Humans are afraid that robots will replace them, especially with the development of artificial intelligence. Perhaps the machines ought to be the ones concerned about humanity, though. Using human brain tissue, Swedish researchers have produced the first "living computer" in history.
It is made up of sixteen organoids, which are groups of brain cells cultured in a lab and capable of communicating with one another. Their neurons behave as circuits, allowing them to send and receive signals much like a traditional computer chip. However, what sets them apart is that the living machine consumes less energy—live neurons have an energy consumption that is over a million times lower than that of existing digital processors.
Scientists discovered that when compared to the world's most powerful computers, like the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Frontier, the human brain consumes 10 to 20 watts at the same speed and with 1,000 times more memory than a machine with 21 megawatts.
A million watts is equivalent to one megawatt. Scientists at FinalSpark, a business that specializes in leveraging biological neural networks to produce solutions, created the living machine.
This idea is common in science fiction, but there isn't a huge amount of real research on it,
Dr. Fred Jordan, Co-CEO of FinalSpark
Organoids are stem cell-derived, microscopic, self-organizing three-dimensional tissue cultures. These cultures can be designed to express certain organ functions, including producing only particular cell types or to 223mimic a large portion of an organ's complexity. The stem cells are taken by the scientists, who cultivate them for roughly a month until they begin to produce features like neurons. An estimated 10,000 live neurons, each with a diameter of roughly 0.5 mm, were used to construct the FinalSpark mini-brains.
Dopamine doses are used to train the organoids; when they complete tasks successfully, they are rewarded with a stream of the neurotransmitter. Dopamine is applied by scientists by shining light on a particular region of the brain organoid; this is comparable to how dopamine is released in the human brain upon activation of a particular location.
Eight electrodes that monitor the activity of the organoids surround the mini-brains, and the researchers can apply current to the electrode to modify a neuron.
(Input from various sources)
(Rehash/Priyanka Pandey/MSM)
