Organoid Intelligence thread : When you struggle to improve on nature, slap it in a dish

[Punp]

Today I present you with a new horror beyond comprehension: Organoid Intelligence (OI)

The long and short version
OI uses cultures of human brain cells to create nodes of computing which function similar to, but more energy and learning effient than, AI.

There have already been tests where such OI has been trained to play pong (because why the fuck not).

The main points of discussion in the media are whether OIs can gain consciousness and what the relationship is between donor and the organoid.

What are your feelings about this?
Would you use an OI machine?
What does this mean in the context of the individual?
What does this mean for religion?
How might this be exploited by corporations?

Sources:
Tech Crunch
New Scientist (video)

 

[№56]

I wonder what "playing pong" actually means in this context. The whole thing sounds like smoke and mirrors to me.
The only other application they mention is dripping samples of a new drug onto the "organoids" to test whether it kills brain cells, which doesn't have anything to do with the stated goal of building an organic computer and doesn't prove that the method actually works. "We haven't gotten our biocomputer to think yet, but if you inject it with poison it dies. You should give us a lot of money because this proves that poison is bad."
On the other hand, the idea of pharmaceutical companies creating artificial brains in vats and pumping them full of psychoactive drugs just to see what will happen is pretty spooky.

 

[Punp]

I wonder what "playing pong" actually means in this context. The whole thing sounds like smoke and mirrors to me.
The only other application they mention is dripping samples of a new drug onto the "organoids" to test whether it kills brain cells, which doesn't have anything to do with the stated goal of building an organic computer and doesn't prove that the method actually works. "We haven't gotten our biocomputer to think yet, but if you inject it with poison it dies. You should give us a lot of money because this proves that poison is bad."
On the other hand, the idea of pharmaceutical companies creating artificial brains in vats and pumping them full of psychoactive drugs just to see what will happen is pretty spooky.

The "Playing Pong" experiment was teaching the braincells to react to electrical stimuli which controlled a pong paddle. Should be visible in that video. Cortical Labs is quite likely another investment hypetrain scam. There was a bit in that tech crunch article where the guy promoting it was saying:

[...] as Weng Chong told me over email, this could allow the development and testing of new drugs and therapies, plus "if you took your blood and made them into neurons then this drug discovery becomes even more personalizable – the results would be tailored specifically for you only."

And if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle, Weng Chong. He hasn't even got his story straight as to why they're making brains in vats, just that you should give them money to play with.

Either way, the idea of cyborg machines (hybrots) is not a new one. There was an experiment a while back where they used rat brain cells to control a wheeled robot for shits and gigs.

 

[vulonkaaz]

humans yet again playing around with alien tech they barely understand to do funny stuff again

I have zero idea what it feels like to be brain cells in a Petri box, i can not tell if there is an ethical problem with doing that (if there is one it is a pretty damn big one)

I would not put Petri box brain cells inside my computer, ethical problems aside it seems like a real hassle to maintain, at least my silicon won't die if i don't feed it constantly

 

[dargon]

full on Psycho-Pass

 

[Some_porcupine]

full on Psycho-Pass

wdy think ***they*** are trying to do, with all ai, and data!?
other than that (became unpredictable) it doesnt impress me much...
it is the same all the time, but it 80% of time never see a light of the day... no, my bad
it sees, but then, the pole is shifted (bleh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

 

[Punp]

humans yet again playing around with alien tech they barely understand to do funny stuff again

I have zero idea what it feels like to be brain cells in a Petri box, i can not tell if there is an ethical problem with doing that (if there is one it is a pretty damn big one)

I would not put Petri box brain cells inside my computer, ethical problems aside it seems like a real hassle to maintain, at least my silicon won't die if i don't feed it constantly

There was an experiment recently (October 2022) with using slime moulds in a digital watch / heart rate sensor. The participants would have to periodically open up the slime mould compartment and put in water and oats. If the user neglected the watch it would dry out and stop being conductive between the power source and device.

Linking the maintenance of a lifeform with the user's heart monitor obviously enforced the concept of neglecting the slime mould with neglecting yourself. Some users said they would structure their day around their slime mould, remembering to water it and then also look after their own bodily needs.

They grew very attached to the device and they were a lot more thoughtful about using it than, say, a fitbit - but I imagine the hassle increases greatly if you have a whole zoo of devices.

Easily digestible video here.
Article here
Paper here

Pictures because every post is made better with pictures.

 

[Vitnira]

In Warhammer 40k after the AI wars they started lobotomizing people and implanting chips in them to do menial intelligent work, like ship repairs. Just enough intelligence to do work but without the ability to control the body, instead controlled by a chip firing the right signals to the brain.

This is the sort of thing that earned WH40K the "grimderp" moniker - so grim it's just derp. This post is the first thing I've heard of IRL that's grimderp.

Barring a war, we'll have to see if AI or OI ends up cheaper at performing intelligent labor. Whichever one is more efficient will end up the winner and the propaganda will be tailored to make us accept whatever is chosen.

 

[Brapuccino]

There was an experiment recently (October 2022) with using slime moulds in a digital watch / heart rate sensor. The participants would have to periodically open up the slime mould compartment and put in water and oats. If the user neglected the watch it would dry out and stop being conductive between the power source and device.

Linking the maintenance of a lifeform with the user's heart monitor obviously really enforced this idea that if you neglect the slime mould you are also neglecting yourself. Some users said they would structure their day around their slime mould, remembering to water it and then also look after their own bodily needs.

They grew very attached to the device and they were a lot more thoughtful about using it than, say, a fitbit - but I imagine the hassle increases greatly if you have a whole zoo of devices.

Easily digestible video here.
Article here
Paper here

Pictures because every post is made better with pictures.
View attachment 94331View attachment 94332

I remember that one, I somehow found it kind of funny, kind of cute, but also creepy. Beyond issues like the extra work of feeding it and what not, the attachment aside is really the most concerning thing. As humans we're clearly geared towards caring for living things, and these things are now technically alive. You would think that we would know better than to become attached to some microorganism soup jello, but we really don't, and I'm sure that there were plenty of subjects in the experiment that would've told you straight up how it's just a damned thing, it got no feelings, and then eventually caved in to their animal brain and went like "Aww, jeez, look at that. It's time to feed ol' jelly boy!".
It's already such a huge issue that we're moving our relationships online and becoming addicted to all these shitty little gadgets and gizmos, that I could only see turning them into living things exacerbating the issue, even if they're only "alive" in the most technical of senses. Suddenly your computer or your phone is your pet and now you're using it just to spend time with it.

Still, I don't think it's going to get there just yet, the idea of becoming attached to your devices goes strictly against the current tech philosophy of planned obsolescence. I'm sure they could figure out a way around that, however.

If we lived in a perfect world, figuring out the brain to the point you can build a working synthetic copy, could potentially mean unraveling issues like neurological and mental illnesses and finding a solution to them. But, in the current state of things, the last thing I want is for technocrats to find new improved ways of "hacking" the brain.

 

[Ross_Я]

In Warhammer 40k after the AI wars they started lobotomizing people and implanting chips in them to do menial intelligent work, like ship repairs. Just enough intelligence to do work but without the ability to control the body, instead controlled by a chip firing the right signals to the brain.

This is the sort of thing that earned WH40K the "grimderp" moniker - so grim it's just derp. This post is the first thing I've heard of IRL that's grimderp.

I mean, it really makes next to zero sense, because Imperium had and still have robots. Just how intelligent those robots are is up to debate, but they certainly could do all the things servitors can do.
I could continue, but I digress from the topic, so I'll just leave it at that.
Still, that being said, if corpos will ever get chips into human brains, I can totally see said chips eventually being advanced enough to use "currently unneeded" parts of the brain as means to get some free computing power for the benefit of the corporation. So while you sleep some part of your brain will calculate hashes for bitcoins or whatever...

 

[Vul Lord of the Spiders]

There was an experiment recently (October 2022) with using slime moulds in a digital watch / heart rate sensor. The participants would have to periodically open up the slime mould compartment and put in water and oats. If the user neglected the watch it would dry out and stop being conductive between the power source and device.

Linking the maintenance of a lifeform with the user's heart monitor obviously enforced the concept of neglecting the slime mould with neglecting yourself. Some users said they would structure their day around their slime mould, remembering to water it and then also look after their own bodily needs.

They grew very attached to the device and they were a lot more thoughtful about using it than, say, a fitbit - but I imagine the hassle increases greatly if you have a whole zoo of devices.

Easily digestible video here.
Article here
Paper here

Pictures because every post is made better with pictures.
View attachment 94331View attachment 94332

i want this only because i think slime molds are so cool

 

[Captain]

Everyone applauds science....but generally it's dark and horrible. Need to do something unethical? Bend the ethics and do it anyway. I guess religion is the same.

I think it's time we think about what we're doing as a species. Are we building towards greed or betterment...or greed disguised as betterment?

 

[StoicCabal]

It's really the greatest question of general AI isn't it? If a computer, whether silicon or biological, can do literally everything a human can (up to and including complex abstraction), then what does that make us?

The biggest potential whitepill ever, is the possibility that AI will never be capable fully of complex abstraction like humans are, and if that's the case, then a case could actually be made for a divine spark.

On the otherhand, the inverse would be by far the largest blackpill humanity will ever know, the realization that we're just biological automatons with no higher order of function above the material.

 

[Punp]

Suddenly your computer or your phone is your pet and now you're using it just to spend time with it.

Still, I don't think it's going to get there just yet,

 

[Vul Lord of the Spiders]

Everyone applauds science....but generally it's dark and horrible. Need to do something unethical? Bend the ethics and do it anyway. I guess religion is the same.

I think it's time we think about what we're doing as a species. Are we building towards greed or betterment...or greed disguised as betterment?

which is worse tho relgion or science like that monkey mother experiment was pretty fucked but i mean relgion would burn witches at the stake i cant say which is more dark horrible and unethical like ethics is alot like time its a human construct

 

[StoicCabal]

They both have capacity to do good, but I'd argue that science can be worse, as religion at it's worst, is violence born from ignorance.

Science at it's worst is the deliberate profaning of the natural

 

[Punp]

that monkey mother experiment

Source: Harlow, 1958, "Nature of Love" experiments.

 

[Vul Lord of the Spiders]

They both have capacity to do good, but I'd argue that science can be worse, as religion at it's worst, is violence born from ignorance.

Science at it's worst is the deliberate profaning of the natural

make sense like again we did decapitate a monkey head put it on a different body and it lived for like 12 seconds i literally cannot think of anything relgion has done that worse than that like if we ignore the man made horrors the mariana trench literally exists

 

[Punp]

which is worse tho relgion or science like that monkey mother experiment was pretty fucked but i mean relgion would burn witches at the stake i cant say which is more dark horrible and unethical like ethics is alot like time its a human construct

They both have capacity to do good, but I'd argue that science can be worse, as religion at it's worst, is violence born from ignorance.

Science at it's worst is the deliberate profaning of the natural

I think we can all agree that humans are the source of all evil, whether it's under the umbrella of religion or science - but let's not make this into an abstract im14andthisisdeep jerkoff thread, please. There are much more interesting things to discuss about consciousness embedded in tech.

 

[Vul Lord of the Spiders]

I think we can all agree that humans are the source of all evil, whether it's under the umbrella of religion or science - but let's not make this into an abstract im14andthisisdeep jerkoff thread, please. There are much more interesting things to discuss about consciousness embedded in tech.

like the how human brain cells are now potentially being used in processors