Why do you think it's disgusting and immoral?

Totally fine, it will be our technological goal. The natural biological functions that come from nature are far more powerful then artificial systems we build.

I think it's just super nifty and I look forward to finding out what's possible in the field. Imagine server powered by photosynthesis. That'd be awesome.

I would love to know this user's thoughts on gay and trans people... Getting really tired of arguments from the "it's icky and I don't like it" crowd.

It's just another frontier of science with its own risks and rewards. Sure there are ways to use or produce it immoraly, but it's not inherently immoral.

DNA is just a polymer, one we have some capabilities in manipulating. It is not inherently alive, nor do it's instructions necessarily have to relate to something living. When processed by living things they contain instructions on producing proteins, but they don't need to be processed by living things and could be used to store arbitrary information in a dense environment.

Neurons, while cellular are not alive in and of themselves. They require a full host to operate, but are essentially weighted dynamic switches (interneurons), environmental inputs (sensory neurons), or outputs (motor neurons). Devoid of a host they are inert, but provided the right artificial environment they can function. "Function" just means operating in that input, switch, output mode though--it doesn't mean being alive as a macroorganism, being sentient, or having feelings. Using a handful of farmed human neurons to play Doom is more an exercise in controlling the dynamic environment needed for the switch connections to be made, therefore, than an exercise in enslaving a conscience person.

Nature has been the source of inspiration and development since before the dawn of humans. I see no reason it should stop at the doorstep of biology--especially when the extent is cultured environments developed in a lab to be a facsimile of a part of a living thing. A part of living thing does not a living thing make.

Personally, I'd like to see technology go for a more symbiotic route. An extension of humans... but not copies, not AI, not always-online/proprietary etc.

Give me more stable microbiomes, more enzymes and similar synthesis, extend my nervous system with other types of life (extract pollution from trees for fun and profit). They will be part of me, I will treat them better than how many treat their livers. I could even probably play DOOM without training!

It's definitely a gray area (pun intended). Research has shown that the neuron lab matter takes the normal gestation period to fully start communicating and organizing properly. So it suggests that its inevitable that neural matter reaches a state of completion ready for life at end of gestarion.

I.e. rat neurons are ready in a few weeks

Why is it OK for nature to do this, but not us?

And if it's only OK for God to do, why did God let us develop the technology to do it? In fact it could be argued all science is divinely inspired - the Catholics believe this for instance - so this is God's plan for us.

Just a bit silly to decide a whole nascent field is unethical because it rubs you the wrong way somehow.

I think there are serious ethical problems that we need to solve with science before we start using either natural OR ARTIFICIAL neurons in computers.