Scientists Target 'Biocomputing' Breakthrough With Use of Human Brain Cells (ft.com) 38
Scientists propose to develop a biological computer powered by millions of human brain cells that they say could outperform silicon-based machines while consuming far less energy. From a report: The international team, led by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, published in the journal Frontiers in Science on Tuesday a detailed road map to what they call "organoid intelligence." The hardware will include arrays of brain organoids -- tiny three-dimensional neural structures grown from human stem cells -- connected to sensors and output devices and trained by machine learning, big data and other techniques.
The aim is to develop an ultra-efficient system that can solve problems beyond the reach of conventional digital computers, while aiding development in neuroscience and other areas of medical research. The project's ambition mirrors work on the more advanced quantum computing but raises ethical questions around the "consciousness" of brain organoid assemblies. "I expect an intelligent dynamic system based on synthetic biology, but not constrained by the many functions the brain has to serve in an organism," said Professor Thomas Hartung of Johns Hopkins, who has gathered a community of 40 scientists to develop the technology. They have signed a "Baltimore declaration" calling for more research "to explore the potential of organoid cell cultures to advance our understanding of the brain and unleash new forms of biocomputing while recognising and addressing the associated ethical implications."
The aim is to develop an ultra-efficient system that can solve problems beyond the reach of conventional digital computers, while aiding development in neuroscience and other areas of medical research. The project's ambition mirrors work on the more advanced quantum computing but raises ethical questions around the "consciousness" of brain organoid assemblies. "I expect an intelligent dynamic system based on synthetic biology, but not constrained by the many functions the brain has to serve in an organism," said Professor Thomas Hartung of Johns Hopkins, who has gathered a community of 40 scientists to develop the technology. They have signed a "Baltimore declaration" calling for more research "to explore the potential of organoid cell cultures to advance our understanding of the brain and unleash new forms of biocomputing while recognising and addressing the associated ethical implications."
data center (Score:5, Funny)
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powered by ? (Score:3, Funny)
Powered by RedBull and Mt Dew.
They're inventing the BrainPal! (Score:2)
The fully organic BrainPal was a feature in the later books of the Old Man's War [wikipedia.org] series by John Scalzy.
Just don't put too many cells together... (Score:2)
Just don't put too many cells together and put it all into a robot body. It might get horny: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
Slippery slope... (Score:1)
Just saying... not a big fan of this one. In many cases we don't know what the slippery slope is until we're half way down the slide. This one, the slippery slope is already marked with a giant flashing "Don't Go There" sign, caution tape, etc.
At what point is it intelligent? Will it have human rights/autonomy? What about right to life? In that it doesn't want to be shut off. (Note: I'm a very pro-choice person).
The ethics department must be having a field day trying to deal with the thorny issues, much
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Ellison (Score:3)
It has no mouth and it must scream.
Why human? (Score:2)
You dodge most of the ethical dillema by using pig or bird cells. Even another primate would be better than human.
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Planet of the Pigs?
Planet of the Birds?
Planet of the Apes?
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Funny but those are things that happen when you put human genetics in those animals, not things that happen when you turn their neural cells into a computer chip.
And who exactly is going to own this thing? Unless they custom make your chip with your own stem cells there are laws against owning and enslaving humans... not so much for pigs, birds, and apes.
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You dodge most of the ethical dillema by using pig or bird cells. Even another primate would be better than human.
Pigs you say? I've seen this documentary [wikipedia.org] and it doesn't turn out well for some people (or pigs)
Guy was right... (Score:2)
"Did you guys ever W A T C H the show?"
Scientist were able to communicate... (Score:2)
..
The first response scientists got was Mummy ?
"I'M ALIVE," Proteus IV (Score:3)
Brain cells from ... (Score:3, Funny)
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Donna J. Bigly
Perfect (Score:2)
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Nah, after dealing with us for a while, they'll avoid adding more biological material at any cost.
And now..... (Score:3)
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already obsolete (Score:1)
Browsing the web, I see a brain has about 86 billion neurons, they fire on average once every 6 seconds, and it consumes 23 watts, so 0.6 billion firings per watt. Compare that to an efficient computer chip running at 1GHz on 1 watt of power. Each cycle can fire at least one 64-bit instruction, each firing at least one transistor per bit on average, so at least 64 billion firings per watt. Computers are already at least 100x more efficient than the human brain. If we think better than computers, it's du
Re:already obsolete (Score:4, Interesting)
You appear to be assuming that there is some sort of "algorithm" that we think with in the first place.
It may very well be because of the brain's hardware that we can sometimes think better than computers can.
Sufficiently sophisticated algorithms may model the brain's operation or all of the laws of physics and chemistry that govern its operation, but even if it were able to simulate the brain with complete fidelity, that still does not mean that there is any particular algorithm that our own brain thinks with.
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> that still does not mean that there is any particular algorithm that our own brain thinks with.
We know that the brain operates on associativity, fuzzy storage and fuzzy matching.
1) If you see a ~5 second clip of a movie (that you are familiar with) you can usually identity it pretty fast -- within a few seconds you can even identity the actor(s) in the scene. In order for a computer to do this it would need to process every frame, be given meta-data about the scene, and do some sort of reverse image l
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This is again still assuming that there are some algorithms that our brain uses in the first place, or else you would not be suggesting that there are algorithms involved that we do not know. Algorithms may eventually be able to *MODEL* much of how the brain appears to operate, but that does not mean that the brain actually uses those algorithms.
Unless you are advocating simulation theory, t
Re:already obsolete (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed that a digital computer can operate on 64-bit, or 128-bit numbers faster, more accurate than a 'Brain' - but that's because even a general purpose CPU (e.g. Intel / AMD) is an extremely narrowly defined piece of hardware - at a very fundamental level designed to add numbers together.
A "brain" is a very general purpose device. Think a cat or dog - they can learn, fairly quickly, to operate in urban, rural, inside, outside, a new environment, etc. with very little effort. Teach a dog to walk with you - doesn't matter if you're in a hallway, sidewalk, park, store, etc. - it will walk with you. You don't need to completely retrain it in each environment. And that's with a brain size between a grape and small walnut.
Two things -
1) You're equating a neuron to a transistor. They aren't. A neuron is the equivalent of an individual microcontroller (Atmel, PIC, etc.), with some components of the neuron weighting algorithms / calculations operating at the quantum level.
2) A single neuron can have an interconnect mesh network in the thousands of inputs / outputs.
So, a better equivalent is - 86 billion 8-bit PIC microcontrollers, each with its own microcode, interconnected in a mesh network with each one being connected up to 1000 others. The netlist for something like that would be quite large.
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So, a better equivalent is - 86 billion 8-bit PIC microcontrollers, each with its own microcode, interconnected in a mesh network with each one being connected up to 1000 others. The netlist for something like that would be quite large.
Dammit, you stole the idea for the invention I'm working on! So far my only stumbling block has been obtaining all those PIC chips - if I had them I could rule the world!
Re:already obsolete (Score:4, Informative)
Further browsing says the typical brain neuron has an average of 7000 synaptic connections. And synaptic signals are weighted, not purely binary, which can probably be modelled as an 8-bit number. So up to 7000*8=56000 bits per neuron firing, so 56000*.6 billion = 33 trillion bits read per watt.
On the other hand, an M2 has 20 billion transistors, and they mostly don't fire each clock cycle either. Even if they fired once every 100 cycles that would be 200 million transistors firing per clock. If each transistor has 2 inputs, it'd take 17000 transistors firing per cycle to match the bits processed per watt by the brain. I was only counting 64 firing earlier, it's probably much more than that. (The M2 uses more than 1 watt. I didn't quickly find a transistor count for any 1W 1GHz chips so I'm just substituting in the M2 transistor count.)
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There's a whole lot more to the brain than just synapses. We don't really understand all the chemical pathways and how they interact with neurons to create cognition.
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A neuron isn't the same as a transistor.
A microprocessor is more efficient than the human brain at doing things microprocessors are good at. The brain is much more (energy) efficient than any microprocessor at doing things brains are good at.
It's likely that you could make a processor that is more energy efficient than the brain, but it wouldn't look like anything you can buy today.
Also, neurons are a bitch to culture, especially if you want them to actually do something. Even in your own head, most of the
Is this news? (Score:2)
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I don't know if it's news, but I find it interesting to hear where biological brain researchers are at in their progress, and their future plans for development. Brain research is tough.
Re: Is this news? (Score:2)
I'm really hoping this in ends up being to expensive to commercialize, I can 't see that the negatives outweigh the positives.
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What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Score:2)
speculative if not clickbait (Score:2)
given how fast computer hardware and software is improving, these guys are gonna have to work awfully fast
and even if (big if) they succeed, these organoid brain computers are incredibly fragile things that need a sophisticated lab enviroment eg the slightest contamination with bacteria leads to destruction (which is why mammalian cells when grown in a Petri Dish are grown in super sterile special hoods and the medium has loads of antibotic)
IMO, a waste of money, but we shall see
Interesting and strange times (Score:1)