According to FreeThink, the Australian military is currently funding a project to grow intelligent “mini-brains” in petri dishes. Their goal is to use these “DishBrains” to create better AI tools and hopefully combine the too. This would essentially create AIs capable of processing information just like human brain cells.
Scientists can create “organoids” in lab settings. These are three-dimensional tissues that can resemble the structure of different organs, including the brain. While these aren’t as sophisticated as full-fledged organs, they can still contain neurons.
Researchers are Monash University and Cortical Labs recently received $400,000 from Australia’s National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants programme. It will attempt to find a way around AI algorithms that suffer catastrophic forgetting.
Often, AI tools forget what they previously learned, unlike the human brain. Overcoming this can create extremely smart AI systems. “We will be using this grant to develop better AI machines that replicate the learning capacity of these biological neural networks,” said lead researcher Adeel Razi.
Over time, researchers want to replace traditional silicon computer chips with organoids to create smart biocomputers. Over this foundation, they intend to use AI.
“The human neuron is self-programming, infinitely flexible, the result of four billion years of evolution,” Cortical’s website states. “What digital models try and emulate, we begin with.” It might be decades before such a system becomes operable, but when it happens, things will change tremendously.