Intelligence agency funding research to merge AI with human brain cells

An Australia intelligence agency is funding research attempting to merge artificial intelligence with human brain cells.

According to The Guardian, “Research into merging human brain cells with artificial intelligence has received a $600,000 grant from defense and the Office of National Intelligence (ONI).”
The funding from the Australia National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants Program will go to research being conducted by the Monash University and Cortical Labs.

Adeel Razi, the project’s lead and associate professor from the Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, explained, “This new technology capability in future may eventually surpass the performance of existing, purely silicon-based hardware.”

Last year, the research team created a “DishBrain” – a “semi-biological computer chip with some 800,000 human and mouse brain cells lab-grown into its electrodes,” according to New Atlas. The DishBrain utilizes lab-cultivated neurons from human stem cells.

The scientists were able to train the brain cells to play the classic video game “Pong.”

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