The next logical step, perhaps ethically questionable, seems to be growing human brains for computational purposes (parallel or quantum) with high bandwidth and very efficient power consumption.
I don't know where I got such a dark sense of humor. I find it deeply troubling that scientists are growing "organoids", little human brains, for computational purposes. Headline from 2023:
> Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue gets military funding
The project called DishBrain was spun into the startup, Cortical Labs.
> World's first 'body in a box' biological computer uses human brain cells with silicon-based computing
> Cortical Labs said the CL1 will be available from June, priced at around $35,000.
> The use of human neurons in computing raises questions about the future of AI development. Biological computers like the CL1 could provide advantages over conventional AI models, particularly in terms of learning efficiency and energy consumption.
> Ethical concerns also arise from the use of human-derived brain cells in technology. While the neurons used in the CL1 are lab-grown and lack consciousness, further advancements in the field may require guidelines to address moral and regulatory issues.
Unfortunately we are much farther from growing a human brain than we are from a scaling up an LLM to a 29 megawatt-consuming behemoth.
With growing a brain, we barely know where to begin. Not in terms of growing a few neurons in a petri dish. Nourishing the complex interconnecting structure of neurons that is a human brain is nowhere even on the horizon. Much less growing the structure from cells. At least with the LLM/AI techniques we have control over the entire processing pipeline.
You are confusing organoids with "growing a brain". Organoids are a handful of cells of a given type derived from pluripotent stem cells and growing together. A neural organoid is nothing at all like a brain -- not even a brain slice. It is a loose connection of cells that have just enough context to somewhat behave natively or just not croak immediately (which is what most individual stem cells do when they differentiate in a petri dish).
It's like calling a 1 bit half-adder circuit a computer.
Organoids are very interesting scientifically because we will need to start with organoids to grow any sort of biological system. And they do behave closer to native than individual cells so they can be used to research things like cell metabolism and drug response. But they are not anywhere close to an organ. And unfortunately they aren't even close enough to replace animal testing, yet.
