Far back in the last century, Arthur C Clarke drew attention to a slow but steady trend in human evolution: the gradual merging of the human body with artificial technology. Like all great things it started small, so small as to be almost unremarked. Firstly were primitive artificial legs and hands, all that could be done with the technology of the time. By the time Clarke made his prediction in the novel 2001; a Space Odyssey, the scientists of the day were experimenting with artificial hearts, lungs and kidneys. Fast forward to our own age. Not only have things like prosthetic limbs and eyes greatly improved. We are starting, tentatively, to modify the genes of living cells with early techniques like CRISPR Cas-9 (LSS passim). Elsewhere, the attempts to engineer interfaces between human tissue and silicon chips seem to be showing real possibilities of success.
But we think that the efforts of Cortical Labs to create Synthetic Biological Intelligence(SBI) takes the trend to a whole new level. [1] Their CL1 computer uses laboratory grown neurons interfacing with silicon chips to create an entity that defies old -style classifications of what is biology and what is technology. Rather than offer you 18 dreary paragraphs, we will urge you to visit their website. But if we cherry-picked that: The CL 1 far more energy-efficient than a conventional computer; that it is ideal for disease modelling. drug disorder research; that it dispenses with much of the need for animal experiments; that above all it will be available for shipment at a cost of $35000, you would see why we have chosen this item for your entertainment today. Because we honestly thought that this kind of thing was decades away. Forgive us: but we have no financial, professional, personal or any other kind of relationship with this company. We never endorse; but when we report, we mean it.
And we do indeed report developments which seem to be genuinely game changing, and truly the work of the most intelligent people at the very limits of human accomplishment. We believe that this is one of them. Which is where our doubts creep in. For Arthur C Clarke also pointed out how the very act of adopting technology (stone tools at the beginning) transformed the biology of creatures that used it. So much so that they changed into new species, quite unrecognisable to their ancestors. And absolutely dependent on the new technologies to survive, with no possibility of de-inventing them . We are not the first to suggest that some engineered organism will replace us. But we do think that possibility is now very real and very near.
thanks to G Herbert
[1]https://corticallabs.com/cl1.html
#synthetic biological intelligence #cortical labs #artificial intelligence #computers #biology #evolution
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