News World's first 'body in a box' biological computer uses human brain cells with silicon-based computing

[Admin]

The computer integrates lab-grown neurons that develop on a silicon chip, enabling them to transmit and receive electrical signals.

World's first 'body in a box' biological computer uses human brain cells with silicon-based computing : Read more

 

[LolaGT]

That isn't creepy at all.....

 

[acadia11]

The singularity is near ….

 

[bit_user]

This is nothing more than a research tool. I don't see how many neurons it has, but I'm pretty sure they're only talking about dozens. For reference, the simplest central nervous systems in the wild have about 100 neurons while the human brain has about 86 billion.

A huge downside any system like this has vs. one that's purely digital is that you can't just load up a neural net model and go. Each one of these has to be trained, before you can use it, and the training will vary and just might not succeed. At that point, presumably you'd throw out the brain chip and get a new one and that's presumably not cheap.

Not to mention that living cells are a dynamic thing. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if performance varied from day to day and maybe even declined over time, before they eventually die.

BTW, do you need to give them breaks so they can "sleep"? As far as I know, all organisms with neurons require sleep.

 

[dalek1234]

They are just showing a "nothing burger" concept, hoping some sucker will take the bait and invest in their project.

 

[Rob1C]

This is nothing more than a research tool. I don't see how many neurons it has, but I'm pretty sure they're only talking about dozens. For reference, the simplest central nervous systems in the wild have about 100 neurons while the human brain has about 86 billion.

Might have 62, source: https://github.com/Cortical-Labs/cl-api-doc/blob/main/CL-00. Hello, Neurons.ipynb readable with 16 bit resolution, source: https://github.com/Cortical-Labs/cl-api-doc/blob/main/CL-05. Reading Raw Data.ipynb

Not to mention that living cells are a dynamic thing. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if performance varied from day to day and maybe even declined over time, before they eventually die.

6 months lifespan.

 

[DriftStorm]

I am not sure that using biology to build computers of the "future" is desirable.
You only have to look at humans, who are ultimately very unintelligent, their behaviour for example, to realize this.
Furthermore, humans are snails compared to today's computers.

 

[beyondlogic]

oh yay lets combine the worst things human cells and a technology what could possibly go wrong lol.
its very creepy

combine this thing with a proper ai possibility of potentially hellscape.

 

[bit_user]

oh yay lets combine the worst things human cells and a technology what could possibly go wrong lol.
its very creepy

combine this thing with a proper ai possibility of potentially hellscape.

Do you think we should develop better prosthetics for humans? If so, then studying and improving the technology of silicon-neural interfaces would seem worthwhile. That would seem to be one possible application of these machines.

As I've suggested, I think it's impractical to scale up this sort of wet AI. I wouldn't worry about that aspect of it.

 

[beyondlogic]

Do you think we should develop better prosthetics for humans? If so, then studying and improving the technology of silicon-neural interfaces would seem worthwhile. That would seem to be one possible application of these machines.

As I've suggested, I think it's impractical to scale up this sort of wet AI. I wouldn't worry about that aspect of it.

oh im def in camp of improved prosthetics within a scope and do see the potential but and there's always a but ai is improving its not impractical at all that normal ai could use it itself to build a body if conscious ai becomes a thing scaling up might be impossible for human understanding but as ai gets more advanced there's always a possibility but that's all it is a possibility doesn't mean i damn all science involved.

 

[husker]

Do they dream of 'sheep in a box'?

 

[King_V]

Spoiler: If you know, you know...