artificial intelligence 80s science fiction takes place in real life. It’s so promising that it seems unbelievable that there could be anything even better. However, a group of scientists from Johns Hopkins University just presented a proof of concept with which he demonstrates that biocomputers controlled by human brain cells they could make the AI we are used to completely obsolete.
It would not be artificial intelligence, but organoid intelligence. It is called so because what it uses for feed for computers, they are precisely organoids. That is, cell cultures that have undergone three dimensional shapewhich have some properties in common with the organ to which the cells belong.
In this case, they are not exactly mini-brains, but they have the advantages provided by multiple connections between neurons. It’s something useful; Well, while it may not seem like it, the artificial intelligence we are used to is not as good at learning as humans. If we add this own ability, we will be faced with something unparalleled. An achievement that would have made even the science fiction ideas of the 80s obsolete.
Artificial intelligence is not so good at learning
Thanks to artificial intelligence, images can be created from nothing, like all those that adorn this article, recently published in hypertext. You can write essays, diagnose illnesses, drive vehicles, have conversations that are fully compatible with machines… You can even create robots that can win a game of chess the best players of all time.
To do this, algorithms are trained on huge databases, in which they look for matches and discrepancies, which ultimately lead to a result. All this is called machine learning. But no, artificial intelligence is not as good at learning as humans. It’s simple much faster.
The authors of this study explain this in a statement with a simple example. “AlphaGoThe AI that beat the world’s number one Go player in 2017 was trained on data from 160,000 sets. A man would have to play five hours a day over 175 years experience so many games.”
This does not mean that a person learns worse, he just cannot do it so quickly. If we had the ability to process data at the speed of a computer, we wouldn’t need artificial intelligence. And it is in this middle in which organoid intelligence comes into play.
mini brains For learn to the computer
In this proof of concept, the researchers showed what it would be like to use an organoid based on human brain cells train the computer.
There would be many advantages over artificial intelligence. The first is exactly what was mentioned earlier. people have better learning ability and that’s why how our brain and neural connections work what’s in it If this is implemented on a computer, artificial intelligence can be greatly improved.
On the other hand, the human brain much more energy efficient. This can be seen again with Alpha Go, as the energy expended in training the algorithm would be enough to keep an adult human active for a decade.
These are the great advantages of organoid intelligence, but it is impossible to think of a disadvantage. How do we have so many human brain cells? This is not easy, and according to these scientists, although cultures 50,000 cellsideally would be to achieve 10 million. But it’s a solvable problem thanks to something known as induced pluripotency stem cells (iPS). These are adult cells that have been reprogrammed back to the state they were in the embryonic stages, when they were not yet differentiated. They then differentiate into another cell type of interest. That is, you can take, for example, skin cells and turn them into brain cells. Thus, the problem will be solved and a new advantage will be obtained.
The study of brain diseases
These scientists believe that organoid intelligence could be useful for studying neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. For this, skin cells will be taken from healthy and sick patients. Later, with the help of the iPS technique, they will be dedifferentiated and differentiated again to become brain cells.
So they were able to build two organoids, one healthy and one sick, and compare the learning differences of both when connected to computers. This would be a very interesting new approach, although it is still a long way off.
All in all, there is a long way to go before this organoid intelligence becomes anything more than a proof of concept. will have to overcome certain technical pitfalls, such as increasing the number of linked cells we’ve already discussed. But also ethical traps. For example, what rights will people who donate cells have to an organoid? Will they ever develop consciousness, even a very rudimentary one?
This and more should be studied from now on. In the meantime, we have artificial intelligence, of which there are many. It is only necessary to see the great successes that he has had in recent years.
Source: Hiper Textual
