André Braugher, who is best known for playing Captain Raymond Holt in the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has passed away. Braugher was an actor who peppered his portfolio with comedies, but was a powerhouse in big-ticket dramas like Thief, for which he won an Emmy, and Salem’s Lot, based on a bestselling novel by Stephen King, and a rendition of Shakespeare’s Othello. Since 1998, he has been nominated for 11 Emmys for his work, and won twice. He served on the board of the Classical Theatre of Harlem, to which die-hard fans can donate in his memory.

We’re getting closer to a humanoid AI brain:In a study at the University of Indiana Bloomington they’ve constructed a hybrid biocomputer that combines lab-grown human brain tissue from stem cells, called organoids, with electronic circuits to create “Brainoware.” The hybrid demonstrated capabilities not only in processing, learning, and memory retention but also showcased basic skills in speech recognition, Neuroscience news reports.

What does it mean? These findings build “a bridge between AI and organoids” as well as biocomputer models that could potentially facilitate research into neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s, study co-author Feng Guo tells Nature. It also opens the door to replacing animal models in research for more test treatments.

How could Brainoware impact AI’s development? For starters, it could speed up the process of acquiring knowledge, as our brains use 20 watts as opposed to AI hardware, which consumes a whopping 8 mn watts, which are used to power artificial neural networks (ANN) that go through large datasets using silicon computing chips. Another power is that the brain also takes in information from a lot of data using a limited amount of training thanks to “neuronal plasticity [the ability of the brain to change from one activity and the next in response to stimulus] and neurogenesis [how new neurons are formed in the brain]”, the researchers said in an article published in Nature.

But organoids are hard to keep alive: “The cells must be grown and maintained in incubators, something that will be harder the bigger the organoids get. And more complex tasks will demand larger brains,” says Lena Smirnova, a developmental neuroscientist at John Hopkins University.

How does Brainoware work: The process sets up connections between brain tissue and electric circuits by putting an organoid on a plate with many electrodes. Using a machine-learning algorithm, the electrodes interprets the organoid’s reactions to information and connect it to an AI tool to collate the data retrieved. The breakthrough was that Brainoware successfully identified speakers in voice recordings with 78% accuracy after practicing listening to the data sets several times and the AI tool recording it.

What’s next? Maintaining stability and reliability of the organoids in order for it to function in advanced tasks as well as incorporation into AI computing systems based on silicon microchips.

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