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Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

nature.com

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Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#31

Post by yazzku »

Funny how everybody here panics about 'the hell' of experimenting with human brains that could possibly grow consciousness. What about the actual hell we put animals through so that we can eat them? There are also studies suggesting that, for example, crows and other animals have some form of consciousness:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/crows-consciousne...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/do-crows-possess-f...

You don't need to imagine hell, it's already here.

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#32

Post by sva_ »

tshaddox wrote: post #29
sva_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> How can you be sure that anyone other than you is conscious? That doesn't seem like a more or less difficult question than asking how I can be sure that human neurons are the substrate responsible for producing consciousness. If it turns out that the other humans I observe only seem like they're conscious, then it could also turn out that my neurons only seem to be the substrate producing my consciousness. Of cours…

Yeah, and I really don't see how that substrate should be much different from that in other animals such as, say, chimpanzees. It seems silly to criticize this research just based on the fact that the neurons were cultured from humans in my opinion.

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#34

Post by austinjp »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #5

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?

They're biological. A lot can happen :) Remember this includes weirdness like viruses, tumors, aging... as well as specifically neural stuff like habituation (diminished sensitivity to repeated stimulation), sensitisation (increased sensitivity to repeated stimulation), spontaneous misfiring, reorganisation (basically creating/destroying or upweighting/downweighting synapses) etc etc etc.

Of course, then you'll need to debug problems by dripping antidepressants (or psychedelics, or stimulants, or depressants, or various hormones, or....) into the Petri dish.

Biology is wonderfully crazy.

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#35

Post by odrekf »

I tried to reply to someone but he got censored for pointing out that if you care about two neurons you should care about the animals that go through hell in the meat/dairy industry. Here's my reply:

One can't hope to truly know if another individual (be it a human or any other animal) is conscious (the hard problem of consciousness). But if it has eyes like us, mouth like us, plays like us, cries/screams when hurt like us, and even seem to dream like us (asleep dogs sometimes move like they are running in their dreams, and when they wake up they look confused and still perturbed from what they were seeing in their minds), it makes perfect sense to assume that they are conscious like us, and it's the ethical thing to do.

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#36

Post by wruza »

ALittleLight wrote: post #12
djmips wrote: post #8

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.

What makes you think that experiments on living rodents aren’t hell already? What is the crucial ethical difference between these species, apart from two facts, first that a full human has a legal status, second that most people will relate to an empty human brain more than to a non-empty non-human one (regardless of packaging).

I understand legal/relatable parts, but is there more to it?

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#37

Post by hirundo »

odrekf wrote: post #35

I tried to reply to someone but he got censored for pointing out that if you care about two neurons you should care about the animals that go through hell in the meat/dairy industry. Here's my reply: One can't hope to truly know if another individual (be it a human or any other animal) is conscious (the hard problem of consciousness). But if it has eyes like us, mouth like us, plays like us, cries/screams when hurt l…

If you apply the same standard within our own species you would be accused of xenophobia. Why should it be different across species?

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#38

Post by ALittleLight »

wruza wrote: post #36
ALittleLight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you think that experiments on living rodents aren’t hell already? What is the crucial ethical difference between these species, apart from two facts, first that a full human has a legal status, second that most people will relate to an empty human brain more than to a non-empty non-human one (regardless of packaging). I understand legal/relatable parts, but is there more to it?

One scientist studies tumors by causing tumors in rats. Another scientist studies tumors by causing them in humans. If you said to the second scientist "Hey, that's wrong, stop!" And he said "What's the crucial difference between rats and humans?" Would you be convinced by that line of argument?

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#39

Post by jll29 »

p1necone wrote: post #11
ALittleLight wrote: post #7

They are using human neurons for this? The one substrate we can be sure of is capable of producing consciousness?

Yeah this makes me really uncomfortable. We have no idea really what causes consciousness to arise, but "enough actual animal/human neurons to perform complex tasks" doesn't seem like an unlikely way to do it to me. "Unimaginable suffering in a petri dish" is not something I want even a tiny chance of creating.

As a researcher in responsible AI, I wonder what they told their ethics committee, if anything.

Re: Neurons in a dish learn to play Pong

#40

Post by fjeifisjf »

hirundo wrote: post #37
odrekf wrote: post #35

I tried to reply to someone but he got censored for pointing out that if you care about two neurons you should care about the animals that go through hell in the meat/dairy industry. Here's my reply: One can't hope to truly know if another individual (be it a human or any other animal) is conscious (the hard problem of consciousness). But if it has eyes like us, mouth like us, plays like us, cries/screams when hurt l…

If you apply the same standard within our own species you would be accused of xenophobia. Why should it be different across species?

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