OED
2.
1963 Organic structures regarded as analogous to, or in contrast with, computer systems, esp. the brain. 1963 What is not understood is the power hunger that resides in what the psychiatrist Kenneth Colby calls the 'wetware'—— W. Millis & J. Real, Abolition of War p. xv1984 There is no obvious reason why biological 'wetware' should be any better at imbuing internal structures with semantic significance than silicon 'hardware'. Times Literary Supplement 14 December 1442/3
1995 The retina is an exquisitely evolved piece of neuronal wetware. Proceedings 5th International Conf. Microelectronics for Neural Networks 2/1
2014 Perhaps the 'mind' was just a software program running on 'wetware' (i.e., brain tissue rather than transistors). M. Kaku, Future of Mind i. 33
3.
1975– Computing technology and devices constructed from biological or chemical components, or which operate by means of biological or chemical processes.1975 An electronic computer is made up of hardware and software; a chemical automaton needs an additional component, a chemical reaction system which might be called 'wetware'. Nature 23 October 634/1
1988 With advances in software, hardware and 'wet-ware', it may be possible to create lifelike 'organisms'. Nature 4 February 390/2
2010 Employing chemical and/or biological reactions..may bring new computational tools (called wetware). A. G. Hoekstra et al., Simulating Complex Syst. by Cellular Automata i. 13
wetware (brain) Wikipedia
Wetware Wikipedia
Wetware Wiktionary
- (slang) The human brain or mind, often specifically as a computing element. Adapted as a biological parallel to hardware and software. It also used less commonly to refer to other organic or biological matter in the same context. In frequent use in the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction.
- The underlying generative code for an organism, as found in the genetic material, in the biochemistry of the cells, or in the architecture of the body’s tissues.
The Future of Artificial Intelligence — Wetware Timothy Oh at Medium
...an idea that I call wetware: it's a computing system that can't be separated by software and hardware. In traditional computer systems, hardware and software are separated as very distinct things....if we were to create a piece of wetware, the state of it would be mortal. Take the brain, for example. The brain is shaped randomly by genetics as well as environmental experiences. If the person dies, all the information within the brain gets lost forever. Similarly, the information of a wetware system should get lost if the piece of wetware gets destroyed. This is a consequence of the inseparability of wetware into hardware and software. Since the computation is so specific and the state of the wetware evolves stochastically according to a set of rules, the amount of information that it takes to represent it grows so large that it would be infeasible to export the state of the wetware and save it somewhere.
...the field of neuromorphic computing: the design of systems that resemble the function of the brain. This field has inspired many projects, like IBM's TrueNorth, Intel's Laohi, SpinNNaker by the University of Manchester, all digital neuromorphic systems, and Neurogrid, an analog neuromorphic system developed by Stanford. These systems are great contributions to society, but not exactly the same as wetware as it doesn't utilize the physics of the system to do computation. In biological brains, the physical and chemical properties of neurons, glia, and cells play a role in computation.
...Wetware is not new in the sense that it hasn't already been defined yet; it is defined as computer technology in which the brain is linked to artificial systems, or used as a model for artificial systems based on biochemical processes. (i.e. the brain).
What is Wetware and How Does it Impact Cybersecurity? electric.ai
..."Wetware" is coder slang for the human element of IT architecture, and the term typically refers to the employees of a business. The term itself originates from contrasting the human brain — the "wetware" — to actual hardware and software systems. Put simply, wetware is people.
What is Wetware? Rudy Rucker
In its original, intended meaning, wetware is the underlying generative code for an organism, as found in the genetic material, in the biochemistry of the cells, and in the architecture of the body's tissues.I was one of the initial popularizers of the word "wetware," perhaps the third to use it in an SF novel, preceded by Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers and, I believe, Bruce Sterling's Schizmatrix. I think I first saw the word in Sterling's book.
...think of an oak tree as being the output of a program that was contained inside the acorn. The genetic program is in the DNA molecule. Instead of calling it software like a computer program, w call it wetware because it's in a biological cell where everything is wet. Your software is the abstract information pattern behind your genetic code, but your actual wetware is the physical DNA in a cell. A sperm cell is wetware with a tail, but it's no good without an ovum's wetware. A fertilized seed is self-contained wetware, and a plant cutting is wetware, too, as plants can reproduce as clones.
Advanced Brain-on-a-Chip for Wetware Computing: A Review Shangchen Li et al. via PubMed
In pursuit of low-power consumption and surpassing computational limitations of silicon-based chips, people are beginning to seek more efficient computing devices, such as Wetware Computing. The cutting-edge approach uses living biological tissues, specifically neuronal networks, to perform computational tasks. This computing method, which is a mixture of hardware, software, and biology, is an emerging computing method that has received a lot of attention in recent years. As an important branch of organ-on-a-chip, brain-on-a-chip, which combines Micro-Electro-Mechanical System technology, electronic technology, and tissue engineering, can provide a powerful research platform for Wetware Computing.