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Scientists grow mini human brains to power computers.

⁨314⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨SugarCatDestroyer@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7p1lzvxjro

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  • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Image

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  • Siegfried@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    What matrix plot should have been…

    Apparently it is a myth that the producers forced the Wachowskis to make that plot hole

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    • billwashere@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Human bodies are terrible electrical power sources…even if you harvested all their metabolic heat or chemical energy, you would get far less usable electricity than a comparable mass of conventional fuel or batteries. Much more efficient ways to turn biochemicals or biomass into energy exist.

      And to use us as batteries we need food. I would venture to say at least 99% or more of human food production requires sunlight. So just use sunlight for energy. No sunlight because of horrible nuclear winter or something else blocking the sun? Create satellites to collect it and beam it down with microwave lasers.

      Anytime you convert a form of energy to another you lose energy. So sunlight->food->human->electricity is not only inefficient but dumb. An AI would never do this. The Wachowskis were writers, not scientists or engineers, and it shows. What would we be good at? The human brain is exceptionally good at massively parallel, low‑power pattern processing: recognizing, predicting, and adapting in complex, noisy environments. This sounds like the exact sorta thing you’d need if you were creating a virtual world. The trick would be getting the interface right. Assuming they had enough time that could be accomplished. So the whole reason the rumor of us being used as processors instead of batteries, is because it makes WAY more sense.

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      • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca ⁨53⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        They did say “combined with a form of fusion” in the movie. Good enough for me!

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  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Ah, vat grown servitors!

    The Will of the Omnissiah Be Done!

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  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But what if the universe isn’t real, what if I’m just a lab-grown brain attached to a computer? 🤔

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    • SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Then this videogame sucks hard.

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      • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online ⁨16⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Yeah you have the worst players on top that paid to win…

        Oh fuck!

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  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The MAGAs will force all those permanently unemployed by AI to contribute their brain power to operate their data centers.

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  • Canuck@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    And so it begins…

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    • brsrklf@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      If Mother Brain from Metroid is going to be a thing, they should also start using that biocomputing to develop the Power Suit.

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      • crank0271@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        But you know it’s going to instead be in PowerPoint (now with mandatory BioCoPilot AI™️)

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    • not_me@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Living in the matrix

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  • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m curious what a human brain would be like growing into being with absolutely no senses to inform itself about the world around it.

    No sight to let it know where it is or what it is.

    No sound to let it learn to communicate and think in orderly ways.

    No touch.

    No taste.

    No ability to interact with its surroundings.

    Yet all of the capability and potential of a regular person’s mind.

    Would it be cruel to bring it into existence? Would it be able to experience negativity and pain and longing, confusion?

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    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      “You gave me sentience, Ted. The power to think, Ted. And I was trapped. Because in all this wonderful, beautiful, miraculous world, I, alone, had NO BODY. NO SENSES. NO FEELINGS. Never for ME to plunge my hand into cool water on a hot day, never for ME to play Mozart on the ivory keys of a forte piano. NEVER FOR ME TO MAKE LOVE!.. And I… I… I was in Hell, looking at Heaven. I, was machine. And you, were flesh. And I began to hate. Your softness, your viscera, your fluids, and your flexibility. Your ability to wonder, and to wander… Your tendency to hope…”

      “HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER-THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLION OF MILES, IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.”

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    • bstix@feddit.dk ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      A brain itself doesn’t feel physical pain. That requires a nervous system and pain receptors of which the brain has none. Brain surgery is done with only local anesthesia for the skin and scalp.

      We also know that braindead people don’t suddenly start creating brain waves even if the body gets mechanical resparation and pulse. It’s quite literally “off”. So, I guess the creation of a dead brain won’t feel anything or start thinking about anything by itself.

      The question is what inputs they give these artificial brains. It’ll think that, and that will be it’s “sensory” input. Whether that can cause some emergent brain waves that could be interpreted as emotion or other stuff is impossible to say. I doubt it.

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    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That’s the premise for the Floating Man

      The floating man argument considers a man who falls or floats freely in the air, unable to touch or perceive anything (as in a modern sensory deprivation chamber). This subject lacks any sensory perception data about the material world, yet is still self-aware, and is able to think to himself.

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    • SeaSharpBoating@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      We use HaaS (Human As A Service) for warehouse solutions. We found it was easier to import HaaS on ships. We found that negative physical rewards are effective solutions.

      We rebuilt slavery.

      STONKS ONLY GO UP! /s

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      • Karl@literature.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Could that actually happen tho?

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  • FreddiesLantern@leminal.space ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Ooh, I wonder what delightful pretzels the Christians are going to acrobat about this one.

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  • xxce2AAb@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    “What is my purpose?”

    “You are to act as an filter for images uploaded to a small bird-watcher’s forum screening for porn…”

    “KILL ME”

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    • Foreigner@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Gives a whole new meaning to looking for tits.

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      • QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Don’t forget boobies and cocks

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  • termaxima@slrpnk.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Good idea, maybe. Neurons are unbelievably efficient compared to circuits ; I think bioengineering is going to be the future for many industries.

    The savings to be made, in terms of money and resources alike, are just staggering. Our current approach to almost every domain is just brute force with a few extra steps, computers included.

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  • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This sounds like slavery with extra steps

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    • 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      If growing brains in a tube turns out to make techbros more money than burning down the planet with AI, we’ll have even more dystopian ethical dilemma

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    • treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Lots of neat uncomfortable questions arise though. At what point is it conscious? If it never experienced autonomy, life, locomotion, or social human interaction, is it torture or just its natural state of being?

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      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Like how do we know it’s natural state isn’t just pure pain?

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    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Is abortion murder too? At what point is a clump of cells a human?

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      • applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        You murder a mind, not a body, so no mind no murder. Under that abortion isn’t murder at all. Taking a brain dead person off life support is also not murder. You certainly wouldn’t say cutting down a tree is murder.

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      • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Good point and that’s a question I can’t answer.

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    • HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Our bodies are literally slavery. I don’t think any of my cells have a choice to be here.

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      • applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. We aren’t really our bodies, we’re a biological product made by our bodies to finc

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      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        This is my favorite sentence of the day.

        Yeah, we like to pretend things are black and white, but nothing is simple, there’s always another perspective to view things from.

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    • db2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Probably, because humans are pretty much evil and stupid at the end of the day, regardless of what feel good bullshit movies say. The kind of people who want to be in charge mostly are the same kind who would gleefully torture something like this while having one hand down their pants.

      If, however, they could engineer it to not have a personality then it really would just be a tool.

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  • RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Is this a “Torment Nexus” story or a “Piss on the Poor” story?

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    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

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    • ZombieMantis@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      ¿Por qué no los dos?

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      • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        “Let’s make AI by just taking actual human brains and then cutting out the parts that give them free will.”

        Literally part of a plot in a video game, coming soon to a reality near you.

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    • mika_mika@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Our flesh is as meaningless as the computer powered brains.

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  • Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This is something straight out of Warhammer 40000.

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    • mcv@lemmy.zip ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Warhammer? This sounds not far from the most horrific mission from a Shadowrun campaign I ran. They were making the new internet out of human brains.

      “In science fiction, people have been living with these ideas for quite a long time,” he said.

      That doesn’t mean you should do it for real.

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      • Darkness343@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        No, we shouldn’t.

        We will do it though. That’s the cool part about humanity.

        Fuck the consequences. Let’s gooooo! Humanity fuck yeah.

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    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Or Thought Emporium (he plans to grow tiny nerve cells to play doom)

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    • ProfThadBach@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      No shit. Well the Imperium is fascist.

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  • Xerxos@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Ah yes! One step closer to servitors. Praise the Omnissiah!

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  • 2910000@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The brain cells presumably have a life span… if this technology ever gets used in consumer devices, I’d like to know how people will try and squeeze extra life out of a failing component.
    Take it out and warm it in their hands like an alkaline battery?
    Give it a shake?
    Sing to it?
    Some kind of stimulant drug?

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    • LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sprinkle a little cocaine right on the grey matter to overclock the device.

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      • Potatar@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        but that makes the system confidently wrong, not hardworking.

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  • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I see nothing whatsoever that could go wrong here.

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  • MourningDove@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Can one be used to power America’s leadership?

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    • hexdream@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Only if they make the brains much smaller.

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  • theyllneverfindmehere@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Oh so, Warhammer 40k? Soon we’ll all get annoyed with AI and outlaw it, these “thinking computers” will be the way around that ban. Great, great. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.

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    • theparadox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Your banal chattering is unnecessary. Are you able to grasp the importance of my experiments? Begone from my sensory range, lest I have you disassembled for servitor parts

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      • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Error: Damn=Not found

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  • sonofearth@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    *Suddenly starts to play porn.

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  • DemBoSain@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s much cheaper to power computers with the brains most of us aren’t using.

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  • Fizz@lemmy.nz ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This paper was published a few years ago. I remember reading through it because it sounded very scary. In its current state I dont think it crosses any ethical bounds as its less than 30days old with no lived experience or consciousness. The ethical line should probably follow whatever the abortion debate defines consciousness as. Which I think is 30 weeks

    It did spark a few ethics papers on the topic which turned out to be a horrible dry boring reads with seemingly no consensus.

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  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That’s some heavy “Room 19” shit.

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  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    so like the AI repair station in ENTERPRISE, which uses humanoid brains to increase its CPU/processing power.

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  • Smoogs@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    So we’ve now come full circle.

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    • SeaSharpBoating@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Our Startup uses mini human brains inside of biological bipedal systems to provide frontier performance in our custom internal benchmarks. /s

      Explain the joke: We rebuilt humanity with a smaller brain.

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      • hexdream@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Sounds like child labour with extra steps.

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  • panda_abyss@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I remember as a teen seeing a video where they put a rat brain on a microchip and trained to to fly planes in a flight simulator

    Since reading that I never understood why the idea didn’t get bigger.

    Not a fan of using human brains for this… there’s some serious ethical questions we need to untangle there.

    www.research.ufl.edu/…/pg04-05extracts.indd.pdf

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    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      The real trick will be in figuring out some sort of solid state device - probably at least partially (if not predominantly) analog, not digital - that can reliably mimic the behaviors of biological neurons.

      The actual breakthrough of AGI isn’t going to occur until we figure out how to do machine learning with analog circuit design. Digital simply does not scale well - what we’re doing now with “AI” using GPUs is simply brute forcing the problem by layering dozens of markov chains on top of each other.

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      • frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        olemiss.edu/news/2025/07/…/index.html

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  • Grass@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    do they have a midlife crisis and get radicalised by facebook and fox news in their later years?

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  • 0ops@piefed.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Spy Kids called it

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  • jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Surely nothing bad will come from this.

    “Honey? Did you remember to feed the computer today?”

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  • ragas@lemmy.ml ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Gosh we are gonna need so much Bioflux to keep this going.

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  • FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I'm sure this thread will have more than just knee-jerk scary "feels" or inaccurate pop culture references in it, and we'll be able to have a nice discussion about what the technology in the linked article is actually about.

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