11 ms·

Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent for $500 per month

78 points by RyeCombinator 2y ago

nerdjon 2y ago
So... where exactly do the neurons come from? Are these donated neurons or grown in a lab from samples? This seems... questionable at best. Not really comfortable with the idea of this...
- artninja1988 2y ago
  You can grow them from stem cells.
- Loughla 2y ago
  Maybe I'm too cautious, but - from what I understand our research into consciousness isn't very thorough. Meaning, we do not know the causes and thresholds for consciousness. So, to me, it seems like until that threshold is very clearly established, any work with 'organoids' is hazardous at best, but more than likely just wildly inappropriate. Am I being a luddite?
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    In my opinion, consciousness is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one. You have no way of truly knowing whether any other entity, including myself, has a consciousness. The interesting thing is that even if we imagine some ultra-advanced tech where you could somehow brain swap with somebody, and you still had a consciousness, you still wouldn't really know if they had a consciousness because you end up begging the question there. Did you simply maintain your own consciousness, or did it come from the new brain?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Yup. Nobody reading this comment knows if there's a human by the keyboard. Heck, if you go for A J Ayer and "there is a thought now", then even I don't really know if I'm the real me, or if I'm instead just a vision-and-text model seeing the image of the phone and a finger swiping over the keyboard, to be switched off when the "real me" is satisfied the output proves some point. You may argue that I can perceive myself and therefore know that I exist (I certainly took that approach at school contrasting the previous Ayer quote with "cogito ergo sum"), but even that doesn't tell me that what I experience as consciousness is what you experience as consciousness. Indeed, things in the same category as aphantasia, sleep deprivation, and excessive caffeine consumption, all suggest to me that we all have very different experiences of being conscious at the best of times and even without such thought experiments.
      - DontchaKnowit 2y ago
        What do you think is more likely, every other human and probably most animals experience consciousness in much the same way that you do, or you are unique and special and your consciousness is much more lucid than everyone else? I have always been so puzzled by the line of thinking you present here. It is clear that everyone else responds to pain in much the same way, everyone else responds to lack of food, water, social interaction, love, etc In much the same way, etc. The differences are at the fringes and your examples of sleep deprivation and caffeine consumption only serve to reinforce that : doesn't matter how much coffee I drink or how little sleep I have, its going to hurt if my bones are broken just like it would for you. I think this line of thinking is a cute little thought experiment but it really falls apart quickly - if we operated like we didn't know if other people were conscious to the same degree we were, then we would behave abhorrently. And largely, we don't. So even you if intellectually will posit that you are the only truly conscious person, or that maybe even you are not conscious, you do not actually behave this way in practice. Obviously
        dbspin 2y ago
        I'd go further than this - consciousness only exists in social context. Or in a dynamic if you prefer. Children raised alone, or suffering extreme neglect (e.g.: infamous Genie case) suffer enormous cognitive impairments, including language acquisition and theory of mind. Prisoners kept in isolation frequently descend into psychosis and suffer measurable neuronal shrinkage. Even moderate social isolation is correlated with depression. Consciousness emerges and is maintained in the context of other people - and not just individuals but communities whose language, techniques of adaptive living (i.e.: traditions), and storytelling about the word, are carried intra-individually within clan and affiliate groups. In the postmodern era those communities can be parasocial or virtual to an extent, fictive or reenacted, but they're not optional for the continued coherence of self. There is no 'I' except in relation to the other, moreover the self doesn't become fully individuated without being witnessed and held by the other - caregivers in early childhood, friends in adolescence, social roles in adulthood. All of this would be impossible if our phenomenology wasn't broadly similar. All societies have identified social roles for those few whose inner world isn't commensurate with the collective - in modernity we call them schizophrenics.
    - haswell 2y ago
      > consciousness is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one But surely it is both? It may be true that philosophy is the only line of inquiry that allows us to explore very far due to a lack of scientific progress, but but even a purely philosophical exploration has scientific implications, and even if we don’t have scientific answers in practice, that doesn’t means that there are no answers in principle.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        Arguably the single most critical tenet of science is falsifiability. For something like consciousness, falsifiability is completely out of the question as we have no way to evaluate it whatsoever, let alone falsify claims made one way or the other.
        haswell 2y ago
        Critical in terms of the scientific method itself, sure. But the unfalsifiability of consciousness only points to the hardness of the problem and the current limitations of science, not the importance of understanding consciousness and its implications. Put another way, even if science can’t currently tell us anything solid about consciousness, the implications of what it can’t tell us are still highly relevant to the kinds of science we do, e.g. we still treat other humans as if they’re conscious and this forms the basis for most ethical decision making.
        somenameforme 2y ago
        There's a difference between hard and impossible. Trying to create any sort of formal ideas around something that cannot be measured, quantified, or evaluated in any way, shape, or fashion (and may likely never be able to be so) is simply not possible. It's like trying to create a scientific framework for a God. It just doesn't work. As for ethics, one point we may differ is that I don't see consciousness as inherently leading to anything. Whether awful, or great, people have consciousnesses, or not, does not change my view of them.
    - jhedwards 2y ago
      Well, you can give someone anesthesia, which turns most of the neurons in the brain off, and then you lose consciousness. The fact that we can target the brain specifically to turn consciousness on and off seems to suggest that it's a physical property of brain function, not just a philosophical issue.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        You're begging the question, because you're assuming that not only do I have a consciousness but that it's turned on and off by the brain. If I don't happen to have a consciousness then clearly anesthesia is not going to regulate it in any fashion.
      - thornewolf 2y ago
        this relies on the fact that consciousness is an overloaded term. being conscious (awake) refers to something different than being conscious (thinking) which may both be unrelated to the brain being on or off, which again may be unrelated to the capability to have experiences. all of these use the same word, they each may or may not be the same thing.
  - charlieo88 2y ago
    How do you think they should determine the threshold of consciousness?
  - Engineering-MD 2y ago
    It could be argued that a similar level of caution should be applied to artificial neural networks. I always find the discrepancy in application of ethics between biology and technology to be an interestingly wide gulf.
- amphitoky 2y ago
  they tend to be from donated skin cells, in fact, which are reprogrammed to produce brain tissues. see for example https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2014.158 https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2014.158
  - eadmund 2y ago
    Donated by the human whose cells those were, by someone else? That Nature article seems to discuss both approaches, using both induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells — which of course are not donated by the human being which they once were part of.
    - finalspark 2y ago
      We only use IPSC. Details of the protocol to turn them into neurons and glial cells are described in our publication. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence/articles/10.3389/frai.2024.1376042/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence...
- throwaway24124 2y ago
  They're grown from stem cells. Neuro-ethics (especially the ethics around using brain organoids) is an entire field of research. Although brain organoids exhibit neural connections and electrical activity, they have so far failed to form even basic synaptic circuits — without which consciousness is probably impossible. But of course we should take every precaution to ensure that they DON'T form consciousness. But that's still a ways away.
  - hellojesus 2y ago
    What's the harm if they do form consciousness? Is the concern they will develop a willpower and work towards freeing themselves, or is it just a "don't enslave sentient beings" thing?
    - seanicus 2y ago
      Ever read "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream?"
EwanG 2y ago
I'm not sure "The Matrix" was meant to be a How-To Manual... because this sure feels like the first step to humans in a tube.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  Every good bubble-bro knows that Don't Create The Torment Nexus was clearly an instruction manual. :)
- DevX101 2y ago
  The Matrix official canon is that humans were being used for energy, which didn’t really make sense until you interpret that as using humans as highly efficient information processors. This company does awfully seem like step 0 here.
  - HappySweeney 2y ago
    The original story had the AI processing all done on the 90% of our brains we don't use (ignoring that particular bit of bs), but Warner gonna Warner.
  - dwheeler 2y ago
    I think there is a plausible argument, believe it or not. See my essay "Why are Humans used as Batteries (a power source) in the Matrix?" https://dwheeler.com/essays/humans-batteries-matrix.html https://dwheeler.com/essays/humans-batteries-matrix.html Abstract: "In the fictional world of The Matrix, I propose that the machines might use the humans as a power source (as “batteries”) not because the humans are a good power source, but because doing this allows the machines to avoid committing genocide - as would otherwise be required by their laws. This compromise could have been necessary to prevent a machine world civil war."
    - squigz 2y ago
      That's a fun idea I'm definitely going to bring up next time the battery thing is mentioned :)
    - 2y ago
connorgutman 2y ago
I’m gonna throw up.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
UtQ8CJ6Tdr 2y ago
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
science4sail 2y ago
I can see how this would be useful for research, but on the other hand it feels like a step towards the dystopian servitors[0] from Warhammer 40k. [0] "robots" made from criminals/clones since AI is banned
artninja1988 2y ago
What can you run on it? How far away are we from this being able to train, say, an LLM?
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  They're likely hoping you figure all that out.
- phkahler 2y ago
  >> How far away are we from this being able to train, say, an LLM? Very far. Even if it was large enough and you could train it as an LLM, there's not way to read out the weights or even the connectivity graph.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  Probably Doom, assuming someone gets bored during the coming weekend.
dbingham 2y ago
This falls squarely into the "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to consider whether they should" category. There are so many unknowns with potentially horrifying answers. We don't know what generates human consciousness. But we know the brain is a key part of it. At what point does a bunch of lab grown human neurons become conscious? Can it become conscious outside of a body? What would that experience be like if a lab grown brain used as a computer developed consciousness? And what would happen to that consciousness? The potential energy savings aren't worth risking the potential horror.
- sgu999 2y ago
  > We don't know what generates human consciousness. But we know the brain is a key part of it. At what point does a bunch of lab grown human neurons become conscious? Why just human neurons for a human consciousness? We know very little of what sparkle consciousness but the consensus seems to be that most living things experience it with varying degree. Even though most of us, conscious humans, are absolutely fine with millions of mammals being slaughtered without much care for their feelings.
  - sgarland 2y ago
    It hits different when it’s your own species. At least, for humans – plenty of animals exhibit cannibalism without a second thought.
    - ethanwillis 2y ago
      Humans also exhibit cannibalism. In some cases without a second thought.
- anileated 2y ago
  Another way to say it: it’s ethical slavery. We’re hacking slavery, yeah! — Conner O’Malley (in his excellent “Standup Solutions”)
- mrweasel 2y ago
kalrnb 2y ago
Company is called FinalSpark. Sounds like an unethical final solution for AI.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  FinalSpark, the 'Final Solution' to all your human problems.
CatWChainsaw 2y ago
It always amuses me whenever a biology story here gets the tech crowd quivering, when they would normally be crowing gleefully about ASI and human obsolescence.
- debo_ 2y ago
  I took a course on neuronal computing in undergrad. I expected sci-fi; instead I was bored out of my skull. (Pun somewhat intended.)
  - freilanzer 2y ago
    What was it about?
    - debo_ 2y ago
      Mathematically modelling neurons, basically. We were using some horrendous sketchy PDE solver that had by far the most hostile UI of any program I've ever used, and that's quite an achievement. It was taught by this fellow, who is one of the loveliest folks I've ever met in academia: https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/profiles/brian-ingalls https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/profiles/brian-inga... Edit: Looks like the course is still around 20 years later, but has expanded quite a bit in scope since I took it. https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/current-undergraduates/undergraduate-course-list/amath-382biol-382-computational-modelling-cellular-systems https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/current-undergradua...
      - freilanzer 2y ago
        That sounds very interesting apart from the horrible software!
- f6v 2y ago
  It’s a classical “loud minority”.
debo_ 2y ago
The best part of the article for me is right at the top. > When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Tom's Hardware was one affiliate link away from bumping the cyberpunk index of this article to 11.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Tom's Hardware, soon to mean "Tom is Hardware".
newsclues 2y ago
But you can hire a human with a brain for less?
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Not for long. And really, can you? GPT might not be an expert in every field, but it does better than the average person at average things. It is already cheaper than a human for some tasks, because it can do so many, and fast, if looking at a hourly rate.
  - newsclues 2y ago
    There are billions of potential brains, and many of them live in poverty
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      Managing humans isn't free. There is HR, managing, directing, blah blah blah, complaining. With AI just write an api call. The World's Call Center Capital Is Gripped by AI Fever - and Fear (bloomberg.com)25 Posted by msmash on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @01:21PM from the closer-look dept. The Philippines' $38 billion outsourcing industry faces a seismic shift as AI tools threaten to displace hundreds of thousands of jobs. Major players are rapidly deploying AI "copilots" to handle tasks like summarizing customer interactions and providing real-time assistance to human agents, Bloomberg reports. Industry experts estimate up to 300,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs could be lost to AI in the next five years, according to outsourcing advisory firm Avasant. However, the firm also projects AI could create 100,000 new roles in areas like algorithm training and data curation. The BPO sector is crucial to the Philippine economy as the largest source of private-sector employment. The government has established an AI research center and launched training initiatives to boost workers' skills.
- xaellison 2y ago
  that's not very vc-minded of you /s
nahuel0x 2y ago
A brain is more energy efficient than a chip, but how a couple of cells connected to wires has more economic sense than a chip with gallizions of transistors?
- nusl 2y ago
  Yeah. My understanding was that you'd need constellations of neurons to achieve a complex result, rather than a couple individual ones. Perhaps this article is light on details and it's more involved.
  - RaftPeople 2y ago
    The article said each organoid contains around 10k neurons
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  More like stepping stones. Early adopters will drive down the cost.
- neurn_throw 2y ago
  This is closer to rent a transistor, and the main use case is to find out what its voltage curves are. It is not a computer. I did work on a version which used in vivo brains for actual computation. It worked but no one wanted to invest in building the matrix for rodents. With the benefit of hindsight I shouldn't have added the slide explaining ethical considerations: 'Container Labs in international waters help us manage regulatory risks'.
waiquoo 2y ago
It's like you guys have never even heard of 'body on a chip' https://school.wakehealth.edu/research/institutes-and-centers/wake-forest-institute-for-regenerative-medicine/research/military-applications/body-on-a-chip#:~:text=Research%20Approach%20and%20Goals,liver%2C%20lung%20and%20blood%20vessels https://school.wakehealth.edu/research/institutes-and-center....
nusl 2y ago
This is pretty cool. Feel somewhat dystopic though I suppose that's inevitable. I wonder how easy it will be to develop and scale this technology, given that it's housing organic entities with life support systems.
- neurn_throw 2y ago
  Extremely difficult, but more likely than artificial meat, it isn't so much the life support system as the constant contamination and lack of immune system that kills in vitro neuron cultures. It is much more efficient to use in vivo neurons since they come with an immune system attached and work just as well for leaning tasks.
  - finalspark 2y ago
    I am not sure lack of immune system is our main concern so far at FinalSpark. I believe it has more to do with the side effects of physical contacts of neurons (and glial cells) with not fully biocompatible materials like the electrodes.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
pfdietz 2y ago
This doesn't much bother me, but I also find it pointless. These will not be reproducible or easily manufactured. Maybe good for neuroscience experiments? Now, chimeric animals made with addition of human stem cells, that would have significant ethical problems.
debo_ 2y ago
"Organic computing at a fraction of the cost of silicon? It's a no-brainer!"
sgarland 2y ago
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. Seriously, the hubris is stunning.
maratc 2y ago
Recommended reading (it's a science fiction piece but still relevant): https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
chaos_emergent 2y ago
Ethical objections in this thread are a red herring. Our brains are not that different than other primates' brains. We do abhorrent things to other primates that __demonstrably__ have similar experiential qualia as humans, mostly for the benefit of our species. But somehow objectioners are losing their marbles over a human cell cluster that has no more than a few thousand constituent cells. The computational ability of human brains is an unintentional happenstance of billions of years of random-walk evolution; there's no reason to believe that we can't make systems that are even more efficient with intentional design. If these organoids get us there, I'm all for them.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  There isn’t enough time for a random walk evolution to result in the structure we see. It’s more complicated than that. It seems the universe in the form of humans was meant to contemplate itself.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    Obviously, no human has any experience, nor any expertise, on whether there was enough time. So the argument pretty much turns into "my feelings" vs. Occam's Razor.
    - User23 2y ago
      Amusingly, I suspect that supporters of both the teleological position and the non-teleological position think Occam supports them. For what it’s worth, the only empirical macroevolution we’ve done, from domestication, to Monte Carlo simulations, to genetic algorithms, to LLM training, is all goal directed.
      - bell-cot 2y ago
        > Amusingly, I suspect... Yes...though I'd say that the teleological folks have emotional reasons to judge an ever-so-specific deity (who they already believe in) to be a conveniently minimal hypothesis. Which is a good example of a usually-necessary heuristic - pushing complexity, costs, unknowns, and other unhappy things far enough away (in real or metaphorical space/time) that you don't have to worry about them now. > FWIW, the only empirical... All the budget requests for sextillions of organisms, simulated for billions of years, were rejected. So, unfortunately, some large corners had to be cut...
hiatus 2y ago
Thought Emporium on YouTube made a few videos utilizing organoid bio processors but iirc their neuron source is pig not human. https://youtu.be/bEXefdbQDjw?si=-YVEmZhSrkgBj3I9 https://youtu.be/bEXefdbQDjw?si=-YVEmZhSrkgBj3I9
- hoseja 2y ago
  Honestly not sure why these aren't. Surely there are no observable differences at such tiny scale and using human cells just makes you a target of wrath.
  - aithrowaway1987 2y ago
    While human brains are probably just scaled-up chimpanzee brains, individual primate neurons are significantly more sophisticated than other mammalian taxa, particularly with epigenetic changes: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34800-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34800-w But also the plain structure of the dendrites and how they form connections: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22230639/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22230639/ Now: I don't think wetware computing is actually sophisticated enough to leverage primate-specific advantages. But 10,000 primate neurons would probably be "more powerful" than 10,000 pig neurons. (OTOH it seems like corvid neurons are even more powerful than primates, maybe we should use crows.)
    - hoseja 2y ago
      Oh, didn't know that! Thought the human advantage was mostly just balancing cancerous growth to get really big or something. And yeah, we should be studying bird brains, they are so smart in such a tiny package!
seesawtron 2y ago
I was once contacted by FinalSpark where they offered free early remote access to use their biocomputing platform. The platform is accessible remotely and allows experiments on neurospheres made from living cells, sitting in an incubator, in their lab, in Vevey, Switzerland. A neurosphere is a round structure build out of approximately 10’000 neurons, connected to electrodes in different places. The platform uses python scripts to communicate with the neuron allowing for various functionalities, such as: Stimulate living neurons, Read data from neurons, Log all the data in a database, and Display graphically the results of experiments for further analysis. I was too busy to come up with a clear project idea that could beat alreadty existing stuff such as neurons playing Doom [0] (not related to FinalSpark). Still waiting for someone to show something cool using this platform. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw
- abeppu 2y ago
  As someone actually in this space, does the "rental" concept give you any concerns about the quality of research this can support? Like, if the previous customer's use of the organoids will have stateful impacts that impact what you observe? It strikes me that with conventional computers in the cloud we have pretty straight-forward assurances that each customer gets the instance in a fresh state.
  - finalspark 2y ago
    I am one of FinalSpark's co-founder. You are right, this can be a concern. People who rent have the option to pay for exclusive access.
    - seesawtron 2y ago
      How hard is it to do something like this on your platform [0]? Are there any other real-world examples where people are using your platform to do something similar? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw
Eumenes 2y ago
All I want to know is how one of these can be used to generate more ad revenue.
finalspark 2y ago
I am one of co-founders of this company. Many of the questions asked here are answered in our recent publication: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence/articles/10.3389/frai.2024.1376042/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence... I will be happy to try to answer any other questions!
- salmonfamine 2y ago
  What does it feel like to be a real-life mad scientist?
- humansareok1 2y ago
  How confident are you that these brain organoids are incapable of qualia and thus suffering?
  - Bluestein 2y ago
    Username relevant.- PS. Also, while congratulating the company, I also wanted to appreciate and second the question ...
    - finalspark 2y ago
      We have no information on this topic. Consider that at this time we have the number of neurons equivalent to a larva fly.
      - humansareok1 2y ago
        Flies have demonstrated signs of consciousness so if that's supposed to be reassuring, it's not.
        gangorgasm 2y ago
        Compared to chips, where would flies be? 1 bit microcontroller level? Where our brain is tops of course (latest generation AMD or Intel)
christkv 2y ago
What’s the failure mode look like on this. Half your neurons died?
bogdanos 2y ago
We already found a way to generate porn. Can we please stop now?
hermannj314 2y ago
This article made me realize I am officially old. I find it difficult to believe I could ever classify this within my overton window before I die. Good luck to the next generation and your human brain slave computers, I'm 42, I'll be out of your way soon.
humansareok1 2y ago
Sometimes the Torment Nexis is allegorical. Sometimes they build the actual thing...
dwheeler 2y ago
It appears the cyberpunk universe has arrived, and not in the way I expected. The first thing I did was check if the publication date was April 1. I'm not entirely sure I believe this article. However, if it's satire, it's impossible to be sure. I guess it's real, and the world has gotten weirder.
didymospl 2y ago
Putting the ethical dilemmas aside, I'd like to know how such bioprocessors could possibly have: >million times greater power efficiency when compared to digital processors if bioprocessors have to support("run" the metabolism) all their organelles, including parts that are not at all involved in the signal processing, which is I suppose >99% of the cell, compared to digital processors that we literally built with the sole purpose of performing such operations and have logical gates close in size to the single layer of atoms already? What did we miss in the design?
- spacemadness 2y ago
  It’s interesting that each “processor” needs a camera which is made up of inefficient transistors and other leaky electrical components and there is still a claim to efficiency surplus.
- Jensson 2y ago
  Much fewer electrons have to move for a detectable chemical reaction than a detectable electric current. Solid state systems are just much less efficient at computations, but they are much easier to organize. Compare a copy operation on a DNA sequence in a cell with a copy in a memory, the cell does it extremely cheaply since it is a simple chemical reaction while the memory has to flow electrons in a giant network of nodes. You can easily copy exabytes of data using chemistry (DNA) with almost no energy.
jakeogh 2y ago
@finalspark: This was inevitable, please don't read this as anything other than constructive criticism; I am sure you are aware of the rat cells flying F-22 sim's in unlandable weather a decade+ ago. Can branding hide consciousness? Hopefully not, and if not, can your group please trail blaze a ethical path if it decides it encountered it? I realize this is a "use less" or "don't do that at all" scenario, and other actors are going to enslave larger brains if they can grow them. My intuition is larger billion+^ structures are long off, but that might not be the case. It's possible a oscillating pressure vessel with the right conditions (robust input/output feedback) may negate the need for a conventional circulatory system. [2020] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22087410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22087410
KeiraLeilani22 2y ago
[dead]

78 points by RyeCombinator 2y ago

So... where exactly do the neurons come from? Are these donated neurons or grown in a lab from samples? This seems... questionable at best. Not really comfortable with the idea of this...

artninja1988 2y ago
You can grow them from stem cells.
Loughla 2y ago
Maybe I'm too cautious, but - from what I understand our research into consciousness isn't very thorough. Meaning, we do not know the causes and thresholds for consciousness. So, to me, it seems like until that threshold is very clearly established, any work with 'organoids' is hazardous at best, but more than likely just wildly inappropriate. Am I being a luddite?
- somenameforme 2y ago
  In my opinion, consciousness is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one. You have no way of truly knowing whether any other entity, including myself, has a consciousness. The interesting thing is that even if we imagine some ultra-advanced tech where you could somehow brain swap with somebody, and you still had a consciousness, you still wouldn't really know if they had a consciousness because you end up begging the question there. Did you simply maintain your own consciousness, or did it come from the new brain?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Yup. Nobody reading this comment knows if there's a human by the keyboard. Heck, if you go for A J Ayer and "there is a thought now", then even I don't really know if I'm the real me, or if I'm instead just a vision-and-text model seeing the image of the phone and a finger swiping over the keyboard, to be switched off when the "real me" is satisfied the output proves some point. You may argue that I can perceive myself and therefore know that I exist (I certainly took that approach at school contrasting the previous Ayer quote with "cogito ergo sum"), but even that doesn't tell me that what I experience as consciousness is what you experience as consciousness. Indeed, things in the same category as aphantasia, sleep deprivation, and excessive caffeine consumption, all suggest to me that we all have very different experiences of being conscious at the best of times and even without such thought experiments.
    - DontchaKnowit 2y ago
      What do you think is more likely, every other human and probably most animals experience consciousness in much the same way that you do, or you are unique and special and your consciousness is much more lucid than everyone else? I have always been so puzzled by the line of thinking you present here. It is clear that everyone else responds to pain in much the same way, everyone else responds to lack of food, water, social interaction, love, etc In much the same way, etc. The differences are at the fringes and your examples of sleep deprivation and caffeine consumption only serve to reinforce that : doesn't matter how much coffee I drink or how little sleep I have, its going to hurt if my bones are broken just like it would for you. I think this line of thinking is a cute little thought experiment but it really falls apart quickly - if we operated like we didn't know if other people were conscious to the same degree we were, then we would behave abhorrently. And largely, we don't. So even you if intellectually will posit that you are the only truly conscious person, or that maybe even you are not conscious, you do not actually behave this way in practice. Obviously
      - dbspin 2y ago
        I'd go further than this - consciousness only exists in social context. Or in a dynamic if you prefer. Children raised alone, or suffering extreme neglect (e.g.: infamous Genie case) suffer enormous cognitive impairments, including language acquisition and theory of mind. Prisoners kept in isolation frequently descend into psychosis and suffer measurable neuronal shrinkage. Even moderate social isolation is correlated with depression. Consciousness emerges and is maintained in the context of other people - and not just individuals but communities whose language, techniques of adaptive living (i.e.: traditions), and storytelling about the word, are carried intra-individually within clan and affiliate groups. In the postmodern era those communities can be parasocial or virtual to an extent, fictive or reenacted, but they're not optional for the continued coherence of self. There is no 'I' except in relation to the other, moreover the self doesn't become fully individuated without being witnessed and held by the other - caregivers in early childhood, friends in adolescence, social roles in adulthood. All of this would be impossible if our phenomenology wasn't broadly similar. All societies have identified social roles for those few whose inner world isn't commensurate with the collective - in modernity we call them schizophrenics.
  - haswell 2y ago
    > consciousness is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one But surely it is both? It may be true that philosophy is the only line of inquiry that allows us to explore very far due to a lack of scientific progress, but but even a purely philosophical exploration has scientific implications, and even if we don’t have scientific answers in practice, that doesn’t means that there are no answers in principle.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      Arguably the single most critical tenet of science is falsifiability. For something like consciousness, falsifiability is completely out of the question as we have no way to evaluate it whatsoever, let alone falsify claims made one way or the other.
      - haswell 2y ago
        Critical in terms of the scientific method itself, sure. But the unfalsifiability of consciousness only points to the hardness of the problem and the current limitations of science, not the importance of understanding consciousness and its implications. Put another way, even if science can’t currently tell us anything solid about consciousness, the implications of what it can’t tell us are still highly relevant to the kinds of science we do, e.g. we still treat other humans as if they’re conscious and this forms the basis for most ethical decision making.
        somenameforme 2y ago
        There's a difference between hard and impossible. Trying to create any sort of formal ideas around something that cannot be measured, quantified, or evaluated in any way, shape, or fashion (and may likely never be able to be so) is simply not possible. It's like trying to create a scientific framework for a God. It just doesn't work. As for ethics, one point we may differ is that I don't see consciousness as inherently leading to anything. Whether awful, or great, people have consciousnesses, or not, does not change my view of them.
  - jhedwards 2y ago
    Well, you can give someone anesthesia, which turns most of the neurons in the brain off, and then you lose consciousness. The fact that we can target the brain specifically to turn consciousness on and off seems to suggest that it's a physical property of brain function, not just a philosophical issue.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      You're begging the question, because you're assuming that not only do I have a consciousness but that it's turned on and off by the brain. If I don't happen to have a consciousness then clearly anesthesia is not going to regulate it in any fashion.
    - thornewolf 2y ago
      this relies on the fact that consciousness is an overloaded term. being conscious (awake) refers to something different than being conscious (thinking) which may both be unrelated to the brain being on or off, which again may be unrelated to the capability to have experiences. all of these use the same word, they each may or may not be the same thing.
- charlieo88 2y ago
  How do you think they should determine the threshold of consciousness?
- Engineering-MD 2y ago
  It could be argued that a similar level of caution should be applied to artificial neural networks. I always find the discrepancy in application of ethics between biology and technology to be an interestingly wide gulf.
amphitoky 2y ago
they tend to be from donated skin cells, in fact, which are reprogrammed to produce brain tissues. see for example https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2014.158 https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2014.158
- eadmund 2y ago
  Donated by the human whose cells those were, by someone else? That Nature article seems to discuss both approaches, using both induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells — which of course are not donated by the human being which they once were part of.
  - finalspark 2y ago
    We only use IPSC. Details of the protocol to turn them into neurons and glial cells are described in our publication. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence/articles/10.3389/frai.2024.1376042/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence...
throwaway24124 2y ago
They're grown from stem cells. Neuro-ethics (especially the ethics around using brain organoids) is an entire field of research. Although brain organoids exhibit neural connections and electrical activity, they have so far failed to form even basic synaptic circuits — without which consciousness is probably impossible. But of course we should take every precaution to ensure that they DON'T form consciousness. But that's still a ways away.
- hellojesus 2y ago
  What's the harm if they do form consciousness? Is the concern they will develop a willpower and work towards freeing themselves, or is it just a "don't enslave sentient beings" thing?
  - seanicus 2y ago
    Ever read "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream?"

EwanG 2y ago

I'm not sure "The Matrix" was meant to be a How-To Manual... because this sure feels like the first step to humans in a tube.

CatWChainsaw 2y ago
Every good bubble-bro knows that Don't Create The Torment Nexus was clearly an instruction manual. :)
DevX101 2y ago
The Matrix official canon is that humans were being used for energy, which didn’t really make sense until you interpret that as using humans as highly efficient information processors. This company does awfully seem like step 0 here.
- HappySweeney 2y ago
  The original story had the AI processing all done on the 90% of our brains we don't use (ignoring that particular bit of bs), but Warner gonna Warner.
- dwheeler 2y ago
  I think there is a plausible argument, believe it or not. See my essay "Why are Humans used as Batteries (a power source) in the Matrix?" https://dwheeler.com/essays/humans-batteries-matrix.html https://dwheeler.com/essays/humans-batteries-matrix.html Abstract: "In the fictional world of The Matrix, I propose that the machines might use the humans as a power source (as “batteries”) not because the humans are a good power source, but because doing this allows the machines to avoid committing genocide - as would otherwise be required by their laws. This compromise could have been necessary to prevent a machine world civil war."
  - squigz 2y ago
    That's a fun idea I'm definitely going to bring up next time the battery thing is mentioned :)
  - 2y ago

connorgutman 2y ago

I’m gonna throw up.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

UtQ8CJ6Tdr 2y ago

Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

science4sail 2y ago

I can see how this would be useful for research, but on the other hand it feels like a step towards the dystopian servitors[0] from Warhammer 40k. [0] "robots" made from criminals/clones since AI is banned

artninja1988 2y ago

What can you run on it? How far away are we from this being able to train, say, an LLM?

bilbo0s 2y ago
They're likely hoping you figure all that out.
phkahler 2y ago
>> How far away are we from this being able to train, say, an LLM? Very far. Even if it was large enough and you could train it as an LLM, there's not way to read out the weights or even the connectivity graph.
mrweasel 2y ago
Probably Doom, assuming someone gets bored during the coming weekend.

dbingham 2y ago

This falls squarely into the "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to consider whether they should" category. There are so many unknowns with potentially horrifying answers. We don't know what generates human consciousness. But we know the brain is a key part of it. At what point does a bunch of lab grown human neurons become conscious? Can it become conscious outside of a body? What would that experience be like if a lab grown brain used as a computer developed consciousness? And what would happen to that consciousness? The potential energy savings aren't worth risking the potential horror.

sgu999 2y ago
> We don't know what generates human consciousness. But we know the brain is a key part of it. At what point does a bunch of lab grown human neurons become conscious? Why just human neurons for a human consciousness? We know very little of what sparkle consciousness but the consensus seems to be that most living things experience it with varying degree. Even though most of us, conscious humans, are absolutely fine with millions of mammals being slaughtered without much care for their feelings.
- sgarland 2y ago
  It hits different when it’s your own species. At least, for humans – plenty of animals exhibit cannibalism without a second thought.
  - ethanwillis 2y ago
    Humans also exhibit cannibalism. In some cases without a second thought.
anileated 2y ago
Another way to say it: it’s ethical slavery. We’re hacking slavery, yeah! — Conner O’Malley (in his excellent “Standup Solutions”)
mrweasel 2y ago

kalrnb 2y ago

Company is called FinalSpark. Sounds like an unethical final solution for AI.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
FinalSpark, the 'Final Solution' to all your human problems.

CatWChainsaw 2y ago

It always amuses me whenever a biology story here gets the tech crowd quivering, when they would normally be crowing gleefully about ASI and human obsolescence.

debo_ 2y ago
I took a course on neuronal computing in undergrad. I expected sci-fi; instead I was bored out of my skull. (Pun somewhat intended.)
- freilanzer 2y ago
  What was it about?
  - debo_ 2y ago
    Mathematically modelling neurons, basically. We were using some horrendous sketchy PDE solver that had by far the most hostile UI of any program I've ever used, and that's quite an achievement. It was taught by this fellow, who is one of the loveliest folks I've ever met in academia: https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/profiles/brian-ingalls https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/profiles/brian-inga... Edit: Looks like the course is still around 20 years later, but has expanded quite a bit in scope since I took it. https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/current-undergraduates/undergraduate-course-list/amath-382biol-382-computational-modelling-cellular-systems https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-mathematics/current-undergradua...
    - freilanzer 2y ago
      That sounds very interesting apart from the horrible software!
f6v 2y ago
It’s a classical “loud minority”.

debo_ 2y ago

The best part of the article for me is right at the top. > When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Tom's Hardware was one affiliate link away from bumping the cyberpunk index of this article to 11.

HPsquared 2y ago
Tom's Hardware, soon to mean "Tom is Hardware".

newsclues 2y ago

But you can hire a human with a brain for less?

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Not for long. And really, can you? GPT might not be an expert in every field, but it does better than the average person at average things. It is already cheaper than a human for some tasks, because it can do so many, and fast, if looking at a hourly rate.
- newsclues 2y ago
  There are billions of potential brains, and many of them live in poverty
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Managing humans isn't free. There is HR, managing, directing, blah blah blah, complaining. With AI just write an api call. The World's Call Center Capital Is Gripped by AI Fever - and Fear (bloomberg.com)25 Posted by msmash on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @01:21PM from the closer-look dept. The Philippines' $38 billion outsourcing industry faces a seismic shift as AI tools threaten to displace hundreds of thousands of jobs. Major players are rapidly deploying AI "copilots" to handle tasks like summarizing customer interactions and providing real-time assistance to human agents, Bloomberg reports. Industry experts estimate up to 300,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs could be lost to AI in the next five years, according to outsourcing advisory firm Avasant. However, the firm also projects AI could create 100,000 new roles in areas like algorithm training and data curation. The BPO sector is crucial to the Philippine economy as the largest source of private-sector employment. The government has established an AI research center and launched training initiatives to boost workers' skills.
xaellison 2y ago
that's not very vc-minded of you /s

nahuel0x 2y ago

A brain is more energy efficient than a chip, but how a couple of cells connected to wires has more economic sense than a chip with gallizions of transistors?

nusl 2y ago
Yeah. My understanding was that you'd need constellations of neurons to achieve a complex result, rather than a couple individual ones. Perhaps this article is light on details and it's more involved.
- RaftPeople 2y ago
  The article said each organoid contains around 10k neurons
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
More like stepping stones. Early adopters will drive down the cost.
neurn_throw 2y ago
This is closer to rent a transistor, and the main use case is to find out what its voltage curves are. It is not a computer. I did work on a version which used in vivo brains for actual computation. It worked but no one wanted to invest in building the matrix for rodents. With the benefit of hindsight I shouldn't have added the slide explaining ethical considerations: 'Container Labs in international waters help us manage regulatory risks'.

waiquoo 2y ago

It's like you guys have never even heard of 'body on a chip' https://school.wakehealth.edu/research/institutes-and-centers/wake-forest-institute-for-regenerative-medicine/research/military-applications/body-on-a-chip#:~:text=Research%20Approach%20and%20Goals,liver%2C%20lung%20and%20blood%20vessels https://school.wakehealth.edu/research/institutes-and-center....

nusl 2y ago

This is pretty cool. Feel somewhat dystopic though I suppose that's inevitable. I wonder how easy it will be to develop and scale this technology, given that it's housing organic entities with life support systems.

neurn_throw 2y ago
Extremely difficult, but more likely than artificial meat, it isn't so much the life support system as the constant contamination and lack of immune system that kills in vitro neuron cultures. It is much more efficient to use in vivo neurons since they come with an immune system attached and work just as well for leaning tasks.
- finalspark 2y ago
  I am not sure lack of immune system is our main concern so far at FinalSpark. I believe it has more to do with the side effects of physical contacts of neurons (and glial cells) with not fully biocompatible materials like the electrodes.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

pfdietz 2y ago

This doesn't much bother me, but I also find it pointless. These will not be reproducible or easily manufactured. Maybe good for neuroscience experiments? Now, chimeric animals made with addition of human stem cells, that would have significant ethical problems.

debo_ 2y ago

"Organic computing at a fraction of the cost of silicon? It's a no-brainer!"

sgarland 2y ago

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. Seriously, the hubris is stunning.

maratc 2y ago

Recommended reading (it's a science fiction piece but still relevant): https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

chaos_emergent 2y ago

Ethical objections in this thread are a red herring. Our brains are not that different than other primates' brains. We do abhorrent things to other primates that __demonstrably__ have similar experiential qualia as humans, mostly for the benefit of our species. But somehow objectioners are losing their marbles over a human cell cluster that has no more than a few thousand constituent cells. The computational ability of human brains is an unintentional happenstance of billions of years of random-walk evolution; there's no reason to believe that we can't make systems that are even more efficient with intentional design. If these organoids get us there, I'm all for them.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
There isn’t enough time for a random walk evolution to result in the structure we see. It’s more complicated than that. It seems the universe in the form of humans was meant to contemplate itself.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  Obviously, no human has any experience, nor any expertise, on whether there was enough time. So the argument pretty much turns into "my feelings" vs. Occam's Razor.
  - User23 2y ago
    Amusingly, I suspect that supporters of both the teleological position and the non-teleological position think Occam supports them. For what it’s worth, the only empirical macroevolution we’ve done, from domestication, to Monte Carlo simulations, to genetic algorithms, to LLM training, is all goal directed.
    - bell-cot 2y ago
      > Amusingly, I suspect... Yes...though I'd say that the teleological folks have emotional reasons to judge an ever-so-specific deity (who they already believe in) to be a conveniently minimal hypothesis. Which is a good example of a usually-necessary heuristic - pushing complexity, costs, unknowns, and other unhappy things far enough away (in real or metaphorical space/time) that you don't have to worry about them now. > FWIW, the only empirical... All the budget requests for sextillions of organisms, simulated for billions of years, were rejected. So, unfortunately, some large corners had to be cut...

hiatus 2y ago

Thought Emporium on YouTube made a few videos utilizing organoid bio processors but iirc their neuron source is pig not human. https://youtu.be/bEXefdbQDjw?si=-YVEmZhSrkgBj3I9 https://youtu.be/bEXefdbQDjw?si=-YVEmZhSrkgBj3I9

hoseja 2y ago
Honestly not sure why these aren't. Surely there are no observable differences at such tiny scale and using human cells just makes you a target of wrath.
- aithrowaway1987 2y ago
  While human brains are probably just scaled-up chimpanzee brains, individual primate neurons are significantly more sophisticated than other mammalian taxa, particularly with epigenetic changes: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34800-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34800-w But also the plain structure of the dendrites and how they form connections: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22230639/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22230639/ Now: I don't think wetware computing is actually sophisticated enough to leverage primate-specific advantages. But 10,000 primate neurons would probably be "more powerful" than 10,000 pig neurons. (OTOH it seems like corvid neurons are even more powerful than primates, maybe we should use crows.)
  - hoseja 2y ago
    Oh, didn't know that! Thought the human advantage was mostly just balancing cancerous growth to get really big or something. And yeah, we should be studying bird brains, they are so smart in such a tiny package!

seesawtron 2y ago

I was once contacted by FinalSpark where they offered free early remote access to use their biocomputing platform. The platform is accessible remotely and allows experiments on neurospheres made from living cells, sitting in an incubator, in their lab, in Vevey, Switzerland. A neurosphere is a round structure build out of approximately 10’000 neurons, connected to electrodes in different places. The platform uses python scripts to communicate with the neuron allowing for various functionalities, such as: Stimulate living neurons, Read data from neurons, Log all the data in a database, and Display graphically the results of experiments for further analysis. I was too busy to come up with a clear project idea that could beat alreadty existing stuff such as neurons playing Doom [0] (not related to FinalSpark). Still waiting for someone to show something cool using this platform. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw

abeppu 2y ago
As someone actually in this space, does the "rental" concept give you any concerns about the quality of research this can support? Like, if the previous customer's use of the organoids will have stateful impacts that impact what you observe? It strikes me that with conventional computers in the cloud we have pretty straight-forward assurances that each customer gets the instance in a fresh state.
- finalspark 2y ago
  I am one of FinalSpark's co-founder. You are right, this can be a concern. People who rent have the option to pay for exclusive access.
  - seesawtron 2y ago
    How hard is it to do something like this on your platform [0]? Are there any other real-world examples where people are using your platform to do something similar? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw

Eumenes 2y ago

All I want to know is how one of these can be used to generate more ad revenue.

finalspark 2y ago

I am one of co-founders of this company. Many of the questions asked here are answered in our recent publication: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence/articles/10.3389/frai.2024.1376042/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence... I will be happy to try to answer any other questions!

salmonfamine 2y ago
What does it feel like to be a real-life mad scientist?
humansareok1 2y ago
How confident are you that these brain organoids are incapable of qualia and thus suffering?
- Bluestein 2y ago
  Username relevant.- PS. Also, while congratulating the company, I also wanted to appreciate and second the question ...
  - finalspark 2y ago
    We have no information on this topic. Consider that at this time we have the number of neurons equivalent to a larva fly.
    - humansareok1 2y ago
      Flies have demonstrated signs of consciousness so if that's supposed to be reassuring, it's not.
      - gangorgasm 2y ago
        Compared to chips, where would flies be? 1 bit microcontroller level? Where our brain is tops of course (latest generation AMD or Intel)

christkv 2y ago

What’s the failure mode look like on this. Half your neurons died?

bogdanos 2y ago

We already found a way to generate porn. Can we please stop now?

hermannj314 2y ago

This article made me realize I am officially old. I find it difficult to believe I could ever classify this within my overton window before I die. Good luck to the next generation and your human brain slave computers, I'm 42, I'll be out of your way soon.

humansareok1 2y ago

Sometimes the Torment Nexis is allegorical. Sometimes they build the actual thing...

dwheeler 2y ago

It appears the cyberpunk universe has arrived, and not in the way I expected. The first thing I did was check if the publication date was April 1. I'm not entirely sure I believe this article. However, if it's satire, it's impossible to be sure. I guess it's real, and the world has gotten weirder.

didymospl 2y ago

Putting the ethical dilemmas aside, I'd like to know how such bioprocessors could possibly have: >million times greater power efficiency when compared to digital processors if bioprocessors have to support("run" the metabolism) all their organelles, including parts that are not at all involved in the signal processing, which is I suppose >99% of the cell, compared to digital processors that we literally built with the sole purpose of performing such operations and have logical gates close in size to the single layer of atoms already? What did we miss in the design?

spacemadness 2y ago
It’s interesting that each “processor” needs a camera which is made up of inefficient transistors and other leaky electrical components and there is still a claim to efficiency surplus.
Jensson 2y ago
Much fewer electrons have to move for a detectable chemical reaction than a detectable electric current. Solid state systems are just much less efficient at computations, but they are much easier to organize. Compare a copy operation on a DNA sequence in a cell with a copy in a memory, the cell does it extremely cheaply since it is a simple chemical reaction while the memory has to flow electrons in a giant network of nodes. You can easily copy exabytes of data using chemistry (DNA) with almost no energy.

jakeogh 2y ago

@finalspark: This was inevitable, please don't read this as anything other than constructive criticism; I am sure you are aware of the rat cells flying F-22 sim's in unlandable weather a decade+ ago. Can branding hide consciousness? Hopefully not, and if not, can your group please trail blaze a ethical path if it decides it encountered it? I realize this is a "use less" or "don't do that at all" scenario, and other actors are going to enslave larger brains if they can grow them. My intuition is larger billion+^ structures are long off, but that might not be the case. It's possible a oscillating pressure vessel with the right conditions (robust input/output feedback) may negate the need for a conventional circulatory system. [2020] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22087410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22087410

KeiraLeilani22 2y ago

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