A goal of the paper is to produce a system that can be used by researchers to experiment on neurons from different sources. It mentions its use of a few different cell lines, from mice and humans both, so at least some DishBrain runs used human cells. The human cells were from cell line ATCC PCS-201-010, which are stem cells derived from the dermal cells of a newborn baby's foreskin. The authors coaxed those stem cells to differentiate into neurons.
> how many do you have to grow before it becomes an ethics issue
The paper says they used methods to "achieve a dorsal forebrain patterning" and plated 10^6 cells on each electrode array used for testing (about 5x the brain cells of a mosquito, or a tenth of the cells in a mouse brain). Note that I have no idea if all million of those cells survived until the experiments were carried out, or if they were all actually used in each "brain" (maybe they were segmented out?)
I think the ethical issues are going to depend largely on how much the structure of the neurons affects awareness. A pile of 10 million random mouse neurons on a plate probably doesn't have anywhere near the same value of experience that a 10 million neuron actual mouse brain has. But I'd say if you're okay with experimenting on mice, 1 million neurons in a petri dish is very ethically safe in comparison. Agreed that we're starting to get to the point where it's more questionable though.
> A pile of 10 million random mouse neurons on a plate probably doesn't have anywhere near the same value of experience that a 10 million neuron actual mouse brain has.
In particular, I question the significance of neural activity in the absence of sensory organs.
One might argue that at some critical mass / neuron count, presumably well above mouse-level, there is the potential of sentience. OK, but what is sentience in the absence of sensation?
I don't know the answer to that question! But I'm fairly confident I don't place its well-being high on the ethical totem pole.
Right, there seems to be distance between "Watson plays Jeopardy!" and "neural net plays [virtual simulated] Pong", since a large part of Pong involves Mom's favorite term, "hand/eye coordination", where your eyes are sensing and interpreting light, and your hands/arms are occupied with gripping and twisting the paddle controller.
Please just wire up some GPS and LIDAR to humans and make us better drivers.
A goal of the paper is to produce a system that can be used by researchers to experiment on neurons from different sources. It mentions its use of a few different cell lines, from mice and humans both, so at least some DishBrain runs used human cells. The human cells were from cell line ATCC PCS-201-010, which are stem cells derived from the dermal cells of a newborn baby's foreskin. The authors coaxed those stem cells to differentiate into neurons.
> how many do you have to grow before it becomes an ethics issue
The paper says they used methods to "achieve a dorsal forebrain patterning" and plated 10^6 cells on each electrode array used for testing (about 5x the brain cells of a mosquito, or a tenth of the cells in a mouse brain). Note that I have no idea if all million of those cells survived until the experiments were carried out, or if they were all actually used in each "brain" (maybe they were segmented out?)
I think the ethical issues are going to depend largely on how much the structure of the neurons affects awareness. A pile of 10 million random mouse neurons on a plate probably doesn't have anywhere near the same value of experience that a 10 million neuron actual mouse brain has. But I'd say if you're okay with experimenting on mice, 1 million neurons in a petri dish is very ethically safe in comparison. Agreed that we're starting to get to the point where it's more questionable though.