Assuming this is a real story: this news is just a touch alarming.
Scientists reported Thursday they had picked up human-like electrical activity in lab-grown brains for the first time, paving the way to model neurological conditions and answer fundamental questions on how our gray matter develops.
It’s not clear whether the pea-sized brains are conscious: the team behind the breakthrough suspect they’re not because the activity resembles that of preterm babies, but they cannot say for certain, opening up a new ethical dimension to this area of research.
Not in the sense of ZOMG we’re making vat-brains and now we have to think of all the ethical conundrums. More like ZOMG we made vat-brains and we didn’t think through all of the obvious ethical conundrums ahead of time. I mean, when were they planning to deal with the nigh-certainty of consciousness*? When the vat-brain started frantically begging for a lawyer**?
Via Hot Air Headlines.
Moe Lane
PS: This would a lot cooler if I thought that they were prepared for the implications, sure. But they’re apparently not, so I’m now a little worried about it. Not screaming worried, but a little.
*We’re conscious, after all. So we know that it can be done all gloopily-like.
**I exaggerate to a large degree, sure. But it would have been helpful if there was a checklist in place to handle the issue of Gee, these things are conscious so maybe they’re not actually ‘things?’
I’d make a joke about the push to get them registered to vote as Democrats, but this isn’t that kind of blog anymore.
Hush your mouth. You know quite well that Democrats don’t want conscious voters.
“not clear whether the pea-sized brains are conscious”
Certainly a lie. Goop jammed together tight enough to register electrical activity is one of the hallmarks of consciousness.
The only real question is how fast they develop psionic ability to make up for the lack of sensory or expressive organs.
And then link together to form a gestalt being that takes over every human within a thousand miles.
What if SkyNet wasn’t electronic? What if it was a psionic hive consciousness grown in vats by scientists who didn’t bother with asking (and answering) the Important Questions before they started growing mini-brains.
“We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?” – Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7. Activity recorded M.Y. 2302.22467. (TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED)
These are the same fools asking 100 years ago whether certain adults qualified as “Fully Human”, and still resist your own stated standard in-utero.
.
What a world we live in.