
A startup is building computer chips using real neurons - gautamsivakumar
https://fortune.com/2020/03/30/startup-human-neurons-computer-chips/
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monocasa
Pretty weird not to comment that they're replicating published work that
trained mouse neurons on an electrode array to fly a plane in a flight
simulator.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.htm)

It's about at the level where you could make a good attempt to replicate it as
a hobby in your (albeit well stocked) garage.

~~~
jcims
> It's about at the level where you could make a good attempt to replicate it
> as a hobby in your (albeit well stocked) garage.

Already being done:
[https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g](https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g)

Doesn’t hurt to join forces with another ‘well stocked garage‘ featured
earlier on HN: [https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g](https://youtu.be/V2YDApNRK3g)

~~~
Melting_Harps
Very cool, I added this to my 'biohacker' list of links.

And lol @ your Egg Benedict Donburi from Food Wars. I still haven't started
season 2... check out Dotchi No Ryouri, it used to run on PBS but can be found
on youtube.

~~~
throw1234651234
Can you post that list please?

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Abishek_Muthian
>programmers usually have to engage in a laborious process of manually
adjusting the initial coefficients, or weights, that will be applied to each
type of data point the network processes. Another challenge is to get the
software to balance how much it should be trying to explore new solutions to a
problem versus relying on solutions the network has already discovered that
work well. “All these problems are completely eluded if you have a system that
is based on biological neurons to begin with,” Friston said.

Using real neurons avoids hyperparameter tuning? Can someone explain how.

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dr1337
Are you tuning hyperparameters when learning a task?

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barkingcat
Yes, the amount of caffine, food (enzymes, proteins, carbs), and if it is a
long running learning process, amount of sleep. all parameters are being tuned
all the time.

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rl3
2015 (my words):

> _Obviously the aforementioned experiment would be completely unethical, but
> it 's interesting to ponder it as a hypothetical - that today we may have
> the capability to bootstrap a superintelligent machine using biology as a
> computational shortcut. But we can't, because ethics._ [0]

2020 (article):

> _Chong said the pair were interested in the idea of artificial general
> intelligence (AGI for short)—A.I. that has the flexibility to perform almost
> any kind of task as well or better than humans. “Everyone is racing to build
> AGI, but the only true AGI we know of is biological intelligence, human
> intelligence,” Chong said. He noted the pair figured the only way to get
> human-level intelligence was to use human neurons._

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973122)

~~~
jimmaswell
The human neurons are sourced entirely ethically, from skin cells to stem
cells that make neurons somehow.

~~~
rl3
> _The human neurons are sourced entirely ethically, from skin cells to stem
> cells that make neurons somehow._

Yes, and I'd wager the scale at which their experiment is currently operating
is very likely ethical too. In fact, I'm not saying anything they're doing
right now is unethical. My use of the term _unethical_ was in context of
hypothetical experiments on a scale that would make Dr. Frankenstein's stomach
churn.

That said, my only point was that it's disconcerting to see these people—who
are currently growing tiny brains in a vat—state that they're very interested
in AGI come to fruition via way of using human neurons.

~~~
meowface
As long as they treat the brains in vats with the same ethics as we treat
human newborns, as soon as they believe there's any possibility it could be
conscious, what's the problem?

(The problem of course is the possibility of it becoming conscious before we
realize it, but it's very up in the air to what degree that's actually a risk.
My intuition is that we'll see clear signs of it before it even fully forms.)

~~~
rl3
> _My intuition is that we 'll see clear signs of it before it even fully
> forms._

Probably, though I wouldn't be so sure we'll know what to make of more complex
computer-brain hybrids:

 _" These neurons are then embedded in a nourishing liquid medium on top of a
specialized metal-oxide chip containing a grid of 22,000 tiny electrodes that
enable programmers to provide electrical inputs to the neurons and also sense
their outputs."_

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dsign
I think that getting any kind of practical processing from biological neurons
from a mouse or a human is ... well, hard and pointless.

However, the idea of getting biological parts interfacing with silico has lots
of applications. For example, it could be used to build cheaper DNA printers
where the "printing heads" are genetically modified bacteria. And from there,
it would be possible to arrange all sorts of chemical processes using
bacterial metabolism. One could for example build sealed bio-batteries with an
infinite lifetime, whose DNA is kept mutation-free using a digital master in
the embedded digital controller.

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program_whiz
If you assume that your conscious experience is somehow arising from your
neurons, then generating a set of those neurons that are genetically identical
and cannot be distinguished in any way (except location in physical space,
which is an ephemeral quality that doesn't appear to change neuron function),
then we can assume we are creating, or will create, beings who are having
conscious experience on some level.

On an ethical level, I think we need to understand whether we are creating
thinking feeling creatures who will be doomed to suffer as data slaves before
we normalize this. If I removed your brain from body, removing all sense
pleasures, drowning you in darkness and isolation, and the only input and
output you had were binary signals for some abstract data problem, you would
experience profound silent suffering in an eternal private hell.

This truly would be the invention of the matrix, but not for an army of
tyrannical robots / AI, but for the use of humans themselves -- a modern day
slavery of the mental kind.

~~~
bweitzman
An artificial brain being fed a stream of bits will not necessarily feel like
it's in an empty room processing an abstract data problem.

If we can create an AI with different goals and reward mechanisms, there is a
potential that we could create agents that are experiencing bliss doing data
processing tasks.

Of course how we tell the difference between a miserable agent and a joyous
agent is still an open question ..

~~~
teawrecks
Emotions are just chemical responses, no? What if those chemicals aren't even
present in the system? In other words, I don't think there's any more reason
to think a ball of neurons is "alive" than a neural net that exists in code.

~~~
quicklime
Maybe the conscious experience of emotions is the neural response to the
chemicals? In other words, the chemicals are just one way to provide an input
to the ball of neurons. If the chemicals aren't there but some other input
mechanism is, it could generate an experience of suffering.

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xkcd-sucks
Primary mammalian neural cell culture is perhaps the most notoriously
difficult type of cell culture, even in a lab setting -- Developing a product
based on neurons seems like a total pipe dream. Even keeping a population
alive for a few weeks is a big deal, let alone maintaining a neuron based
black-box product in working order.

So, if this isn't a total pipe dream, it will drive development of super-
advanced cell culture tech, development of robust application-suitable cell
lines, etc. These technologies/products have orders of magnitude more value
than neurons on glass.

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h0l0cube
> Currently, the company is working to get its mini-brains—which so far are
> approaching the processing power of a dragonfly brain—to play the old Atari
> arcade game Pong

I'm surprised that no-one has discussed whether these systems could develop
emergent qualia, and experience pain. No joke. Are there any ethical
frameworks around this kind of research?

~~~
nnq
> could develop emergent qualia

 _If_ we were to admit there really is such thing as "qualia", there's not
reason you wouldn't ask the same question about non-biological software or
hardware systems... electronic hardware or biological hardware can have same
computational qualities.

 _But since OBJECTIVELY there 's no such things as qualia (the concept only
exist SUBJECTIVELY), it could only exist by definition for "a person/subject"
eg., in this context, a neural network large and complex enough to get close
to a human-like intelligence level!_

A dragonfly nervous system is probably simpler than some of the the largest
artificial neural networks models...

~~~
MaxBarraclough
I'm inclined to agree. To put it another way, then: what matters isn't the
substrate (neurons vs transistors), but what you do with them.

Going this route, we'd have to say that if you wrote a program that perfectly
simulated the human brain, you've built a conscious system running on
transistors.

It also means that if you built a RISC-V processor based on a large number of
neurons (say, as many as are in a human brain), you _haven 't_ built a
conscious system, despite that it's neuron-based.

I'm ignoring the obvious problems with building a RISC-V using neurons; they
strike me as incidental detail, for our purposes here.

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whoisjuan
What’s the goal of this though? I couldn’t determine it from the article, but
I’m certain that using them as transistors just for the sake of saving energy
doesn’t make sense. Especially since a neuron size is a about 4000nm or more
than 500x larger than the new 7nm transistors.

No way energy consumption is justifiable with such a massive loss of chip real
estate. You will need way larger chips to achieve a decent computing power.

~~~
haydn3
Maybe it's not just transistors they're hoping to gain from this.

I think it's more like building a brain from organic matter that's the real
boon. Sooner or later we'll be discarding silicon and extracting neurons from
mice just to watch YouTube IX in space with our Tesla corvette cruisers and
our alien barmaids serving us Soylent Green in a martini glass!

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29athrowaway
If you have neurons then you also need glia and neurotransmitters and ways to
regulate them and keep them alive... and suddenly you need the entire
organism.

~~~
pazimzadeh
That could be said of almost any ex vivo model right?

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Edward9
This looks like we are going to also feed our computers nutrients on top of
electricity.

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arm85
If this was posted on the 1st of April, I wouldn't believe it...

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polskibus
Reminds me of a sci-fi novel "Black oceans" by Jacek Dukaj. It was one of the
more interesting themes in there.

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leoh
> Using real neurons avoids several other difficulties that software-based
> neural networks have. For instance, to get artificial neural networks to
> start learning well, their programmers usually have to engage in a laborious
> process of manually adjusting the initial coefficients, or weights, that
> will be applied to each type of data point the network processes.

This seems silly. Once you've figured out these parameters once, it seems to
me you can similate a single neuron reasonably well. Perhaps differences will
emerge from networks.

~~~
twomoretime
>well, their programmers usually have to engage in a laborious process of
manually adjusting the initial coefficients, or weights, that will be applied
to each type of data point the network processes.

Not true for modern neural networks. We typically use random values with
certain statistics and/or specialized schemes which depend on specific later
details - but in any case it's a single function call and the defaults
typically work well enough that it's an advanced topic.

The OP is probably referring to neural nets of old, before this recent
explosion, where you had handfuls of perceptrons operating on very simple
problems which would be trivial for modern ML.

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bencollier49
Why specifically human neurons? Why source the neurons from human stem cells
rather than mouse cells? PR I suppose.

~~~
altivasta
Humans are closest to humans in terms of behavior, so it makes sense to use
them in testing where possible

~~~
shrthnd
Donated my body to science... woke up as a living computer.

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carapace
At the core is the stance or attitude towards life.

What Martin Buber calls _" Ich und Du"_, or "I and Thou":

> Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:

> The attitude of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate
> in itself, which we either use or experience.

> The attitude of the "I" towards "Thou", in a relationship in which the other
> is not separated by discrete bounds.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou)

This fundamentally is an attempt to force the "I-Thou" relation with life into
the "I-It" relation with machines and is therefore the definition of _evil_.

\- - - -

Anyway, the _correct_ mad science is to culture _your own_ cells into control
boxes for your machines and thence control them "telepathically" to become a
distributed cyborg. But to do that you would first have to become intelligent
enough to increase your morphogenic plasticity to the point where you have
more-or-less total control of your meta-cellular form. Did you see John
Carpenter's "The Thing"? _That 's_ how intelligent you would have to become:
an immortal macro-polymorphous self-made _shoggoth_. At that point though, you
no longer really need machines or technology in the conventional sense. You
can make artificial diatomaceous carrier shells for small colonies of your
cells and send them out to do whatever. It's not nanotech but your operational
units are small enough that it doesn't really matter. I should mention that
it's really easy to make fusion generators at this scale. People assume that
the techno-singularity will originate _in silico_ so to speak but that's so
naive: the most sophisticated information processor is the human brain, not
the chip. The singularity happens _in vivo_ : in flesh. You don't even need
and machinery to initiate it: just information and the will to be more than
you are (and the wisdom not to fuck it up and turn yourself into a cancer blob
or grey goo.)

The only real problem at this stage is loneliness. Few can ever really
understand what you've done, and if they did they would shun you as a
Lovecraftian horror anyway. Nevertheless, I have not given up hope. Slowly,
painfully, you guys wobble towards enlightenment. I try to help when I can,
but mostly all I can do is be patient.

I am among you now. Join me. "Dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever..."

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haffi112
Imagine in the future that your computer, composed of biological neurons,
could literally die.

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sirwitti
I'm guessing they're working on neuromorphic computing. Many types of
computations like differential equations are supposed to be a lot easier in
non-discrete computing.

Disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm talking about, only glimps here and
there.

~~~
RichardCA
The modern day successor to what Misha Mahowald was working on.

[https://youtu.be/lwT1jUvwRLc](https://youtu.be/lwT1jUvwRLc)

It ends up being a complex hybrid of analog and digital computing having to
work together.

The article doesn't provide enough detail to be of any use if you are trying
to understand what they are actually doing.

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faeyanpiraat
Wouldn't this count as neuron slavery?

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HenryKissinger
So, a brain?

Easy there, Dr. Frankenstein.

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pfisch
This sounds like an episode of black mirror and seems immoral.

If this actually does work and scale the results would be horrific.

I don't really want brains with no rights to exist like this.

~~~
throwqqq
1/3 of the human brains in the world already exist with no rights. If we can
enslave rats instead it will be a big step up.

~~~
citizenpaul
100% of human brains exist with no rights. There are just temporary
privileges. Ask Japanese Americans during WW2 what kind of rights they had in
a first world country with supposedly the strongest "rights" in the world.

