The idea of creating new forms of life has been both an exhilarating and terrifying idea in storytelling for ages. Think of the monster that Frankenstein created in Mary Shelleys book from 1818. Or, to consider a more recent example, the robotic androids that seem to gain sentience in the videogame Detroit: Become Human. While such examples are currently science fiction and are not exactly up to our rigorous scientific standards, some researchers believe that developments in biomedical research may eventually confront us with similar forms of “life” or “sentience”, namely in the form of organoids. While these biotechnical constructs are only somewhat like the living things that we now know, increasing similarities might soon make us consider the duck test: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck” …should we ever deem it a duck? And at what point do we then have responsibilities towards that duck?
Organoids
Organoids are small, three-dimensional tissue cultures, composed of organ-specific cell types. As their name suggests they are organ-like but do not look like little versions of organs. Organoids are a few millimeters wide “blobs”;[i] clusters of cells that self-organize in ways that resemble aspects of real organs. By guiding stem cells to differentiate into specific tissues, scientists have created kidney, lung, ocular, tongue, and many other types of organoids.
These models are already used to study the development of organs and disease development. They also show promise for drug testing and personalized medicine. Some scientists claim that organoids might become even better models than animal models, especially when these organoids are based on material from potential patients. At some point, they might more accurately predict which treatments will work for a specific person.[ii] However, realizing this promise requires organoids to become increasingly complex over time.
Increasing complexity
One example of increasing complexity that especially sparks the imagination is the human brain organoid (HBO). The development of neural structures incurs the vision that, potentially, some form of sentience could develop in the future.[iii]
Another increase of complexity is seen in the development of combined organoids. Once we bring organoids together, in the case of assembloids or multiple-organoids-on-a-chip, some form of interaction between the models starts to occur.[iv] This could be useful to model the digestive tract, for example, or could also be done by involving HBOs with other models. A blob of cells connected to another blob of cells might not sound much like “creating life” or “a sentient being”. However, once organoids start to become even more complex, how we feel about them could start to become more muddled.
We may start asking whether highly complex organoids are merely scientific tools, or whether they become entities to which we owe some form of responsibility. At what point does something stop being a “thing” and should it be seen as a living thing?
These intuitions touch the concept of moral status. An entity can be considered to have a moral status, if it matters from a moral point of view[v]. This tells us how something ought to be treated. If you feel it is wrong to kick a dog, while not feeling bad for kicking a rock, this is determined by the first having a certain moral status that the latter does not. You have a moral responsibility to treat entities with a higher moral status differently.
For example, we could wonder if models that involve neural organoids in some capacity might, at one point, experience pain or suffering during experiments. That could make us culpable for any harm incurred or responsible for its wellbeing. Still, how would we even know about their experience? The HBOs cannot express their pain and we are unsure whether their patterns of activity are comparable to our brains. As HBOs could become increasingly sophisticated, H.T. Greely asks in parallel to the duck test: “[i]f it looks like a human brain and acts like a human brain, at what point do we have to treat it like a human brain – or a human being?”[vi]
However, many scientists that use organoids, including those working with HBOs, state that these concerns are overblown.[vii] Neural organoids are in no way as complex as brains; they only represent very specific parts of a brain and even then, only consist of a small cluster of cells. Still, while it is a fraction of human brains, some already have the same or larger number of cells compared to brains of honeybees.[viii]
When do duck-likes become ducks?
Back to our duck test: if the things we are dealing with are quite duck-like and might become more like ducks, are we not possibly dealing with future ducks? We simply do not know yet. The worries we mentioned might never come to align with reality, or it could somehow already be happening without us realizing right now.
So, while it is prudent to explore potential futures, we need to assess whether this is realistic. Just because something seems like another, does not mean it actually is fundamentally similar. The philosopher Tomasz Żuradzki warns those pleading for strict precautionary measures to not only focus on under-caution, but also over-caution.[ix] Are we creating a panic that is based solely on speculation? If this science-fiction never becomes reality, we might be hindering important progress with our precautions and fears of inflicting harm.
Preparing properly
This discussion might seem highly hypothetical, but has an important preparatory function. It helps to think ahead of scientific innovation, but also not give into duck-anxieties without proper reflection. This includes responsible communication on organoids, without giving into scientific hype or sensationalized concern.[x] So yes, we need to warn each other not to create an incomprehensible new monster of Frankenstein. At the same time, we need to work together to make sure we do not hinder important progress in health innovation.
[i] Clevers, H. (2016). Modeling development and disease with organoids. Cell, 165(7), 1586-1597.
[ii] Perkhofer, L., Frappart, P. O., Müller, M., & Kleger, A. (2018). Importance of organoids for personalized medicine. Personalized Medicine, 15(6), 461-465.
[iii] Ohayon, E. L., Tsang, P. W., & Lam, A. (2019). A computational window into the problem with organoids: approaching minimal substrates for consciousness. Neuroscience, 2019.
[iv] Pașca, S. P., Arlotta, P., Campbell, P., Charo, A., Evans, J. H., Farahany, N., Gage, F.H., Dofrey-Smith, P., Hyun, I., Kriegstein, A., Melloni, L., Ming, G., Moreno, J.D., Sugarman, J., Temple, S., Testa, G. & Greely, H. T. (2025). The need for a global effort to attend to human neural organoid and assembloid research. Science, 390(6773), 574-577. DOI: 10.1126/science.aeb1510
[v] Jaworska, A. and J. Tannenbaum. (2023)."The Grounds of Moral Status", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/grounds-moral-status/.
[vi] Greely, H. T. (2021). Human brain surrogates research: the onrushing ethical dilemma. The American Journal of Bioethics, 21(1), 34-45:34.
[vii] Belblidia, N. (2026). As Brain Organoid Science Grows More Complex, So Do the Questions. Undark Magazine. Last accessed 3-3-2026 via: https://undark.org/2026/02/26/brain-organoids-big-questions/
[viii] Pașca, S. P., Arlotta, P., Campbell, P., Charo, A., Evans, J. H., Farahany, N., Gage, F.H., Dofrey-Smith, P., Hyun, I., Kriegstein, A., Melloni, L., Ming, G., Moreno, J.D., Sugarman, J., Temple, S., Testa, G. & Greely, H. T. (2025). The need for a global effort to attend to human neural organoid and assembloid research. Science, 390(6773), 574-577. DOI: 10.1126/science.aeb1510
[ix] Żuradzki, T. (2021). Against the precautionary approach to moral status: the case of surrogates for living human brains. The American Journal of Bioethics, 21(1), 53-56.
[x] Bassil, K. (2024). The end of ‘mini-brains’! Responsible communication of brain organoid research. Molecular Psychology: Brain, Behavior, and Society, 2(13), 13-16.
