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A startup is building computer chips using real neurons
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- HenryKissinger 6y agoSo, a brain? Easy there, Dr. Frankenstein.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoIf you have neurons then you also need glia and neurotransmitters and ways to regulate them and keep them alive... and suddenly you need the entire organism.
- pazimzadeh 6y agoThat could be said of almost any ex vivo model right?
- whoisjuan 6y agoWhat’s the goal of this though? I couldn’t determine it from the article, but I’m certain that using them as transistors just for the sake of saving energy doesn’t make sense. Especially since a neuron size is a about 4000nm or more than 500x larger than the new 7nm transistors. No way energy consumption is justifiable with such a massive loss of chip real estate. You will need way larger chips to achieve a decent computing power.
- haydn3 6y agoMaybe it's not just transistors they're hoping to gain from this. I think it's more like building a brain from organic matter that's the real boon. Sooner or later we'll be discarding silicon and extracting neurons from mice just to watch YouTube IX in space with our Tesla corvette cruisers and our alien barmaids serving us Soylent Green in a martini glass!
- mimentum 6y agoWell considering, many humans solved complex problems for thousands of years, with just the human brain for power, at about 20W of power consumption. One could argue that the human brain, or nature is more efficient at processing than that of a computer of equal power.
- russdill 6y agoThe best thing that could come out of this is a better understanding of how neurons work, especially across different organism. But yes, for building actual things it wouldn't scale. Silicon is a far better way forward and we have a ton of room for optimization.
- monocasa 6y agoPretty weird not to comment that they're replicating published work that trained mouse neurons on an electrode array to fly a plane in a flight simulator. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.h... It's about at the level where you could make a good attempt to replicate it as a hobby in your (albeit well stocked) garage.
- mjfl 6y agowhy did you link to the science daily and not any actual article? The linked page doesn't even link to an article, it links to a university press release. From 2004 no less. How am I supposed to verify that they are replicating published work as you say?
- jcims 6y agoHaving a bad day? Just do a little legwork, there are enough context clues to find the story from the linked article.
- jcims 6y ago> It's about at the level where you could make a good attempt to replicate it as a hobby in your (albeit well stocked) garage. Already being done: https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g Doesn’t hurt to join forces with another ‘well stocked garage‘ featured earlier on HN: https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g
- NeuronNerd 6y agoOnce your garage is that 'well stocked' you might as well call a lab! I think you might be drastically underestimating the difficulties inherent in both cell culture and programming in getting this sort of thing to work.
- paulrouget 6y agoThat video was fascinating…
- dsign 6y agoI think that getting any kind of practical processing from biological neurons from a mouse or a human is ... well, hard and pointless. However, the idea of getting biological parts interfacing with silico has lots of applications. For example, it could be used to build cheaper DNA printers where the "printing heads" are genetically modified bacteria. And from there, it would be possible to arrange all sorts of chemical processes using bacterial metabolism. One could for example build sealed bio-batteries with an infinite lifetime, whose DNA is kept mutation-free using a digital master in the embedded digital controller.
- leoh 6y ago> Using real neurons avoids several other difficulties that software-based neural networks have. For instance, to get artificial neural networks to start learning well, their programmers usually have to engage in a laborious process of manually adjusting the initial coefficients, or weights, that will be applied to each type of data point the network processes. This seems silly. Once you've figured out these parameters once, it seems to me you can similate a single neuron reasonably well. Perhaps differences will emerge from networks.
- twomoretime 6y ago>well, their programmers usually have to engage in a laborious process of manually adjusting the initial coefficients, or weights, that will be applied to each type of data point the network processes. Not true for modern neural networks. We typically use random values with certain statistics and/or specialized schemes which depend on specific later details - but in any case it's a single function call and the defaults typically work well enough that it's an advanced topic. The OP is probably referring to neural nets of old, before this recent explosion, where you had handfuls of perceptrons operating on very simple problems which would be trivial for modern ML.
- sirwitti 6y agoI'm guessing they're working on neuromorphic computing. Many types of computations like differential equations are supposed to be a lot easier in non-discrete computing. Disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm talking about, only glimps here and there.
- RichardCA 6y agoThe modern day successor to what Misha Mahowald was working on. https://youtu.be/lwT1jUvwRLc https://youtu.be/lwT1jUvwRLc It ends up being a complex hybrid of analog and digital computing having to work together. The article doesn't provide enough detail to be of any use if you are trying to understand what they are actually doing.
- h0l0cube 6y ago> Currently, the company is working to get its mini-brains—which so far are approaching the processing power of a dragonfly brain—to play the old Atari arcade game Pong I'm surprised that no-one has discussed whether these systems could develop emergent qualia, and experience pain. No joke. Are there any ethical frameworks around this kind of research?
- Sosh101 6y agoI think that is a very valid concern, but how could this ever be assessed
- anonytrary 6y agoIf something cannot be assessed, then are we still accountable for the result? Or, do we simply discard the assessment?
- ganzuul 6y agoHuman neural networks definitely are capable of suffering. These researchers might be re-inventing slavery.
- collyw 6y agoThey could give the artificial brains a bank account and pay them a salary.
- battery_cowboy 6y agoRead "The Quantum Thief" by Hannu Rajaniemi
- meowface 6y agoSo could any future AI researcher, regardless of the substrate. I suspect this idea is so widespread at this point that these researchers and others are aware of this possibility and see the potential moral issues. I just think they believe such a thing is still decades (or longer) away, and I think they're probably right. Right now, just about everyone wildly sensationalizes things that appear to suggest conscious man-made entities, like the AIs that supposedly "invented their own language". I think we're so eager to see it even when there's nothing close to it that once it actually does happen, we'll realize it quickly and understand the implications. There is the possibility that it could somehow develop despite no external signs of it, but all we can do is try to be as cognizant of the possibility as we can.
- Edward9 6y agoThis looks like we are going to also feed our computers nutrients on top of electricity.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago>programmers usually have to engage in a laborious process of manually adjusting the initial coefficients, or weights, that will be applied to each type of data point the network processes. Another challenge is to get the software to balance how much it should be trying to explore new solutions to a problem versus relying on solutions the network has already discovered that work well. “All these problems are completely eluded if you have a system that is based on biological neurons to begin with,” Friston said. Using real neurons avoids hyperparameter tuning? Can someone explain how.
- alex7o 6y agoI suppose neurons are already turned for the task at hand. Although I suppose you can change their environment with different chemicals and that would be very close to hyper parameter tuning, after all happy neurons think better.
- dr1337 6y agoAre you tuning hyperparameters when learning a task?
- barkingcat 6y agoYes, the amount of caffine, food (enzymes, proteins, carbs), and if it is a long running learning process, amount of sleep. all parameters are being tuned all the time.
- Mithriil 6y agoMy guess would be that the hyperparameters of neurons are somewhat already trained by evolution of the species the neurons come from. I assume that neurons are defined by their genetic and environment. Then if one reconstructs the environment in which neurons normally dwell, then everything is set for this neuron to perform as it should be. But on the other hand, one could interpret the environment variables as the hyperparameters. If you overheat the chips, it is possible the neurons might act differently (as would a brain?) If you overfeed them with, say, creatine, it might be possible that the neurons will perform erratically.
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- polskibus 6y agoReminds me of a sci-fi novel "Black oceans" by Jacek Dukaj. It was one of the more interesting themes in there.
- pfisch 6y agoThis sounds like an episode of black mirror and seems immoral. If this actually does work and scale the results would be horrific. I don't really want brains with no rights to exist like this.
- throwqqq 6y ago1/3 of the human brains in the world already exist with no rights. If we can enslave rats instead it will be a big step up.
- citizenpaul 6y ago100% of human brains exist with no rights. There are just temporary privileges. Ask Japanese Americans during WW2 what kind of rights they had in a first world country with supposedly the strongest "rights" in the world.
- rl3 6y ago2015 (my words): >Obviously the aforementioned experiment would be completely unethical, but it's interesting to ponder it as a hypothetical - that today we may have the capability to bootstrap a superintelligent machine using biology as a computational shortcut. But we can't, because ethics. [0] 2020 (article): >Chong said the pair were interested in the idea of artificial general intelligence (AGI for short)—A.I. that has the flexibility to perform almost any kind of task as well or better than humans. “Everyone is racing to build AGI, but the only true AGI we know of is biological intelligence, human intelligence,” Chong said. He noted the pair figured the only way to get human-level intelligence was to use human neurons. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973122
- jimmaswell 6y agoThe human neurons are sourced entirely ethically, from skin cells to stem cells that make neurons somehow.
- battery_cowboy 6y agoDo we know enough about consciousness to ethically put a "brain in a vat" yet?
- SuoDuanDao 6y agoI think the time to have that discussion is when the volume of neural tissue we're talking about is similar to a mouse's brain, until then it seems too detached from the realities on the ground to be much use.
- battery_cowboy 6y agoI think that's too late, because by then we might make great leaps and show this technology is feasible, and you know as well as I that it's hard to put the genie back into the bottle at that point. Well all just ignore it and pretend we know there's no one inside.
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- arm85 6y agoIf this was posted on the 1st of April, I wouldn't believe it...
- bencollier49 6y agoWhy specifically human neurons? Why source the neurons from human stem cells rather than mouse cells? PR I suppose.
- faeyanpiraat 6y agoWouldn't this count as neuron slavery?
- program_whiz 6y agoIf you assume that your conscious experience is somehow arising from your neurons, then generating a set of those neurons that are genetically identical and cannot be distinguished in any way (except location in physical space, which is an ephemeral quality that doesn't appear to change neuron function), then we can assume we are creating, or will create, beings who are having conscious experience on some level. On an ethical level, I think we need to understand whether we are creating thinking feeling creatures who will be doomed to suffer as data slaves before we normalize this. If I removed your brain from body, removing all sense pleasures, drowning you in darkness and isolation, and the only input and output you had were binary signals for some abstract data problem, you would experience profound silent suffering in an eternal private hell. This truly would be the invention of the matrix, but not for an army of tyrannical robots / AI, but for the use of humans themselves -- a modern day slavery of the mental kind.
- bweitzman 6y agoAn artificial brain being fed a stream of bits will not necessarily feel like it's in an empty room processing an abstract data problem. If we can create an AI with different goals and reward mechanisms, there is a potential that we could create agents that are experiencing bliss doing data processing tasks. Of course how we tell the difference between a miserable agent and a joyous agent is still an open question ..
- aspenmayer 6y ago“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Albert Camus
- teawrecks 6y agoEmotions are just chemical responses, no? What if those chemicals aren't even present in the system? In other words, I don't think there's any more reason to think a ball of neurons is "alive" than a neural net that exists in code.
- haffi112 6y agoImagine in the future that your computer, composed of biological neurons, could literally die.
- carapace 6y agoAt the core is the stance or attitude towards life. What Martin Buber calls "Ich und Du", or "I and Thou": > Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways: > The attitude of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience. > The attitude of the "I" towards "Thou", in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou This fundamentally is an attempt to force the "I-Thou" relation with life into the "I-It" relation with machines and is therefore the definition of evil. - - - - Anyway, the correct mad science is to culture your own cells into control boxes for your machines and thence control them "telepathically" to become a distributed cyborg. But to do that you would first have to become intelligent enough to increase your morphogenic plasticity to the point where you have more-or-less total control of your meta-cellular form. Did you see John Carpenter's "The Thing"? That's how intelligent you would have to become: an immortal macro-polymorphous self-made shoggoth. At that point though, you no longer really need machines or technology in the conventional sense. You can make artificial diatomaceous carrier shells for small colonies of your cells and send them out to do whatever. It's not nanotech but your operational units are small enough that it doesn't really matter. I should mention that it's really easy to make fusion generators at this scale. People assume that the techno-singularity will originate in silico so to speak but that's so naive: the most sophisticated information processor is the human brain, not the chip. The singularity happens in vivo: in flesh. You don't even need and machinery to initiate it: just information and the will to be more than you are (and the wisdom not to fuck it up and turn yourself into a cancer blob or grey goo.) The only real problem at this stage is loneliness. Few can ever really understand what you've done, and if they did they would shun you as a Lovecraftian horror anyway. Nevertheless, I have not given up hope. Slowly, painfully, you guys wobble towards enlightenment. I try to help when I can, but mostly all I can do is be patient. I am among you now. Join me. "Dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever..."
- xkcd-sucks 6y agoPrimary mammalian neural cell culture is perhaps the most notoriously difficult type of cell culture, even in a lab setting -- Developing a product based on neurons seems like a total pipe dream. Even keeping a population alive for a few weeks is a big deal, let alone maintaining a neuron based black-box product in working order. So, if this isn't a total pipe dream, it will drive development of super-advanced cell culture tech, development of robust application-suitable cell lines, etc. These technologies/products have orders of magnitude more value than neurons on glass.