not include a video of it working? D:

For those afraid to click: This does not appear to hurt the rats or involve doing any surgery on them.

checks notes I'm sorry, this doesn't qualify to run in the category "running DOOM on <device>"

>We reached the point of rat habituation but didn’t start training. Our rats (Todd, Kojima, Gabe) aged out before full testing. The setup works, but behavioral validation is pending.

Ah man, what a pity. That VR rig is awesome, but it doesn't really seem to me they are planning to continue these experiments, or do they?

I wonder if the team at id considered this when they released Doom: In 30 years rats will be forced to play it in exchange for sugar water.

Treat those rats well, now that you've trained them for combat.

That's such a fun project. Some really excellent Show HN items this week, but this is my favourite.

Good news: Here's a cute video of Todd being habituated to the setup: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1999598643339227564 Bad news: no video of them playing on this setup, just on the previous version. We iterated on v2 too long, our pet rats grew old and couldn't be trained. We open-sourced the hardware and software so others can build upon it. You can TLDR the whole thing in this thread: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1996632980903620886?s=2... ...Also, here's my personal X, dm me if you have any questions, or would want to build it for a lab or for yourself: https://x.com/viktor_thoth

This isn't true of all rats

> It maximizes immersion without obstructing whisker space

hehe very important

although... if the walls moved and touched the whiskers in conjunction with the game could be something

I'm a little conflicted on the ethics of this ... but this would have made a kickass youtube channel.

Doom aside (very impressive), I love the concept of putting rats on a roller ball instead of in a wheel for exercise. It would be better on their backs.

The year is 2034. Countless attempts at re-producing the sophisticated wetware of the brain have failed. Modeling research has proved unfruitful, with the curse of dimensionality afflicting every attempt at breaking the walls of general intelligence. With only a few million of capital left, and facing bankruptcy, they knew that only one option remained.

"Bring me the rats."

Incoming site: Can It Play Doom?

No gameplay footage?