I wondered if anyone had written about the ethics of this type of research, they have. It's super long so I've not finished it yet, but it generally seems the standard scientific assessment is that current organoids very likely lack the organization needed for "sentience", but, that methods for detecting subjective experience in organoids are not at all well established.
JimmyBuckets 3 hours ago [-]
Terrifying. I just don't see how this doesn't inevitably lead to brain-scale organoids. The ethics of it seem impossible. Given how we treat non-human animals this reminds me of the torment nexus meme.
thomassmith65 3 hours ago [-]
If a device made of human brain cells were designed to function like a traditional, deterministic CPU, that would raise similar questions as LLMs raise today.
nullpoint420 1 hours ago [-]
This seems reductionist with false equivalence. Wouldn't making a brain a "deterministic CPU" negate all the benefits of using organic tissue?
Someone 1 hours ago [-]
Not if the organic tissue is faster or more energy efficient.
jacquesm 1 hours ago [-]
> that would raise similar questions as LLMs raise today
I think the questions would be very much different. LLMs are not made of human brain cells.
im3w1l 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe the real monsters were the friends we made along the way.
bondarchuk 2 hours ago [-]
One of those research areas where nothing they currently do is unethical, but also nothing they currently do is useful, and right about the point where it might ever become useful is also the point where it becomes hugely unethical. So we'd do well to outlaw it right now, but seems like we don't really have a moral framework for cases like this.
magimas 1 hours ago [-]
I don't see why we should outlaw this. There's so many potential insights to be gleaned from research like this that you just can't predict.
And making something like this illegal often has unintended side effects. What if brain organoid research is what ends up curing alzheimer's?
Advocating for outlawing parts of research just on the basis that in the future they could potentially turn unethical is very shortsighted in my opinion.
bondarchuk 37 minutes ago [-]
Sure, and you could say the same thing about unit 731. The argument is not that it is inconceivable that there are benefits, but that they should be weighed against the drawbacks, which you don't mention at all.
kunai 14 minutes ago [-]
I want to be clear: I hate this. I hate everything about it. HOWEVER...
If you want to argue against wetware then we need a better argument than this. The same ideas were used to argue against stem cell research, IVF, and many other treatments and ideas that have saved and helped lives. Unit 731 isn't an apt comparison because cells are not inherently sentient to our knowledge. If they were it would absolutely shatter the profession of medical ethics as we know it.
lo_zamoyski 8 minutes ago [-]
> The same ideas were used to argue against stem cell research, IVF, and many other treatments and ideas that have saved and helped lives.
You write as if objections to (certain kinds of) stem cell research, IVF, etc. have been roundly defeated in some way simply because they've "saved and helped lives". This is naked utilitarianism and I hope I don't have to rehearse the reasons why utilitarianism fails utterly as moral theory.
I wondered if anyone had written about the ethics of this type of research, they have. It's super long so I've not finished it yet, but it generally seems the standard scientific assessment is that current organoids very likely lack the organization needed for "sentience", but, that methods for detecting subjective experience in organoids are not at all well established.
I think the questions would be very much different. LLMs are not made of human brain cells.
And making something like this illegal often has unintended side effects. What if brain organoid research is what ends up curing alzheimer's?
Advocating for outlawing parts of research just on the basis that in the future they could potentially turn unethical is very shortsighted in my opinion.
If you want to argue against wetware then we need a better argument than this. The same ideas were used to argue against stem cell research, IVF, and many other treatments and ideas that have saved and helped lives. Unit 731 isn't an apt comparison because cells are not inherently sentient to our knowledge. If they were it would absolutely shatter the profession of medical ethics as we know it.
You write as if objections to (certain kinds of) stem cell research, IVF, etc. have been roundly defeated in some way simply because they've "saved and helped lives". This is naked utilitarianism and I hope I don't have to rehearse the reasons why utilitarianism fails utterly as moral theory.
From 2004.
I can't help but think of "I have no mouth, and I must scream"