Among pressing ethical concerns are whether brain organoids can feel pain or become conscious—and how would we know?

  • the_q@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    82
    ·
    17 hours ago

    Lol society can’t even use ethics to take care of actual 5 year olds among huge groups of other types of people/lifeforms. Lol goddamn…

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    edit-2
    16 hours ago

    Who upvotes this phony bullshit from “singularityhub”?

    There’s only one worthwhile sentence in this slop:

    To be clear, there’s no evidence brain organoids can think or feel.

    edit: A reason behind the hype. “Biotech” is yesterday’s “AI”.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      15 hours ago

      people upvote sensationalist bullshit because it’s what they emotionally respond to.

      lemmy is rapidly become reddit redux, at an even faster pace. tons of crazy people on this site who are just here to get high on ragebait.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    17 hours ago

    and how would we know?

    Reasoning.

    Does a ALU detect pain? Yes. Does it feel pain? No.

    Just because it’s organic circuits, doesn’t mean they suddenly develop consciousness. That requires secific circuitry and data processing facilities. Organoids are far from sufficient.

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Let’s not pretend we understand the mechanics of consciousness. If you can prove what is required for consciousness, there’s at least a Nobel prize in it for you.

    • BrainBow65@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      15 hours ago

      So glad someone already said it. I’m a neuroscience PhD student who works with brain organoids and the article is absolutely ridiculous.

      Also, I’m not aware of any labs or research that has been able to produce brain organoids with functional blood vessels. Having a necrotic core is normal for old organoids.

  • Lembot_0006@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    48
    ·
    18 hours ago

    Fuck ethics, push science. As long as they don’t kill children to get the brains out, ethics-mumblers should keep their mouths shut.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      “Fuck ethics” and “don’t kill children” are mutually incompatible statements.

      You believe in ethics, you just put the line at a different point than other people. Maybe that means exactly what the article says - our society needs to start discussing the situation to see where we want to draw the line.

      And don’t get me wrong, I agree with you in general. Humans tend to be TOO worried about ethics, for example GMO plants are generally quite harmless despite being outright banned in large swaths of the world.

    • artifex@piefed.socialOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      17 hours ago

      You know “ethics” in scientific pursuit doesn’t mean just one thing, right? ie there’s a wide swath of territory between “let’s breed these fruit flies to study genetics” and “now where did I put my baby decapitator?”, and it’s important to evaluate the ethical ramifications of an action at each step along the way.

    • halfdane@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Oof wtf?

      As well, if you go so far, why exclude killing children? Are you a closeted ethics-mumbler yourself?

    • the_q@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      17 hours ago

      Is the lembot username designated to the worst people?

    • Solumbran@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      17 hours ago

      Yeah, totally not a nazi perspective, after all no crimes of war were committed in the name of science ever