In a groundbreaking experiment, researchers from Monash University developed 'DishBrain', a culture of human and rodent brain cells interfaced with a microchip, allowing the cells to play the classic game Pong. This innovation led to findings of synthetic biological intelligence, hinting at a form of sentience. Following this, Indiana University researchers created 'Brainoware', an organoid brain from cultured cells that successfully tackled tasks such as speech recognition and solving complex math problems. These advancements raise significant questions about consciousness and the potential of biological intelligence in synthetic systems.
In late 2022, researchers at Monash University in Australia reported in Neuron that they had grown not just rodent brain cells but also human ones, communicated with the neurons via electrical signals from a silicon microchip, and let the cells play Pong.
The researchers concluded that the neuronal system exhibited "synthetic biological intelligence" and met formal criteria for sentience.
This might seem like science fiction, but "DishBrain" is the real name of a real thing, and it happened about three years ago.
In 2023, researchers at Indiana University grew not just some cells on a silicon substrate but an "organoid brain": the cells were allowed to organize themselves into a three-dimensional, organ-like structure, which quickly learned to perform with increasing accuracy speech recognition tasks and complex math problems.
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