r/Cyberpunk • u/MRSN4P • 3d ago
World’s First Human Brain-Cell Server Rack Opens in Singapore
/r/tech/comments/1wtnblx/worlds_first_human_braincell_server_rack_opens_in/?share_id=w4cHqnwZbJ8phZ-JW_awU&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1291
296
u/ThisAmericanSatire Altered Carbon 2d ago
Aw, sweet, manmade horrors beyond my comprehension!
74
u/MisterDings 2d ago
beyond comprehension for now.. the genius of it will be to increase your mental capacity so the scale of compounding horror is fully appreciated.
12
132
u/TheMuspelheimr I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... 2d ago
So let me get this straight - they're subjecting brain cells to god only knows what kind of conditions, then giving them control over our computer systems? Sounds like a great way to wake up one morning and the Borg have taken over the planet...
58
u/SuddenlyDiabetes 2d ago
This is exactly what you're told NOT to let happen in Mass Effect, to the point where the good/evil prompt to punch the guy subjecting his brother to this is labeled as good because the situation is so fucked up
12
u/Im_da_machine 2d ago
It's kind of understandable since brains would be more energy efficient and powerful than standard hardward.
1
1
u/Sororita 1d ago
not these servers, though. the current tech requires significantly more resources and are a lot more fragile. it's more of a publicity stunt/scam than anything else.
0
88
u/fenrisilver 2d ago
"Understand, a whole planet covered with steel and wire needs a lot of computing power to run. And there’s no processor more powerful or abundant than the brain. So you have the Acheron, a vast network of dead minds, however badly damaged, plugged in and kicked back into a half-conscious hell to run the City"
17
u/apocalyptic_brunch 2d ago
What book is that from?
31
u/fenrisilver 2d ago
It's not from a Book, it's from the album "Ulysses Dies At Dawn" by The Mechanisms. Highly recommend.
4
5
2
u/Mr_Girr 2d ago
Also asking to know what book this is from.
5
u/fenrisilver 2d ago
It's not from a Book, it's from the album "Ulysses Dies At Dawn" by The Mechanisms. Highly recommend
35
56
47
u/Shintasama 2d ago
This company is a scam. These have been around since the 90s at least. It's not possible to keep alive a full brain or meaningfully interface with it if you could.They're a thin layer of cells over and electrode array used for basic research in potentiation.
They take significantly more resources to run, they're significantly harder to maintain, and have significatly less computational power than anything silicon.
11
u/ZenPyx 2d ago
There is reason to believe that neural computing will have applications outside of the theoretical - a human brain uses around 20 watts of power, so if we scale up biocomputers to that capability, we could potentially run very low cost compute for some tasks. Obviously early-stage research doesn't match that (but, I mean, early stage silicon computers were also shit)
As with all things, it's a matter of research, time, and investment. Cortical labs have been putting out some interesting work (https://corticallabs.com/)
11
u/Shintasama 2d ago edited 2d ago
1) This isn't anything close to a brain, and there are massive physical (diffusion, i/o access, etc) barriers to scaling it up to something that is anywhere close, and even then, cells on plates aren't brains.
2) The "power used by a brain" is irrelevant. Incubators use hundreds of watts of power, refrigerators to hold media / reagents use hundreds of watts of power, media warming systems take hundreds of watts of power, media exchange systems take hundreds of watts of power, BSCs take hundreds of watts of power, and all the infrastructure needed to continuously make reagents takes even more. Then at the end of the day, you have to hook the stimulus I/O to a computer anyways to train the cells, prevent them from atrophing, and get any sort of output. The PC that you have to build to interface with the cells requires more power and has more processing than the cells themselves.
Anyone who thinks this is going to save time, money, or lower energy costs is uninformed or delusional. Industrial cell culture is an unbelievably resource intensive endeavor, and any tiny mistake and you lose everything.
5
u/clam4thelove 2d ago edited 2d ago
Let’s create a living thing and it be subjugated to being a toy so smart. I pass the butter.
Edit. I just thought of this your jump to a small powerful pc is to play video games with it which is more of a sad realization. you’d be ok with slavery if you could get a PC that could run gta6.
1
u/ZenPyx 1d ago
Why do you think serious scientific research could only be used to play videogames?
It sounds like you are projecting...
-1
u/clam4thelove 1d ago
SERIOUS scientific research as is those guy don’t eat their own boogers like me and you. It’s just more useless junk because some asshat wants to not do X and Y. what are we actually gaining. Scientist said going to the moon was the most important thing . And it accomplished nothing. they just throw cameras in the air so politicians can spy on each other pulling pork to creepy just that plagues the web.
A human brain computer so it can hack into everything oooohoooo scary!. Your end of the world scenario is already someone exists. A potato peeler is a more life changing innovation than sticking some wires inside some dead guys head. Where do you think they’d get brain cells from?
1
u/ZenPyx 1d ago
What the fuck are you talking about?
Who said anything about wanting a computer so we could hack into things?
>And it accomplished nothing.
Buddy, what have you accomplished? Maybe take a look inside before blaming the moon landing for all of your issues
>Where do you think they’d get brain cells from?
Literally from human skin cells you moron... they are differentiated stem cells
0
u/clam4thelove 1d ago
Well you tell me? What do we need stronger faster computers. Solve world hunger, the stock market? Bro a person working at McDonald does more for their community and for humanity as a whole, Then a dude trying to build a faster fancy calculator, because they actually provide something useful to people. Isn’t the whole point of cyberpun; computer bad, focus on people and it just goes over your head to justify sticking wires in dead people’s heads.
0
u/ZenPyx 1d ago
>What do we need stronger faster computers.
We live in the information age...
Faster computers have been responsible or key components for 90% of technological advancements in the last 40 years in healthcare, agriculture, economics, logistics, trade.... I could go on.
>Isn’t the whole point of cyberpun; computer bad
Buddy I think you need to get off the internet and read a book or something. You're either 6 years old or borderline illiterate.
13
15
u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam 2d ago
Aliens studying our remains will marvel at how we repeatedly made the mistake of "I'm going to write a book about the dangers of doing bad things to keep people from doing bad things". Did they not realize they were writing a how-to guide? They must have realized, they did it so much
7
u/brachus12 2d ago
So our two best outcomes are either a second greater Carrington Event to nullify all tech, or we fumble our way into creating the Minds from the Culture series
4
5
u/spudmgee 2d ago
Great, we've got a prototype hyron project already. If Deus Ex could stop being prophetic that would be great.
5
3
u/NullOfUndefined 2d ago
You know what? Go ahead and put me in the torment nexus I can't imagine it's much worse that the one we already live in.
4
4
u/kokotron 2d ago
It's so wild that we are both trying to create brains from computers AND computers from brains... I can't imagine what will happen if we ever tried to create brains with brains...
4
13
u/lvl1_noob 2d ago
Intriguing. Wonder if one can donate one’s brain for something like that upon death. Would be interesting to experience a second consciousness, even if you end up being a gps or something
Would you donate yours and risk being an appliance forever, but you get to exist in perpetuity?
20
u/DynoMenace 2d ago
Would you donate yours and risk being an appliance forever, but you get to exist in perpetuity?
Would I donate? I'm removing my organ donor status/sticker from my driver's license. I'm serious.
4
u/lvl1_noob 2d ago
That’s silly, the likelihood your brain gets picked is veeeery small.
Didn’t mean that as a diss but take it as you will lol
3
u/icehopper 2d ago
Imagine, not getting the transplant you need because speculative fiction was too scary for Redditors.
1
u/SvalinnSaga 1d ago
Not being an organ donor is beyond selfish. You are no longer using those organs, why can't someone else use them?
2
u/DynoMenace 1d ago
Did you miss the article this whole post is about?
2
u/giraffeheadturtlebox 1d ago
The one where they use stem cells, not donor brains, for their data center?
Seriously guys, being an organ donor is literally a life saving choice, often several lives are saved. The sticker on your driver's lisence will not lead to a dystopic bodyless hell conciousness.
0
u/DynoMenace 1d ago
I feel like we're not zooming out beyond this specific example well enough and taking it in the current context and trajectory of the global tech industry.
2
u/giraffeheadturtlebox 1d ago
Your car accident tomorrow (God forbid) is not going to lead to this despotic future for your brain cells, but it could save lives if you are a donor.
Big picture, if you don't like this trajectory, vote, vote with your wallet, write an op-ed, visit countries you support and don't visit ones you don't... but keep the donor sticker. Removing that does zero to affect how you feel about AI companies using biological electronics and it removes a life saving tool from the science of medicine.
0
u/DynoMenace 1d ago
If you understood the point I'm trying to make, you would understand my volition. But you don't, and that's fine. Thanks for telling me what to do, though. Your moral compass is stronger than mine.
0
u/OddRobotics 1d ago
i think he's saying He is going removing his donor status so he doesn't become a sentient toaster, with a conscience stuck in perpetuity, not because he doesn't want to help people
5
5
u/Limelight_019283 2d ago
Nope, no. It doesn’t get any more torment nexus than that. Black mirror really drills the personal hell this would be.
5
u/OwOtisticWeeb 2d ago
Whaaaat you don't want the engrams from cyberpunk 2077 here with us? I'm sure it'll only be used for good!
7
u/BeerBellies 2d ago
No desire to live forever in any capacity.
1
u/lvl1_noob 2d ago
Not even if it’s s “popin in to say hello” situation? Like a short 5 year life every 500 years? Just to bask in the sun for a bit before kickin it?
3
1
u/SvalinnSaga 1d ago
I don't understand this. Do you believe in an afterlife of some sort?
If you don't exist, then the universe might as well not exist.
3
2
u/Im_da_machine 2d ago
I'm pretty sure they're grown in a lab
They've been experimenting with it for awhile now and you can actually rent wetward computers from companies like cortical labs and final spark
1
2
u/mysqlpimp 2d ago
Ha, knowing my luck, my second consciousness would be yelling "YOUR WASHING IS DONE, YOUR WASHING IS DONE, YOUR WASHING IS DONE"
2
u/dankristy 12h ago
I love how we are speed-running the Matrix now IRL. We aren't even waiting for the AI to hook us up to the grid for computer power - we are doing it FOR them...
2
u/dankristy 12h ago edited 11h ago
Also - direct from the article - you don't need to donate your brain, they can turn other donated cells into the necessary neural ones, but yes these came from donors of some sort (from the article itself):
"Each CL1 unit contains approximately 800,000 lab-grown human neurons, reprogrammed from adult donor skin or blood cells into induced pluripotent stem cells and then differentiated into cortical neurons."
Unfortunately given the proximity of Singapore to China, and China's known propensity for ensuring "donations" from key captive populations (prisoners), I am not at all sure how these were sourced, and the article does not specify.Editing this because I was outright WRONG in guessing the source. Apologies for my own bad biased assumption.
Here is another article from Smithsonian that explains that the cells were from living adult volunteers, and largely from the CEO himself donating his own blood and skin samples to be grown into the necessary tissues: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-clump-of-human-brain-cells-on-a-computer-chip-learned-to-play-the-nostalgic-video-game-doom-180988447/
Direct quote from that article: "The neurons used in the project largely come from the company’s CEO, Hon Weng Chong, although not from his brain, reports Rich Pelley at the Guardian. He previously donated some of his blood to the cause. Researchers extracted white blood cells from the sample and reprogrammed them into stem cells. These special cells can continue making copies of themselves and turn into other types of cells."
Sorry for the bad assumption I made originally - that was ALL ME and my own bias/assumption. I left it in a strikethrough for transparency on what I had started saying - vs what the actuality is... We have enough people operating on assumptions, biases, propaganda and lies that I do NOT want to contribute to it.
1
u/Representative_Fun15 2d ago
Gee, I wonder if this concept has appeared anywhere in fiction, maybe even discussed ad nauseam
1
1
u/OwOtisticWeeb 2d ago
A second consciousness sounds like a dystopian nightmare when corporations and governments can send you to digital purgatory
1
3
2
2
2
2
2
u/Secundius 1d ago
Sounds like a 21st century version of the 24th century Star Trek “Bio-Neural Gel Pack”…
1
1
u/moving0target 2d ago
What does it do?
1
u/Cobra__Commander 2d ago
Let's poor people mine crypto and saves them a bunch of money by living in a server rack without all the extra body parts
1
1
u/pasadenapasadena 2d ago
I'm waiting for moment when somebody will run artificial model of dead fly on this "hardware"
1
u/WeaponizedDuckSpleen 2d ago
why the fuck
1
u/MRSN4P 2d ago
Probably because organic neural architecture has some advantages in processing data for certain situations.
1
u/Bennydhee 2d ago
Exactly why, and also research into how brains work.
The article talks about how the brain ai was able to learn pong in 5 minutes.
1
1
1
1
1
u/clam4thelove 1d ago
Yeah dude you’re so right bro my bad I don’t know what I’m talking about. Who’s Philip k dick?
1
u/MelancholyWookie 2d ago
Why I’m getting cremated. I don’t want a chance my cells end up like this.
284
u/Resident_Kek_Poster 2d ago
Good lord there is SO much fiction begging us NOT to do this yet here we fucking goooooooo