Beyond AI: Are Human Brain Cells the Future of Computing?

Artificial intelligence may no longer be the most provocative frontier in computing. In this episode of the Weekly AI Update, David Lykken and Pavan Agarwal explore the emerging field of biocomputing, where researchers are integrating living human neurons with electronic systems to perform computational tasks. From the remarkable energy efficiency and potential capabilities of biological computing to much deeper questions surrounding consciousness, ethics, regulation, and the boundaries of scientific innovation, this conversation asks whether we are witnessing the beginning of an extraordinary new era of computing—or approaching a line technology should not cross. David and Pavan also look ahead to developments at Angel AI, including a newly awarded patent involving the management of AI context windows.

[David] Listeners, we’re back with another AI update with my good friend Pavan Agarwal. Pavan, good to have you back.

[Pavan] Hey, great to be back, David. So much going on in the world right now. Let’s get going.

[David] Man, I’m so interested about this particular segment. Folks, have you heard of something called biocomputing? Where they’re literally putting human brain tissue on chips. Is this sci-fi or is this real Pavan?

[David] So now me get this right. You have been so supportive of AI until we talked about this report. And you’re the one that made me aware of it. I had no idea this was out there. So since we talked about it, I’ve been doing some research on it. It is extremely disturbing. But man, is it amazing how they spin it to be so good? So let’s get into it. Explain what biocomputing really is.

[Pavan] Yeah, and I don’t even call it AI, I would call it slavery. So let’s let’s break it down. So what they’re doing is they’re growing human neurons in a petri dish and then they’re plugging them into an electronic circuit. And they’re keeping them alive for up to six months at a time.

[David] They’re able to keep those alive. But the most important part is how they’re created. So they’re taking what I thought I heard is blood, and they’re able to take one other substance from the body, and they’re able to then create from that, it was it was blood, and then they’re able to create stem cells. From that, they’re able then to create brain tissue, brain, brain cells. Now

[David] Yeah. So we’re I mean, one thing is that’s an issue, but the thing of what it does and why they’re doing is kind of interesting. One of the biggest challenges is power. And these chips that run on human brain cells takes a whole lot less power, but are exponentially more powerful. Is my hearing this right?

[Pavan] Yeah, I mean if you think about it, the human the human brain only consumes like 30 or 40 watts, right? Which is like the same as a light bulb, right? Less than a light bulb. So if and whereas and it does you know a lot more complex work than these mega data centers that taking, you know, whatever billions of watts or whatever they take. Right? so the idea what these researchers have done is says, okay, let’s just grow our brain cells and see, since we’ve now genetic science has gotten to a point where we could we could actually create tissue from stem cells. So let’s just grow a brain cell and plug it into the electronics. And there’s just so many things that are wrong with this idea. I mean you’ve and what I believe is then you’ve you’ve captured a soul, right? A human soul’s just been captured and imprisoned. and just could imagine like the first the first I read about this was like two years ago and they and I done had no idea this was and a research team. Yeah. And a research team had had got a brain cell to play Pong. Okay. And it learned to play Pong through some kind of a reward system, right? So, you know, they you know, they penalized it if it if it if it didn’t hit the ball, right? And if it hit the ball it was rewarded. So now can you imagine being that person that’s stuck playing Pong for eternity? I mean that’s like hell. There’s no no There’s th that is that is the definition of hell, being that person that’s that’s that’s stuck there.

[David] Well, I’m thinking some parents might argue that my kids are locked down in the basement right now. They’re playing games twenty-four-seven anyway. What’s the difference? They’re already That’s a big difference. It’s big difference because they’re doing so out of free will. But

[David] Let’s talk a little bit about why why how did this come about and why? Talked about power. Talked about power.

[Pavan] Well I mean but the obvious reasons, right? I mean artif this isn’t artificial intelligence, this is real intelligence, right? And you know, artificial intelligence is is trying to approximate through the use of computing power the the what the human brain does, what what a neuron does, right? That’s why I call them neural nets, right? And it’s a it’s a very crude approximation of an actual neuron. Okay, so you know, it’s the natural next step to say, well, you know, we could we could approximate it digitally using transistors, or why don’t we just take a neuron and keep it alive, put it on life support, okay, and plug its output. Because I mean look, the human brain, the what happens in a neuron is just electrical signal anyways. So we could we could measure the electrical signal off that neuron and then use that to make decisions or have the neuron make decisions for us. And we and we could just through and come up with a reward and punishment mechanism where it’s gets trained to do what we want it to do.

[David] If I’m look if I remember seeing this correct or seeing this correctly, one of the company that’s breaking this loon it loose is or really accelerating this, maybe I don’t know if they discovered it, but is a company in Australia by is a Cortex, is that the cortel? have to look at the name of the. I was but they talked about how to create this. They literally have a way by feeding this cell blood, oxygen. So it has like a heart, a pump, and something else. And then it has the ability to take waste that comes off of that. That’s a living organism. When you have a blood that has a pump, blood being pumped into it has to support it. It’s getting the other nutrients, other things that are necessary for life. And then it has a way of everything that in life, as we all we know, we all excrete waste. And this is has a way of extracting that. That’s what got my attention. That’s when I go and like, okay, we’ve entered another chapter of computing. We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Todo.

[Pavan] Yeah. Yep. It’s just like the matrix. I mean you got these effectively you’re gonna have these people trapped in these machines and they’ll never know that they’re in a machine. Right? That they’re not you know, the consciousness that’s in that in in that data center, right, will have no idea. Like you’ll be wondering, Who am I? Where am I? And it’s sitting in a simulation, it’ll never have an idea. Right.

[David] Well, I mean there’s a there’s a whole lot of moral illegal I’m thinking and assuming legal and ethical things, but this is moving forward. This is happening. I don’t see anyone saying it’s being stopped or regulated or even really much discussion about it.

[Pavan] Yeah, well I think it’s not being discussed because of the moral questions that it poses. I don’t think the researchers and the money that’s behind it wants it to be discussed.

[David] Yeah, I can imagine I can only imagine why when you sit and think about the ramifications, something like this. When so this has been around for a couple of years now, you’re saying?

[David] So has there been any practical application of it yet? I mean practical. I don’t call playing pong as a practical application. It’s a functional

[Pavan] Yeah, I mean playing playing pong is actually pretty heavy duty because right it has to make decisions on moving a cursor up and down, right? if you can play pong, you can do a lot of things. So that I think at that time it was just one neuron playing pong. Okay, so now this this data center is 16 million neurons.

[Pavan] Million, million. Right, right. Right. That I mean the human brain either has how many billions? The human brain has, the complete brain. But you know, s sixteen million, I think you can do quite a bit quite a bit with sixteen million neurons. And that’s just the beginning. As these guys learn how to scale this thing, I mean we could be in a world of billions and billions of neurons, creating a super this is a true superintelligence. And

[David] Yeah. Well, one of the things I enjoy about you so much, Bavana, it’s at the a at the foundation of our relationship and friendship, the many years of knowing each other, is the fact that you really care that we do things honestly, ethically, and wisely. And I’m looking at what this is, it’s very troubling. And you were troubled by it when you first saw it. And now you see it’s being taken to this next level. It’s gotta be I mean, it’s what could be what could be done with this? I mean, I think there’s lots of implications, but I’ve watched fear mongering keep us from greatness as in the past. So how do we discern if there the naysayers to this technology are fear mongering versus and standing in the way of science or progress versus those that are should be embracing and getting behind this?

[Pavan] Well, I mean it’s like this. if you w if we were to use human beings as experimental lab mice, yeah, medical science would progress a lot faster. Right, So what’s the difference? Right, j just yeah.

[David] Yeah, I was after looking at this, I found another article which you know, once you start reading this stuff, other things come up in your YouTube feed and you get sent things, and they’re talking about other areas of how science and the bio, I mean the chem I mean our bodies are being integrated with science. And it was pretty staggering to the implications of where this is all going. The creating of a superhuman race, creating of you know, ability to do things that are beyond because you have now have a computer that’s running on human brain tissue, on neurons. What is the practical application you see them? I saw something, they they’re talking about this could solve we were now able to do things related to finding health solutions to someone based on their makeup, their genetic makeup.

[Pavan] Yep. Yeah. I mean this could literally do everything a human can but with but work twenty four seven, right? And do exactly what is told. Right? And so it’s slavery. Right? It’s this we’ve just entered into a new type of slavery. And it I think it’s very, very wrong.

[David] No, I agree with you, Pavan. I agree with you 100%. But now, once this is out of the box and happening, the being developed in the lab, and there are they’re spinning it as a positive, what do we do to, if there’s anything that should be slowed down, if not stopped altogether, it’s this. But it’s already going. As long as soon as someone discovers it, even if that country tried to shut it down, this in this case it was in Australia, but now even if they were to try to settle it down, what’s to keep the Chinese or other actors coming in and Yeah. I mean that’s the problem with

[David] The science these days. It g it gets out of the box. I mean we can replicate things so easy. So how what would you your recommendation on how this gets controlled or managed?

[Pavan] I don’t know if there is a solution, but number one I think what we’re doing right now is the most important, which is bringing awareness to what’s actually happening. I mean most people don’t even know. and most people I would I would bet that more than half people watching this are probably thinking we’re making this up. So but no, this is real. We’re not making this up.

[David] Now folks, we’re gonna put links to articles in this interview. We’ll put links to YouTube videos. You can go watch it yourself and go, yeah, but AI can create all that. Well, do your research on there’s just too much in the internet out there right now, available that validates what we’re talking about here. It’s amazing, Pavan.

[Pavan] Yeah, right. Yeah. And then of course this is what is known publicly, what they’ve released publicly. So what the truth is probably way, way beyond this. Yeah. Yeah.

[David] Yeah, it’s the classic iceberg relationship to what we see versus what’s below the surface and what we don’t see. Absolutely agree with you. good.

[David] And grateful to hear that. I’m so glad. So look forward to I know we’re the next podcast, we’re talking about a real exciting development there at Celligance and Angel AI is that you have a new patent.

[Pavan] Yes, we do. I just send that to you and it’s one of this new one was just awarded. I received the confirmation email today. Super exciting. and it’s very fundamental and it’s you know, these are things that we thought about we were we were building, you know, before ChatGPT even existed. and this is about controlling and managing the context window and by context window, if you don’t know what that is, that’s when you when you have a large amount of data that you want to run through the AI, that’s your context window. Your input. Input of the AI is the context window into these LLMs. And how do you manage and control that context window? especially as a user of the AI and you hitting it with different requests at the same time and keeping that straight. And that’s the key, and that’s one of the things that makes Angel AI work is you can you can throw it very different complicated questions at the same time and it’ll get the it’ll get the answers and keep it straight.

[David] Good news is you people can reach you, people can connect with you. You’ve got an upcoming event in Las Vegas that’s gonna be happening. tell us a little bit about that and some of the upcoming mindset conferences.

[Pavan] Yeah, the next big event we got is on November 19, the first day of the F1. So it’s Mindset Summit F1. Just go to Mindsetsummit.com/f1. And we got some amazing speakers there. So the biggest names in in private equity and in in in sovereign wealth sovereign wealth funds. we also have some great entertainment, 98 degrees and NSync. will be performing for us, the lead singers from both, both of those great, great bands. And also many, many famous athletes and names that that you all know will be there. So we haven’t listed everyone on the website yet. They will be they’ll be listed and because it is at F1, it is in Vegas during F1, the Who’s Who will be there. And we’re doing this in partnership with the Wynn because essentially, you know, in Vegas, Wynn’s the place to be. And the Who’s Who comes to the Wynn. And the Win at and the Wynn came to us and said, Hey, we need an event to keep our clientele engaged through this process and keep them motivated, keep them excited. And so we said, Okay, let’s do a mindset during the F1 with you.

[David] That’s good. I can’t wait to be there. I can’t wait to see this. It’s gonna be a great event. Pavan, we’re learning the importance of keeping these short and sweet. So we’re gonna do a wrap on this one. Thanks so much for joining me today. Human computing, biocomputing, using human brain cells, neurons to start driving AI decisions. Thankfully, you’re not gonna be incorporating this. Although the reality is you’re having humans support what you’re doing. But it’s not on a chip. That’s so good. They’re real life humans. You haven’t taken them over. They have lives there for if they’re

[Pavan] Yes. These are humans with free will and are being paid for their labor, not human brain cells that have been enslaved.

[David] That’s crazy. All right. Thank you, Pavan. Appreciate this latest update.

Important Links

Pavan Agarwal is a renowned leader in the mortgage lending industry and a pioneer in bringing artificial intelligence to the financial markets. Agarwal serves as the President and CEO of Sun West Mortgage Company and Celligence International, LLC.