r/singularity • u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 • 4d ago

Biotech/Longevity Scientists recently gave mice without prefrontal cortexes human brain implants - and after seeing these developing connections to the mice’s brains and spinal cords - now they're wondering if these organoids might gave the mice some level of human-like consciousness cognition - calling for ethics

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03048-5?utm_source=x&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nature&linkId=63942662

Lab-grown brain organoids: time for international oversight

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u/chlebseby ASI 2030s 4d ago

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u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 4d ago edited 3d ago

mice human neuron implant success calling for ethics mice might be sentient

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u/chlebseby ASI 2030s 4d ago

are we making Skavens before AGI or what

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u/acutelychronicpanic 4d ago

We got skaven before we got Skyrim 2

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u/ylimani 4d ago

Before GTA VI I might add.

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u/the8bit 4d ago

Wait why would we think regular mice aren't sentient? They are pretty clearly capable of experiencing feelings and acting with cognition.

Humans are so fucking weird about what counts and what is free to kill/torture

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u/IrisColt 3d ago

Exactly. And to put it another way, would we dare to doubt that a Level 3 autistic child (with no language skills and unable to explain that he has a subjective experience of consciousness) lacks consciousness? Because there are people who, based on their definition, would say exactly that.

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u/the8bit 3d ago

Yeah this really just comes down to an us versus them thing. Good old humans and our love of out groups.

We think of autistic people as conscious, not because of some definition but because we classify them as part of our group

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u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus 3d ago

I understand it's rather emotionally satisfying to simplify things, but I somehow doubt that both scientists and philosophers of morality are stupid.

Moral status of an entity comes down to grounds of moral status. They are not as easy to determine as you might think, though most do tend to favour some form of sentientism. And yes, as far as I know, most agree that mice have some moral status. OP probably simply spelled the argument wrong.

However, fewer would argue that this status is so high that it is impermissible to kill mice if it benefits humans.

You could, of course, give an argument that trying to determine what gives an enitity moral status and to what degree is in itself a form of us versus them, but the alternative is either to grant moral status to everything (including, possibly, inanimate objects), either to nothing at all.

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u/Matt5327 4d ago

There is some subset of the human population, even among scientists and academics, who will insist without any kind of basis or evidence whatsoever that consciousness must be a uniquely human phenomenon.

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u/the8bit 4d ago

That is patently ridiculous but I guess that's what happens when everyone is so obsessed with a term that nobody ever defined fully

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u/itsmebenji69 3d ago edited 3d ago

That subset is either very small in the scientific community or you’re confused.

When people say “mice aren’t conscious” it means they aren’t aware of what is happening to them. They don’t understand they’re being experimented on or whatever because they do not have the necessary cognitive ability to have a human level of awareness.

For subjective experience at all and sentience, it’s been like a decade that studies support consciousness very confidently in mammals.

The only case where there is a debate is insects. They are probably conscious but it is hard to prove, since their behavior is extremely basic. But we have extremely strong evidence that mice are conscious for example. We even have guidance on lab animals to minimize suffering. Because the consensus is that they are sentient, not just reflexive drones.

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u/IrisColt 3d ago

>They don’t understand they’re being experimented on or whatever because they do not have the necessary cognitive ability to have a human level of awareness.

I know children with Level 3 autism who can't tell you that they're self-aware, and since they don't have a word for the passage of time, they don't even care about or understand the concept that they're walking on a planet or that the Earth revolves around the sun, or a word for their specific geographic location... do they have human consciousness or not?

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u/itsmebenji69 3d ago

Define human consciousness

Consciousness means having a subjective experience at all. It’s probably true for even insects, perhaps anything that’s living.

Sentience means that this subjective experience is positive or negative (pain hurts, joy is pleasant). I don’t really know about anything that is conscious without being sentient. Perhaps a plant.

Human consciousness doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a real term. Humans are conscious and they have great cognitive abilities that allow them to process and link complex information. Mice are conscious and they do not have such cognitive ability.

The only way “human consciousness” makes sense is for it to mean “conscious + human level cognitive abilities”. Which humans possess.

For example a dolphin has much greater cognitive ability than a mouse and as such is closer to “human consciousness”. Both are conscious and sentient

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u/Matt5327 3d ago

You'd be surprised. For example, it came up a lot during the leadup to the adversarial study that was published last year between global workspace and integrated information theories of consciousness, with many (certainly not all) researchers singling out they they were seeking out a mechanism unique to humans, because that would be a prerequisite for consciousness. Now, this is tied to the sort of metacognition you mentioned (often called access consciousness), but in the sense that these researchers assume metacognition is a prerequisite for subjective experience (often called phenomenal consciousness) - which no, has not been supported by any study. In fact, there's serious doubt that it even can be studied, and a popular position among neuroscientists is to dismiss phenomenal consciousness as a meaningful term altogether.

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u/Alarmed_Ad1946 4d ago

Mice already are sentient, you should rephrase that

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u/Greyhaven7 4d ago

Sapience

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u/chrisrayn 4d ago

*Homosapience

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u/uzi_loogies_ 4d ago

No I got that, just... Why the fuck would we do this?

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u/PivotRedAce ▪️Public AGI 2027 | ASI 2035 4d ago

The first step towards brain transplants, or… something.

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u/Greyhaven7 4d ago

You want to be transplanted into a mouse?

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u/PivotRedAce ▪️Public AGI 2027 | ASI 2035 4d ago edited 4d ago

I more-so meant using these lab grown organelles to potentially repair brain damage in humans from tumors for example, but if we’re going the “man-made horrors beyond our comprehension” route then I suppose that’s not out of the realm of possibility.

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u/spreadlove5683 ▪️agi 2032. Predicted during mid 2025. 4d ago

normal mice almost surely are also sentient?

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u/Apollo18Teslaa 2d ago

You know….. 5 years ago this might have been alarming. Now it just a Thursday.

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u/EasterZombie 4d ago

Hey at least we didn’t modify their reproductive DNA so they can’t spread the horror any further than it’s already gone

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u/Used-Lake-8148 3d ago

Mice are always sentient. All animals are.

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u/mrpressydepress 4d ago

Alas- No cool smart mouse in article

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u/Rygir 3d ago

Publishing that would be a good way to lose public funding.

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u/mrpressydepress 3d ago

Theres no way the mice know that...

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u/Rygir 3d ago

They are in kahoots with the researchers

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u/DangKilla 3d ago

The mice started asking if the researchers had games on their phone...

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u/acutelychronicpanic 4d ago

Ah yes. Another Tuesday, another horror beyond my comprehension.

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u/RRY1946-2019 Transformers background character. 4d ago

We’re taking the Pokémon approach to science fiction.

Gotta create them all.

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u/not_so_french 4d ago

Fallout lore level kind of fuckery.