The story could have been straight out of science fiction – scientists have grown human brain cells in a lab, and taught them to play the video game Pong, similar to squash or tennis. But this didn’t happen on the big screen. It happened in a lab in Melbourne, Australia, and it raises the fundamental question of the legal status of these so-called neural networks.
Are they the property of the team that created them, or do they deserve some kind of special status – or even rights?
The reason this question needs to be asked is because the ability to play Pong may be a sign that these lab-grown brain cells have achieved sentience – often defined as the capacity to sense and respond to a world that is external to yourself.
And there is widespread consensus that sentience is an important threshold for moral status. Ethicists believe that sentient beings are capable of having the moral right not to be treated badly, and an awareness of the implications of sentience is increasingly embedded in research practices involving animals. READ MORE...
