Inside the British laboratory grows a biological computer

In a laboratory outside Cambridge, a great “biological computer” sits. Human brain cells of 200,000, which are grown in the laboratory, are located on silicone circuits that transmit their simultaneous electrical activity to the screen to the outside world.

The CL1, the size of the shoe boxes, was developed by Australian cortical laboratories with Bit.bio in the United Kingdom, in an attempt to create “artificial biological intelligence”-a new form of computing that can provide opportunities that exceed traditional electronics and other developing technologies such as quantity.

“Like our brains, biological computers will consume many lower volume orders than the traditional electronics because they process information. Future applications can include robots, security and micabic,” said CEO Cortical Labs Hon Weng Chong told the Financial Times.

Fast growing research has motivated alternatives to the intense traditional electronics of energy Biological computingWhich aims to benefit directly from the intelligence of the brain cells instead of simulating them in silicone through “neurotransmitter” and AI.

Cortical laboratories are tested at the forefront of this movement, although academic groups and other emerging companies such as the Swiss Group and Black Boys in the United States are making progress.

Early applications of Cl1 are in neuroscience and pharmaceutical research, and discovering how various chemicals and drug candidates affect the processing of brain cell information.

“The following stages of innovation will make new and more advanced forms of traditional artificial intelligence systems, using the same processors – neurons – that support intelligence in living organisms,” Chung added.

For Mark Cotter, a professor of clinical neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and the founder of Bit.bio, the importance of CL1 “is that it is the first machine that can evaluate the strength of the brain cell account reliably.”

Experts indicated that the CL1 was a “remarkable achievement”, and it helped enhance the emerging biological computing field.

Karl Friston, a professor of neuroscience at the University of College in London, who also collaborated with a number of cortical laboratory scientists, said it could be considered the first commercial vital emulator computer.

“However, the true gift of this technology is not for computer science – at the present time. Instead, it is a technique of empowerment that allows scientists to conduct experiments on a little brain.”

Professor Thomas Hartong of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which is fulfilling “Organic Intelligence” Using brain organs or microbials grown from stem cells, he said that the prominent contribution of cortical laboratories was to develop virtual games as a biological computing standard.

Learn the CL1 ancestor, called Dishbrain, to play the simple video game Pong, in which you transferred a virtual glory up and down to dismantle the ball.

Training guarantees giving neurons a “reward” incentive when they transferred the paddle properly, by applying electrical activity in the form of a pocket wave, which loves cells. The “punishment” was when I made an unpleasant white noise.

Experiments with dishes and cl1 show how different conditions affect the treatment of neurons, which are measured by the extent of their playing well. “We have dealt with them with chemicals that have an effect on our brains,” said Bit.bio’s Kotter. “This device appears, for example, that alcohol degrades your ability to calculate.”

Another experience compared the effect of three treatments for epilepsy and found that one of them, Carbamzepine, was superior to improving play standards.

“We are very thinking about how to program our biological computers,” said Chung. “One big question is how we represent the digital information of these neurons.” He added that the scientists teach neurons on the forms of numbers, saying: “They have now begun to realize that nine are different from four or five.”

Cortical laboratories and bit. Putting pure layers of two specific types of neurons on the silicone circuit of CL1 vital computers – one to stimulate electrical activity and the other to reduce it. “The balance between acceleration and brake is really important,” said Chung. Nerve cells are grown from the stem cells originally derived from human skin.

Others, like the Switzerland finals, explore biological computing with brain organs. But Bit.bio and Cortical Labs believe that their layers of uniform neurons will give more cloning results than organic organs.

“Our neurons look very homogeneous,” said Tony Ostvevin, who leads the brain cells in Bit.bio. “If you look at other techniques, you will see a great contrast. Our strength is to make the pure population.”

Whatever the long -term promise of the biological account, its advocates admit that adoption of more public applications and AI lies in the future. One of the problems is to determine an effective programming system.

The other is that neurons can only live for a few months in CL1, which have a fixed liquid flow to supply food and remove waste products.

“The downside of a system like this is that we have not yet done how to move the memory,” said Chung. “Once the system dies, you have to start from scratch again.”

Chung realizes ethical concerns that can arise in the future if biological computers and neurons are developed awareness tools.

At the present time, he said: “These systems are emotional because they respond to stimuli and learn from them, but they are not aware. We will learn more about how the human brain works but we do not intend to create a brain in value -added tax.”