An Ethical Question

[imoldernu]

Not what you expected.
This article is about the human brain, and ethical questions that surrounds a newer branch of science that delves into the mysteries of the human brain, and presumably what the future of study and possible manipulations that might be made.

It's an unusual read, and comes from the Washington Times which may limit your ability to read (unless you know how to remove the cookies that limit free articles).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/lab-grown-brain-bits-open-windows-to-the-mind--and-a-maze-of-ethical-dilemmas/2018/09/02/9a76efee-a25b-11e8-83d2-70203b8d7b44_story.html?utm_term=.88d4b6ecc61b

The article makes me wish I was twenty years younger, and able to be around to see the long term implications of this science. Doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to open a Pandora's Box of possibilities that go even further than Artificial Intelligence.

Imagine a brain with unlimited intelligence and with human emotions and memories that go on beyond what we recognize as a life span.

Whew!!!... Far out... but... imagine Thomas Jefferson being transported into today's world, and even beyond "Hal".

Guess it's a personal thing... I hate the word "finite".

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

 

[candrew]

Personhood in a dish?

I'll take a pass.

 

[donheff]

I hadn't heard about these mini-brains. Pretty interesting. Implanting them in animals reminds me of Dr Moreau. "What is the law...are we not men." I just read Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. It raises some thought provoking questions about AI, biotech and nanotech, super-humans, etc. Parts of it were pretty irritating and I suspect the advances these speculations foresee will eventually come but not as fast as the alarmists and evangelists predict.

 

[Oz investor]

i have mixed with geeks and politicians... put me at the very front of the alarmists' procession

( or Murphy's law perverted ) anything that can be misused will be ( and you won't be told about it for fear of outrage )

one major bank in Australia has been fined $35 million for automated housing loan decisions ( before 2015 ) that seems to be against our laws ( no human bank employee ever saw the loan application nor verified the data in the application )

 

[Independent]

Actually, I had an ethical problem of whether it is proper to clear my cookies so I could read the article. By coincidence, I had cleared them for a different reason yesterday so I didn't hit the normal WaPo wall. (And, yes, I subscribed to the NYT so I don't have this dilemma over there.)

One problem with growing old is that I know I won't be around to see some of these neat ideas develop. This one seems very far away from self awareness, which I think arises from the extreme complexity of our brains.

 

[joeea]

It's an unusual read, and comes from the Washington Times which may limit your ability to read (unless you know how to remove the cookies that limit free articles).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/lab-grown-brain-bits-open-windows-to-the-mind--and-a-maze-of-ethical-dilemmas/2018/09/02/9a76efee-a25b-11e8-83d2-70203b8d7b44_story.html?utm_term=.88d4b6ecc61b

It's the Washington Post, not the Times.

And it can be read by opening it in an "Incognito window" or whatever your favorite browser uses as an equivalent.

 

[Big_Hitter]

better take the annuity...

 

[O2Bfree]

I think it'll be impossible to create a brain with unlimited, i.e., infinite, intelligence because any such man-made organ, no matter how large, is finite and must exclude some things to experience existence as a separate entity. Exclusion nixes "unlimited".

Of course, maybe it's not the size, but how it's used angel, and perhaps some sort of operating system could give even a finite organ unlimited intelligence. But then it seems the OS would have its limitations as well.

I like to consider that the only "brain" that could have unlimited intelligence is the entire universe. So, it's already been done.