Abstract
Organoid Intelligence (OI) is the development of lab-grown mini-brains from induced pluripotent human cells for computational purposes. OI promises to offer self-organizational, growth, and healing capabilities with negligible energy costs and heat production compared to AI in silica. Given the environmentally catastrophic projections for AI in silica, organoid computing and other synthetic biological intelligence (SBI) alternatives might offer a more ethical path. Obviously, however, sentience, consciousness, and a subjective point of view may arise from the organization and growth of brain cells. Calls for emphasizing the critical importance of ethics in OI are thus common and sincere but often empty. Until recently there was little hope of determining which levels and kinds of complexity in OI could give rise to ethical markers of moral status. Now mindreading technologies like mind-to-text brain implants for stroke patients have advanced to the point of detecting specific language intention such as “I’m thirsty” from real-time electroencephalographic data from living human brains. While we are still quite far from being able to use AI to detect the precursors of moral status so as to limit OI research subjects to remain within any given ethical boundary space, the Precautionary Principle and Non-maleficence strongly imply that subjects protection procedures like the US institutional review board (IRB) approval process are needed now. Process development for the protection of genuinely novel research subjects and the requisite legislation for oversight and enforcement, globally, takes time. We’re ready.
Presenters
Susan CastroAssociate Professor, Philosophy, Wichita State University, Kansas, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Ethics, AI, Organoid Intelligence, Mindreading, Research Subjects Protection, Synthetic Biology
