You heard me right, this isn't some SciFi or a new movie script, it's real. Actual Neurons cultivated in labs, wired into computing systems. Though my first question is... does this mean we are a bit closer to AGI? A future where machines don't simply just calculate but think?
So what is this even? It's Bio-computing. And what is Bio-computing? It's using living neurons as processors instead of your normal silicon chips. Now these cells can adapt, self-organize, and process information in parallel. As we can see, this mimics our human brain.
Still lots of English. What does it even mean?
- Unlike chips, neurons can change their connections over time. So technically they can "learn."
- Energy efficiency: Biological systems consume far less energy compared to traditional data centers.
I'd think of all this like swapping out your CPU for a tiny brain network.
Why does this matter? Why do all this bio-hacking?
Have you ever been online and there's that one guy in the comment section talking about how AI is wasting our water resources or consuming too much electricity etc? Well, they mean the data centers... that's what these models work off.
This bio-computing solution is essentially energy efficient. Now all this is still fairly early and experimental, but think about all the doors it opens in Science and Technology. Think of the hybrid systems that we can have.
However, that being said — it's not all rainbows.
It sounds impressive for a reason. That's because it's not just difficult, it's "hard" too.
1. Keeping Cells Alive
Neurons need nutrients, oxygen, and stable conditions. So running this "living server" is like running a lab itself more than a data center.
2. Scaling Up
Sure, a petri dish of neurons is all well and good, but powering global infrastructure on the level that data centers do, or even 2021 ChatGPT, is another thing entirely.
3. Ethical Questions
To put this in perspective, when I first saw this I didn't know how to react. My tech brain was going cool, awesome wow!!! And then it was like... wait, did they kill someone? (they didn't). We aren't even done with AI ethical frameworks yet. How would we control this?
What new angles of philosophy do we need to consider? Is there going to be a new Alan Turing test? Like, what even is thinking? Is the "thinking" these bio-computers are going to be doing actually identical to human thinking, or is it just mimicking small portions of thinking?
My brain runs wild.
Silicon gave us the digital age, neurons might just give us the biological age of computing. And at this point it's not even about the question of can we build it?
It's rather the question of... what happens when we do build it?
I hope your brain runs wild as my brain runs wild.
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