Can AI Explain a Neuron with a Star Wars Analogy?

AI Experiments

Artificial intelligence is pretty good at mimicking intelligence when it’s seen the question answered elsewhere. What happens then when you ask it to connect to unrelated ideas? Can it find reasonable parallels in two unrelated topics through intelligent generalisations and abstractions like humans can? No, they can’t. The results are hilarious.

Local

Starting with the smallest, dumbest and funniest of the AI. It describes an action potential like a knife slice through the axon. Such damage doesn’t sound like the basis for long-term memory to me. At the heart of it, neurons communicate through electrical signals and chemical messengers. Think of these signals as the lightsaber energy being drawn from the Force. When a neuron is stimulated, it generates an electrical impulse, akin to a lightsaber igniting. This impulse travels down the neuron’s axon, much like a lightsaber beam cutting through space

ChatGPT

Surprisingly the mega AI ChatGPT also connected lightsabers and action potentials, but restrained itself to the on-off switch. The actual impulse triggered by the ‘lightsaber’ was an entirely unrelated metaphor of a light speed jump. Odd. Not exactly a good visual.

1. Neurons as Jedi and Starships

• Each neuron is like a Jedi Knight stationed on a planet.
• The Jedi’s lightsaber ignition represents the neuron’s action potential firing—the moment it sends a message.
• The lightspeed jump to another star system is the signal traveling down the axon (the neuron’s “space highway”).

Private Cloud

I thought the smartest program this time around was Apple’s private cloud AI. The idea that every neuron was a Jedi temple sending out little Jedi messengers was almost coherent. 3. The Cell Body as the Jedi Temple: The cell body, or soma, is like the Jedi Temple on Coruscant—it’s the central hub where all the information from the dendrites is processed. Here, the neuron decides whether the incoming signals are strong enough to trigger an action. 4. The Axon as the Jedi Path: If the neuron decides to send a message, it travels down a long projection called the axon, akin to a Jedi embarking on a mission across the stars. The axon acts as a conduit, carrying the electrical impulse away from the cell body.