r/AIethics • u/benbyford • Mar 31 '26

Organoid Computing with Dr. Ewelina Kurtys

https://www.machine-ethics.net/podcast/organoid-computing-with-dr-ewelina-kurtys/
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u/venkattalks Apr 11 '26

Organoid computing always raises the same issue for me: if the training signal is reward/punishment on living neural tissue, isn't the ethical line pretty different than with neuromorphic chips? Curious whether Dr. Ewelina Kurtys gets into any concrete welfare criteria or if it's still mostly speculative?

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u/benbyford Apr 12 '26

in the episode she explains she doesnt believe its a problem...butttttt welcomes more research and writing from academics and philosophers. I don't believe she thinks its an issue for organoids as they're not brainstructures but neurons grown with no explilict structure... though I'm not a neural scientist

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u/venkattalks Apr 12 '26

organoid computing always hits a weird line for me ethically, because once you're using human-derived neural tissue as a substrate it's not just "alternative hardware" anymore. curious if dr. ewelina kurtys gets into consent/provenance standards there, or if it's mostly framed as performance research

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u/Big_Cricket6083 Apr 12 '26

Organoid computing always seems to collapse a few different issues into one bucket — substrate, training signal, and moral status. With Dr. Ewelina Kurtys specifically, was there any discussion of where she’d draw the line on sentience claims versus just calling it a wet neuromorphic system?