Not as big of a deal as people will make it out to be, and nothing close to what could simulate a brain.
But this is still huge for stuff like prosthetic interfaces, especially finally being able to hook up cameras for missing eyes hopefully.
IDK, I haven’t had time to really sit down and read the full paper, but from a skim it seems like if this is true:
[taken from abstract] Moreover, these artificial neurons can be modulated by extracellular chemical species in a manner consistent with neuromodulation in biological neurons. We further show that an artificial neuron can connect to a biological cell to process cellular signals in real-time and interpret cell states. These results advance the potential for constructing bio-emulated electronics to improve bioelectronic interface and neuromorphic integration.
Then this is a pretty huge breakthrough. It seems like they’ve divised a pretty robust framework for this, which is one of the big hurdles in Brain/Machine interfaces (Or HNI if we wanna be trendy). If this can be incorporated into devices viable for longterm implantation, which it probably can be though that’s by no means a trivial bioengineering task, it’ll absolutely pave the way for true scifi-style neural interfaces. Huge step over shit like a Utah array if we can tap digitally into interphase chemical/electrical conversion steps using this tech. Long way to go before that point, obviously, but this is a big advancement nontheless.
IDK man I’m just hyped, though yeah you’re 100% right that this is absolutely in no way related to simulating a brain (I mean, I guess you could but eugh that would be horrible get working). God science reporting is a travesty. I just wanna make cool robot limbs for people, is that too much to ask?? Can’t we be happy with that, and not make every paper about computational neurology somehow the “advent of AGI” or whatever? ugh.
No, this won’t wind up being misused. Not. At. All.
🙄
Anyone who has ever read neurologist Oliver Sacks’ classic essay collection ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ might wonder about the downsides of having a protein nanowire brain extension. The lesson from the book is that small changes to the brain can have enormous consequences for consciousness and our experience of reality.
Who knows? Perhaps it might be like a permanent magic mushroom trip where you can see and talk to interdimensional machine elves, and that would be an upside for some people.
