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An Organic Computer Using Four Wired-Together Rat Brains
Jason Koebler writes: The brains of four rats have been interconnected to create a "Brainet" capable of completing computational tasks better than any one of the rats would have been able to on its own. Explains Duke University's Dr. Miguel Nicolelis: "Recently, we proposed that Brainets, i.e. networks formed by multiple animal brains, cooperating and exchanging information in real time through direct brain-to-brain interfaces, could provide the core of a new type of computing device: an organic computer. Here, we describe the first experimental demonstration of such a Brainet, built by interconnecting four adult rat brains."
Really! What could possibly go wrong?
id make a comment about mice being input devices but this is just rediculos
+1, Creepy
Anyfour.
Humor aside,there are serious ethical issues here.
If an alien race as much above us as we are above rats were to come here and began to use Humans in like manner, how would we react/feel/moralize?
emt 377 emt 4
Isn't this how the Borg operate? Collective thought working towards a single goal. Interconnected minds sharing problem solving, which is how they quickly adapt.
I for one welcome our new rat overlords....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Well, they were completing tasks for rewards, so probably not that bad. Worst of it is the electrode implants, which aren't really that bad. Lots of humans have stuff like that.
The linkage is reversable too. Really not that bad. What will be interesting is the human applications once we get non invasive nerve gear. Brain node on an ASI might be an interesting job.
Experiments should require the informed consent of all subjects. Until we can communicate with rats, we should not use them in experiments. Get informed consent from humans. If you can't, then do a non-destructive experiment, a simulation. Do not use live creatures without their consent.
I take it you won't be using any antibiotics or other medication anytime soon then. No one seemed to ask those poor bacteria or viruses if they consented. If you have an issue with that, why is your arbitrary line that covers rats any better than the one I've suggested?
How long will it take someone to port Doom on them/it? I'm sure nothing would go wrong with that.
Be seeing you...
Ahem, Beorat cluster.
I think they crossed the line. Just wee bit. I mean, I'm not a rat lover or anything. But if kept clean, as in a pet, they are pretty damn cute. Smart too. Not as smart as my dog IMHO -- HEY! Let's wire up four dog brains next! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. How about a monkey? Why not!
These animals have a consciousness. You can't deny that. No, it is not at the human level, but a life none-the-less. How fucking freaky cruel is it to take a consciousness and tie it together with three others in some form to just see what happens? How freaked out were these rats in their little disembodied brains.
Cruel.
If an alien race as much above us as we are above rats were to come here and began to use Humans in like manner, how would we react/feel/moralize?
Well, there's one way to find out -- keep wiring rat brains together until they become smarter than us, give them instructions on human testing, and see what they come up with and how we feel about it.
Get your paws off me, you damn dirty multirat!
Of course I haven't yet RTFA but it must be some really smart experimental setup:
1. Given the approximately logarithmic relationship between the number of neurons and capabilities, it's a wonder that scaling from 200 million cells to 800 million brain cells was even detectable... ... especially given that the interface must have been incredibly narrow band, noisy, and in general inferior interconnect among the brains.
2.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes a linear progression in research, when by all measures it seems to be exponential.
From a certain perspective this might seem like the argument works against my point, because the earlier we do something would mean its result would be multiplied by orders of magnitude later on. However, that'd be a stochastic reasoning, because there's a point at which the result was achieved. Therefore, the distinction is between a linear delay vs. an exponential growth.
In other words, if we wait 50 years because we don't want to cause excessive suffering to animals, the trillions of human beings in our future light cone would most probably "feel" it as a delay of seconds, if that much.
IMHO then, reasoning from the perspective of extremely future benefits isn't useful. At most, only the near future is actually affected. And even that might be just a minor delay, since computation and simulated models are themselves advanced so much that in a few years they'll outpace anything doable by directly manipulating living beings.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.