[HS]

I see two ways of making AI. I'll explain with a metaphor.

Method one: You make an acorn and let it interact with a suitable environment. Physics effortlessly does calculations that would make GPU's start a religious cult.  If you made the acorn correctly, then eventually you will get a tree that works in it's environment. 

Method two: Make a tree, then put it in an environment to check if it works.

I'm partial to the first method. So what is the most basic principle of life? What is the simplest equivalent of an acorn? How do we start thinkin about how to make one? You'd need a stable self perpetuating physical loop. A whirl pool in the river. I think life developed as it did because small self perpetuating pieces of chemistry/physics are much more likely to develop by chance than computers full of circuitry. *Until intelligent life develops, then chance gets complicated. Point is, it doesn't mean that mechanical growth is impossible, just prohibitively improbable until another improbable thing (intelligent life) developed. So if we want an AI's mind to develop into a complex structure that processes information, but it's too complex for humans to build this; let's cheat. Lets give the universe the tools to develop this emergent property of matter, which we call intelligence, on it own. It seems to enjoy doing it. This instruction manual for physics is genetics, again, a bit impossible to make from scratch; lets cheat! We have sequenced the genomes of many organisms. We have electronics that can retain and express information. They won't be completely compatible but we can Frankenstein them together and patch the differences. If you're building mechanical brain cells and you program them with the genetics of a worm brain it might start acting like a worm brain. Onward and upwards from there, right? You'd just need to design mechanical neurons (like I'm doing), sequence those ATGC's, Google translate to binary (this strategy might need some polishing), download, and observe in wonder until the worm starts trying to eat you.

[Art]

Yeah, and when we're all done, those Worms will still have the last say...

[OMITS]

Your second proposal is nearer to what will happen and is in fact happening. But there are many ways to start. One which I muse about is the grow an actual biological brain and put it into a biomechanics frame.

[Art]

The only way to grow one is to have or obtain a real one from a non-viable carry to term fetus, which in itself is and has been the subject of many a moral debate especially during the early days of stem cell harvesting for a 'greater good'. My question here is not to rile those with firmly grounded ethics/morals/religious views but rather to step aside from those chains and examine the possibilities for carrying out such a task within a Sci-Fi theme.

Having said that, let's say the tiny cellular brain was obtained and connected to an available blood supply and nourished and housed in an appropriate enclosure where it could grow and develop.

What we'd have would likely be far more questions than answers.

Assuming these scientists were able to create a system with which to interact with the brain what would be the outcome when the brain is old enough to realize that it is nothing more than a "Brain in a Box"? Its connections would be monitoring non-existent extremities and organs as well as its additional "unneeded" senses sight, taste, feel. It would be nothing more than a biological sponge able to soak up information but not able to relate that learned information or apply any of it in a manner allowed to the rest of ordinary humans.

How does all this and more affect this brain and to what end?

Remembering that Sci-Fi of today is just tomorrows reality, this could end up being either an amazing experiment or a very scary one.

Just some thoughts...