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Scientists grow mini human brains to power computers (www.bbc.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/offbeat@lemmy.ca
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[–] 48 points 1 year ago* (14 children)

They're not mini human brains though. They're little clusters of cells. The BBC's headline is deliberately (and irresponsibly) provocative and misleading.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    so brains, but smaller

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

    A human brain isn't just a lump of brain cells, it's an exquisitely intricate assemblage of brain cells in very precisely organized networks that perform very specific functions. Without the organization, the same number of brain cells are not a brain

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    We flat out do not understand consciousness. There was a case of a guy living a normal life while missing 90% of his brain. Who knows how many undocumented cases there are or what the limits are? Until we understand whether or not we’re creating consciousness and the nature of it, we shouldn’t be fucking around with anything that could wind up being conscious in any capacity that exists only as a part of a machine.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    Why not? I think it's only a concern if the consciousness is aware of alternatives. Plenty of conscious creatures live an awesome life while comprehending maybe 5% of wtf is going on around them.

    Most people don't wake up every day depressed that they weren't born in the future with awesome tech around them. Would be nice, but hardly an existential crisis imo.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Bruh that's like saying abuse is fine if they never see the light. It's still conscious that WILL be used like a slave in our capitalistic hell scape.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not really. A child is perfectly happy forever playing a basic game like arranging something by size, color, etc., but to a fully developed adult that is boring at best and torture if they were forced to do it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    A child can be abused and does not comprehend what is happening to then but that doesn't make it ok. It's not the task I am worried about but how it will be treated. Are there any guarantees that a conscious will never be developed? If it does happen then what next?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Ai fears have been around for decades and we're still many years, if not decades from any real Ai. Pattern recognition and ML we have now are incredibly useful for specific tasks though, so dismissing whole tech based on theoretical fears seems very conservative.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I would call a mobile a mini pc even if the architecture is different. Let's not be pedantic about it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    It's not pedantic, your analogy isn't even close. The analogy would be if you had a pile of unconnected transistors

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    That is exactly being pedantic. Nobody is concerned about the state right now but the end goal here. It is a fully functional brain that can be on par with the real counterpart. If you support this research, do you also support psycho pass kinda shit as well? Because that's exactly where this is going.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    What the fuck has happened to the BBC? Last week they had huge headlines about a "cure" for Huntington's disease which was nothing but hyping a drug company press release that was no where near reality.

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