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They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?
"Unimaginable suffering in a petri dish" is not something I want even a tiny chance of creating.
They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?
Interesting question! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02986-y
They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?
It seems doubtful that hundreds of thousands of human neurons would lead to consciousness.
"Although the company calls its system DishBrain, the neurons are a far cry from an actual brain, Kagan says, and show no signs of consciousness."
...then again, would they be able to tell? There's not a lot of I/O in this situation.
A question for someone who understands the neurology and biology of this much more than I do: Once I have a group of neurons like this trained to do something, can I actually count on them to continue performing that task until they die? Or is it possible they spontaneously reorganize or "learn" a previously unseen behavioral pattern?
But when the task is not required for a very long time the circuit that turns this task on will weaken, at least in the brain. And neurons will be forming other connections, but that doesn't mean they will necessarily "forget" about older ones.
They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?
"Hundreds of thousands of human neurons growing in a dish" It seems doubtful that hundreds of thousands of human neurons would lead to consciousness. "Although the company calls its system DishBrain, the neurons are a far cry from an actual brain, Kagan says, and show no signs of consciousness." ...then again, would they be able to tell? There's not a lot of I/O in this situation.
I see this research as a red flag "hey, we are approaching something very bad" and while the flag itself may not be a problem we should heed the warning and change direction.
All this said, my understanding is that this research is in part inspired by or associated with the phenomenon of people with encephalopathy who have greatly diminished brain volumes but are still conscious. This says to me we can't reliably predict how many neurons are necessary before creating consciousness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting question! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02986-y
This seems like a research area so horrific it could exist only in a comic book. This type of thing should not be funded or researched. I'm surprised it needs to be said but we shouldn't grow human brains to experiment on them. Maybe if we could understand and quantify consciousness and be sure we weren't subjecting something to hell - but certainly not while we can't do that.
This is about 40x more cells than they used to fly a fighter jet in a simulation back in 2004. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1572 . I suppose the claim to fame in this similar study is the use of the title organoid and there's some legitimacy to that. Form and function are intimately tied in the brain and just a bunch of neurons on a petri dish isn't quite an organ.
That's a bit like saying battle bots solved locomotion of robots.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting question! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02986-y
This seems like a research area so horrific it could exist only in a comic book. This type of thing should not be funded or researched. I'm surprised it needs to be said but we shouldn't grow human brains to experiment on them. Maybe if we could understand and quantify consciousness and be sure we weren't subjecting something to hell - but certainly not while we can't do that.
They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?
How can you be sure that anyone other than you is conscious? Why shouldn't animals be conscious?