An individual neuron has no ethical concerns at all. A talking, thinking Futurama-style "head in a jar" would be obviously awful.

The problem is that I have no clue where to draw the line between these two scenarios. How many neurons does it take for consciousness?

According to Wikipedia's list of animals by the number of neurons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...), 800k is around the scale of a bee, or a cockroach.

The smallest mammal on that list is the Little Free-Tailed Bat, with 35,000k.

This feels like something helpful to use in beginning to calibrate one's thoughts about how much mind is capable of running on that many neurons.

the ethical concerns are usually along the lines of "what separates neurons in a petri dish from the neurons in your head". sure, you can tell the difference now, but that may not be true forever

Ww don't have evidence that 800,000 neurons are not capable of consciousness and pain.

Creating human cognizant life to enslave it to perform menial tasks like imagine porn for the average couch surfer until it inevitably dies sound ethical to ya? We've come a long way from the "we shouldn't clone people" of the 90s debates I guess... also somehow women aren't allowed to get reproductive healthcare, man the cognitive dissonance is wild

The ethical concern here is no greater than the ethical concern of eating animals.