How the classic computer game Doom became a tool for science

"Last month, scientists in Australia reported that they had taught neurons grown on a silicon chip how to play the game. The phrases 'Can it run Doom?' and 'It runs Doom' have become a popular Internet meme."

"Alon Loeffler, a synthetic-biological-intelligence scientist who was part of the team at biotechnology company Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia, that trained the neurons, says the team chose Doom because of the meme. He and his colleagues first taught neurons how to play the classic video game Pong in 2021."

"The subculture around the meme reflects the crucial role of play in science, says Mars Buttfield-Addison, a software developer and PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. By engaging in play and having fun, researchers are using the same kind of creativity needed to solve scientific problems."

Doom, released in 1993, has become an unexpected research tool across multiple scientific disciplines. Beyond its original entertainment purpose, the game has been used to improve artificial-intelligence models and investigate video game effects on memory and aggression. A notable achievement occurred when Australian scientists at Cortical Labs trained neurons grown on silicon chips to play Doom. The game's appeal in research stems from both its complexity and internet culture, where 'Can it run Doom?' became a popular meme. Scientists chose Doom as a research platform partly due to this meme's cultural significance. Other video games like Minecraft and World of Warcraft also serve research purposes, but Doom's publicly available 1997 source code makes it particularly valuable for scientific experimentation.

Read at Nature