Brett Kagan (Cortical Labs CSO)
playerAI & Compute
Human brain cells in a dish were taught to play Pong — blurring the line between living tissue and computer.
Who they are
Brett Kagan, Chief Scientific Officer at Cortical Labs.
What they do
The scientist who turned living neurons into a task-performing computing substrate.
How it works
He designed the 'DishBrain' experiments where about 800,000 human and mouse cortical neurons on an electrode array learned to play Pong (and run DOOM) by minimizing surprise rather than through digital training methods, and he holds multiple patents on linking biological neural networks to digital interfaces.
Why it matters
The engine calls DishBrain the literal meeting point of biology and machine — living human cells reduced to raw computing material for a synthetic task, engineering away the boundary between the biological and the digital.
The engine's record — word for word
Designed DishBrain Pong and DOOM experiments. Multiple patents on integrating biological neural networks with digital interfaces. Demonstrated that neurons exhibit apparent learning via active inference (free energy principle) — not digital backpropagation but thermodynamic minimization of surprise. [Report #153] (Report #153) DishBrain is the LITERAL bio-digital nexus of digital_parasite_substrate: ~800k human+mouse cortical neurons on a microelectrode array taught to play Pong by minimizing unpredictability (free_energy) — human cellular material reduced to computational substrate for synthetic task-execution, the boundary between biological and digital replicator engineered out.
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