My first thought was that organoid-sized animal brains are more likely to be conscious than organoids themselves. If we’re worried about organoids, we should be even more worried about animals.
I then realized that, AFAIK, we don’t know whether qualia like pain and distress are “sophisticated” emotions, requiring a lot of elaborate brain architecture to produce. Qualia might just as easily be “unsophisticated,” easy to generate even in a brain organoid. It may be that elaborate brain architectures of evolved animals are useful to filter, shape, and transform those “unsophisticated” qualia into survival-enhancing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If so, we might worry that brain organoids can feel a lot of qualia, and lack the brain structures animals have that make qualia tolerable.
My first thought was that organoid-sized animal brains are more likely to be conscious than organoids themselves. If we’re worried about organoids, we should be even more worried about animals.
I then realized that, AFAIK, we don’t know whether qualia like pain and distress are “sophisticated” emotions, requiring a lot of elaborate brain architecture to produce. Qualia might just as easily be “unsophisticated,” easy to generate even in a brain organoid. It may be that elaborate brain architectures of evolved animals are useful to filter, shape, and transform those “unsophisticated” qualia into survival-enhancing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If so, we might worry that brain organoids can feel a lot of qualia, and lack the brain structures animals have that make qualia tolerable.