🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY
Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇
https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join
Thomas Hartung is the toxicologist who helped pioneer organoid intelligence: growing human brain tissue in a dish and wiring it up to see whether it can learn. He directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, and before that ran the European Commission's centre for validating alternatives to animal tests. His lab grows half-millimetre brain organoids by the tens of thousands. They can get better at a simple game. By the next day, they've forgotten all of it.
Expect to learn:
- The Pee Question: yes, you can grow a mini brain from the few cells in your urine
- The Missing Cell: why organoids lacked the brain's immune cells, and why memory depends on them
- The Overnight Wipe: they improve within a training session, then forget everything by the next day
- The Bored Brain: why neurons in a dish are "longing for input"
- The Ethics Line: could a cluster of brain tissue ever suffer, and who gets to decide?
SPONSORS
Download the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiants
GS EPISODES MENTIONED
Brett Kagan - Meet The Neuroscientist Creating New Forms of Sentient Biological Intelligence: https://youtu.be/TXlJc4tu1F8
Karl Friston - Meet The Neuroscientist Who Created The Best Universal Theory Of Brain Function: https://youtu.be/R-IZOFs4qmY
Michael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyM
GUEST LINKS
Johns Hopkins Faculty Profile: https://hub.jhu.edu/experts/profiles/thomas-hartung/
Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT): https://caat.jhsph.edu/
Organoid Intelligence (OI): The New Frontier in Biocomputing (Frontiers in Science, 2023): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235/full
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (Field Chief Editor): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence
LISTEN ON
YouTube - https://youtu.be/4xNxOXNCG-E
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249
SKOOL
Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about
FOLLOW EVAN
https://x.com/evan_mcgl
TIMESTAMPS
0:00:00 Trailer
0:02:11 Why Animal Testing Is Outdated Technology
0:04:13 What A Brain Organoid Actually Is
0:06:51 Can You Grow A Brain From Your Urine?
0:10:48 Tens Of Thousands Of Snowflake-Sized Mini Brains
0:11:54 The Brain's Missing Immune Cells
0:16:23 How Organoid Intelligence Began
0:18:21 The Neurons That Learned To Play Pong
0:21:50 Punished With White Noise
0:24:38 They Learn, Then Forget Everything Overnight
0:26:05 The Holy Grail: Long-Term Memory
0:29:22 Why Trained Behaviour Isn't Intelligence (Yet)
0:32:23 "Yeah, They're Thinking"
0:35:08 Testing Drugs On Mini Brains
0:37:00 A $15 Million Bet On Alzheimer's
0:40:56 A House Fly's Worth Of Human Neurons
0:43:43 The Frankenstein Problem
0:46:20 "We Could Probably Make A Dragon"
0:51:07 "Can I Talk To Them?" No.
0:54:24 Animal Testing Is Losing The Public
0:57:37 Could A Mini Brain Ever Suffer?
0:58:53 "These Organoids Will Never Be Cuddled"
1:02:20 Your Brain vs A $600M Supercomputer
1:03:58 Ask ChatGPT, Get Eaten By The Tiger
1:10:00 What Comes Next For Organoid Intelligence
.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
