Researchers are building computers that run on brain organoids, but have neglected a major ethical issue
Article excerpt
Nada S. Salem is an affiliate researcher in the Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Jianping Fu is a professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Cell & Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Feng Guo is an associate professor in the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
Jonathan Kadmon is an assistant professor in the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Omer Revah is an assistant professor in the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Orly Reiner is a professor in the Departments of Molecular Genetics and Molecular Neuroscience, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Insoo Hyun is a senior researcher in the Hastings Center for Bioethics, Garrison, New York, USA, and professor in the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Singapore.
Brain organoids grown in the laboratory could one day be used in biocomputing applications. Credit: National Institutes of Health/Science Photo Library
The workings of the brain are often compared to those of a computer. Some researchers are testing this analogy to its limits, attempting to build computers containing laboratory-grown cultures of brain cells . In doing so, they hope to circumvent the physical limitations of the silicon-based computing hardware used for today’s artificial intelligence 1 , 2 .
The promise is there. Brain tissue combines memory and computation in the same substrate, requiring fewer components than conventional computers do. Theories of neural networks, based on neurons and synapses, have inspired AI algorithms. Brains consume much less energy than AI machines do 3 and don’t require vast cooling systems .
Human neuroscience is entering a new era, it mustn’t forget its human dimension