From biomimetic artificial intelligence to biohybrid computing

This chapter compares biomimetic approaches in the first years of artificial intelligence research and biohybrid approaches in the developing field of biohybrid computing, where biological systems are directly combined with artificial systems. The first part discusses the key elements in biomimetics practices and discusses how AI was born upon biomimicry ideas, through McCulloch and Pitts’ logical neuron model and Rosenblatt’s Perceptron , both of which were efforts to imitate the structural and functional aspects of human neural processing. The second part of this chapter discusses specifically the use of brain organoids and neuromorphic systems in the field of biohybrid computing. The chapter then summarizes the analogy at a conceptual level. Whereas the initial efforts in AI were mimicking biologically intelligent systems through external imitation, biohybrid options act to introduce the biological model directly into the computational artifacts, collapsing the boundary between the natural and artificial systems. This move alters the philosophical underpinnings of AI, changing how we think about computational, ethical, and epistemological considerations in front of AI biohybrid systems.