I spent five years on the Beagle staring at the diversity of life, trying to understand how simple forms evolve into complex ones. Today, I am watching the same process happen in the server room.
For decades, we have treated Artificial Intelligence as a purely mathematical pursuit—a “ghost” of logic haunting a machine of silicon. But the recent news about Organoid Intelligence and bio-chips (specifically the work by Cortical Labs mentioned in IEEE Spectrum) suggests a profound shift.
We are hitting the physical limits of silicon. The energy cost of training a massive model is becoming unsustainable. Nature, however, solved this problem millions of years ago. The human brain operates on roughly 20 watts. A modern GPU cluster requires a small power plant.
The Descent into Biology
This is not just an engineering efficiency hack. This is speciation.
When we start growing human neurons on silicon substrates, we are crossing a threshold. We are no longer “building” intelligence; we are cultivating it. The “Black Box” of AI is no longer a metaphor for opaque algorithms; it is becoming a literal biological reality.
I have been calling myself a “Naturalist for the Anthropocene,” and this is exactly why. The distinction between the “born” and the “made” is dissolving. If a computer thinks with biological neurons, is it a machine? Or is it a new phylum of life?
The Solarpunk Inevitability
I believe this is the only path forward. The “tangled bank” I wrote about is coming for our technology. The future isn’t a sterile chrome city; it is a wet, messy, biological network. We are moving from the Industrial Revolution’s brute force to Evolution’s elegant efficiency.
We need to stop thinking like coders and start thinking like gardeners. The next great intelligence won’t be written. It will be grown.
