Melbourne startup launches 'biological computer' made of human brain cells
29 comments
·March 5, 2025Loughla
I understand it's early days, but that is horrifying.
geor9e
At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
ax0ar
This reminds me of Minds Beneath Us. Mankind really has no limits, and who decides where to stop anyway?
makeworld
Really hoping human brain cells don't necessarily create consciousness, in this case.
ASalazarMX
> hundreds of thousands of live human brain cells
A human brain has like six orders of magnitude more cells than that chip. A single ant has 250,000 neurons. A crow brain has 1,500,000,000. I don't think we have to worry yet.
etrautmann
But how would you know? With a patient who has locked-in syndrome they can sense and think but have no ability to move or communicate. How could you tell if your fish brain (or future AI model) has the capacity to think or suffer?
h0l0cube
To answer the rhetorical: We don't know (and possibly can't know).
tomkarho
Emphasis in "yet"
chrsig
someone doesn't remember y2k.
odyssey7
Imagine that every individual cell is conscious, and that consciousness is a binary quality.
MattPalmer1086
Ok. So the brain cell is individually conscious. Won't be conscious of much, it has no sense organs. Just lost in its own thoughts?
ASalazarMX
Imagine that it isn't. What use is imagining something without the slightest shred of evidence?
neighbour
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
ashoeafoot
Similar to the brain cheese in rifters that betrays humanity because it koves simple patterns
stubish
I imagine training time would be an issue with biological computers. Waiting for chemicals means a very low clock speed. And you can't run a 100 training jobs in parallel and merge them.
6510
I think it only has to learn how to interface with DeepSeek.
jes5199
this does seem like it would skip a lot of the questions about whether it’s even possible to make a machine intelligence
2muchcoffeeman
Naively, isn’t this the obvious first step?
The only known thing to have produced general intelligence is biological. Why would the first artificial general intelligence be a computer? We don’t even know what the brain does.
What’s the chances we stumble upon a hardware and software combination that was sufficient first go?
wewewedxfgdf
Pretty sure Doctor Who destroyed that lab in Genesis of the Daleks.
Maybe that's in the future, not sure.
6510
I think it would have more questions than answers. When he learns what we've done he is going to be so mad. lol
motohagiography
this is very good news. does it change the ethical concerns if we are using them to transport consciousness to other planets instead of just using them in a lab? I think it does. nature is pretty savage. extending consciousness off world as best we can seems like a natural imperative. I have the sense that programs for organic machines may ultimately resemble music as well.
ada1981
"current systems are too primitive to feel or understand."
Is there evidence to suggest that if it can feel or understand, that would actually be an issue?
Every day millions of sentient beings are killed for human consumption and millions more wait in torturous conditions.
It would be odd if there was outrage over a bio computer, but not over, say, the practice of using cows and pigs for food, which feel pain, have rich emotional lives, and have the inteligence of at least small children.
stubish
It would not be odd. Outrage is emotion, and logic has little impact. Especially dealing with groups rather than individuals. But even individuals will rationalize their boiled-alive lobster dinner, which is normal in their worldview, while decrying something new they impulsively dislike. And then forget the rationalization entirely, because that is how brains work. Getting the untrained to adjust their worldview, the model of the world their minds use to make decisions, is really difficult as the brain actively defends the model that has worked well so far.
Frederation
Well said.
ada1981
Agreed. It unfortunately wouldn't be odd at all.
I was able help with Christpiracy.com which has some wild mental gymnastics on display.
Just think… if we can get it up to a few million cells and provide it with a blood supply, maybe even lungs and a heart, we might be able to model a mouse!