Rather than trying to create software and hardware that mimics the way the brain works, an emerging field of research seeks to coax nature’s most powerful computing technology — biological neural networks — into carrying out computations.

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Organoids become more complex and addressable

Our ability to build complex brain organoids with multiple cell types and extensive vascularisation improves significantly, as does our ability to combine them to create more advanced assembloids. The development of reliable, high-density 3D microelectrode arrays makes it possible to accurately record organoids’ neural activity on the surface and in the core of the organoid and transmit data to them for processing. This provides rudimentary models of plasticity and cognition with immediate applications in drug development.

10-yearhorizon

Fundamental science breakthroughs give organoids useful function

Vast amounts of data collected from experiments with brain organoids helps tease out the specifics of the algorithms that underpin learning and memory in humans. This provides important insights for research into neurological diseases and exciting new avenues for AI. Brain organoids connected to retinal, olfactory and other sensory organoids show promise as energy-efficient environmental sensors. The difficulty of packaging and sustaining organoids remains a barrier to practical applications.

25-yearhorizon

Organoids are integrated with conventional electronics

Improvements in the technology required to sustain and interface with organoids mean that they can now be easily integrated with conventional electronics in an ethical manner. They are routinely used for sensory functions in robotics and interconnected networks of organoids are now able to carry out highly complex computations. Unconstrained by the body, brain organoids can be built at scales beyond anything possible in nature, allowing them to tackle novel computational problems. The rapidly improving capabilities of organoids provoke ethical work practices and the suppression of any development of consciousness and sentience.

This possibility has only just become tractable thanks to recent advances in organoids: simplified and miniaturised versions of organs created using stem-cell technology. Small conglomerations of human neurons have replicated some of the form and function of our brains.¹⁰ Now, researchers are investigating whether these organoids could be used to create new hybrid computing technologies that combine biological and electronic components.¹¹

Early experiments have shown that neural cultures can be taught to play video games or show features of reservoir computing.¹² ¹³ If the technology can be scaled up it could have applications in AI, robotics and brain-machine interfaces and could even help us discover the algorithms that power the brain.

Significant advances will be needed first, however, including an ability to engineer larger and more complex organoids, interface with them reliably, and understand how they learn and compute.¹⁴ Combining organoids to create more sophisticated “assembloids” that model several brain regions will be crucial, as will boosting the diversity of cell types.¹⁵ ¹⁶Reproducibility and standardisation are major issues currently, as small changes in the environment can significantly impact activity. There are also ethical concerns around when, and whether, more sophisticated organoids could be thought of as conscious entities in their own right.¹⁷ ¹⁸

Organoid Intelligence - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.