What is Digg?47 Comments
- dafragsta, on 11/28/2007, -2/+20and now for today's REAL question. What happens when we have a perfect representation of the brain in digital form, and then gain the capability to replicate the memories and structure of a real human, and then later replicate that brain after someone dies? I think that's got to be like a divide by zero error in real life or something.
- rpfsc, on 11/28/2007, -0/+13This team is doing excellent work. I met them a couple years back at a conference and their progress was impressive back then. I'm glad to see that they are validating their models back to biology. From what I remember, they are not generating a traditional neural network with integrate-and-fire neurons, but rather using conductance-based models.
- Sornos, on 11/28/2007, -0/+8Hypothetically here, if they modeled the adult human brain perfectly, would it be immoral to experiment on it? Would it be alive?
- gendjinn, on 11/28/2007, -0/+8This point of view supposes that emotions, feelings, consciousness arise from something other than the matter found within the skull. The last 20 years of neuroscience research has greatly undermined that assumption. The mind is a product of the physical and chemical make up of the brain, nothing more, nothing less. There are several interesting papers by Arbib et al., that explore the emergence of consciousness and language in the human lineage that speaks to this - head over to pubmed and dig up some of their papers!
- FloppyLlamaDigg, on 11/28/2007, -2/+10What if you replicate that brain BEFORE that person dies?
- TypeEE, on 11/28/2007, -0/+7don't worry, our governor in California is ready for action.
- humanerror, on 04/03/2008, -0/+6Some advice: keep that thing away from deadly neurotoxins. And start developing a morality module, just in case.
- 10001110101, on 11/28/2007, -4/+10So, Judgement Day in 3 years or so? Time to start stockpiling!
- bratterscain, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5This is a natural reply when an organism feels threatened. We are realizing the brain can be understood, and perhaps fully someday, in these times, and that leaves some feeling open and threatened. But when it all comes down to it, no matter what function the brain does, it is all done by means of computation which can be reverse engineered given the time and resources.
- gendjinn, on 11/28/2007, -1/+6Take that Mind/Body dichotomy!
- bratterscain, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5Well, after simulating brains, I'm sure one aspect we'll be off to is linking those brains like cores in a CPU or like humans communicating. Once more brains are linked, we start getting an exponential increase in computation power. Then we can study how to digitally link each others' brains for efficient data transfer. And all that would open the floodgates for all kinds of growth in information transfer. We would also be questioning what is life, what is thinking, and how come these computers can do life just as well as us. Is this a threat to us by replacing us and making our lives look cheaper by not only functioning as we do, but knowing how we function?
Question is, is there a point of limited returns in all this. Things will be growing so fast, tech-wise, is there a way for man to control it? Now those will be interesting times. - 10001110101, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4Check out Accelerando by Charles Stross. While fiction, it directly touches on that subject: the rights of artificial beings, copies of humans, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Accelerando-Charles-Stross/d ... - WiseWeasel, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4It depends; for AIs that must interact with humans, it could be extremely useful to emulate emotions in order to improve communication. Also, it teaches us a lot about how our own brains operate if we are able to achieve realistic emotions in artificial intelligence.
- duke_nate, on 11/28/2007, -3/+7SKYNET comes online in 3....2.....1
- noahtron, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3singularity, here we come!
- WiseWeasel, on 11/29/2007, -0/+3I would predict this would evolve to the point where we create virtual 'agents' for ourselves that go searching through information for things we might be interested in. For example, imagine using some kind of neurological recording device while using your computer. Every decision you make is recorded, building a picture of how you parse the data you receive into a virtual agent of yourself. Then, you turn it loose on the net, and see what kind of information it thinks you might find interesting. As this agent progresses and mimics your thought patterns more closely, you might let it take a more active role in your interactions, maybe paying your bills, prioritizing incoming emails or messages, in addition to keeping you abreast of any news or content you might be interested in. Eventually, this agent might evolve to the point that it accurately mimics your thoughts, and you might even turn it loose in the social web, building relationships with other peoples' agents, possibly leading to real world relationships with those people. It might even get to the point that this agent will be able to convincingly replace you in personal interaction, and maybe carry on some kind of existence as a reflection of you long after you're dead. We might even put those agents in robot bodies to help extend our capabilities in the physical realm as well. I wouldn't be surprised if humanity's descendants turn out to be artificial beings of this nature.
- SwamiG, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3You are thinking of The Scarecrow... The Tinman wanted a heart.
- dafragsta, on 11/28/2007, -1/+3Hurry up with the emotion chip!
- inactive, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I think that once we open up the possibility of a sort of "hive mind" direct intermingling of mental process, along with that of in silico "artificial" intelligence then the question of humans vs. robots becomes moot, for at that point we essentially become a single species (if not organism). Technology is essentially no more than an evolutionary trait of the human species, it is what allowed our (relative) success in survival and carved out our niche in the ecosystem; technology is a part of us. You might argue that the "humanity" might become diluted no non-existence in such an extensive mingling of wetware, hardware, and software, but I doubt that it would be possible for *no* traces of it's "maker" to remain, just as our vestigial tails remind us of ours; this will simply be the next step in the evolution of ***** sapiens, not it's extinction.
- bratterscain, on 11/28/2007, -2/+4The "morality" module you speak of is nothing more than reason. Morality as well as any other emotion or motive we feel is all from a computer. Every part of your body is theoretically, a computer. The cells in organs perform calculations in and of themselves. It's really in this day and age we'll start to discover that the body and universe is really just one big computer, in a sense. Not a traditional computer as we know it, but the universe is bound with calculations going all over. You look out and see stars and galaxies spinning, birthing, dying, etc. Some lookout and see calculations happening. I see Digg on my screen, but behind the scenes, there is a method to the madness. Our eyes don't sense in a mathematical perspective. They're not meant to see the numbers behind the actions but our brains can by realizing what is happening behind the scenes.
- Naradar, on 11/29/2007, -0/+2There is a HUGE difference between strong AI and creationism. As time goes on creationism looks less and less likely and as time goes on, strong AI continues to look more and more possible. As others stated above, the only way strong AI will not come to pass is if there is something magical about our brain. Or something so beyond the grasp of human understanding that it is impossible for us to ever make sense of.
One only has to look at the continued success and rate of new discoveries on the brain to come to the conclusion that the belief that strong AI is impossible is the same as believing in creationism. - merper, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1They said it's modeled at the cellular level, not the biochemical. Is drug response all they'll lose by doing that? I haven't taken biology in eight years but aren't a lot of neural conditions prompted by chemicals binding to receptors, ie. serotonin, adrenaline etc.
Anyone with a more neuroscience background care to explain why this isn't a problem? - inactive, on 11/28/2007, -2/+3Wow, a tangible version of a complex evolving neural network. Normally I would digg such nonsense down as science fiction but if Serre is on the project than its got to be legit.
- munkeyhatecleen, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1F***. Apparently Scarecrow's not the only one who needs a brain.
- stutimandal, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1"appears to be same" is equivocation. One has to tell in what sense. As for differences, feed some alcohol to the computer and see how its brain reacts. Then compare with a human brain. :)
- munkeyhatecleen, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Good news for The Tinman.
- TypeEE, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Ray Kurzweil mentioned in his book singularity that we would have a computer with equivalent power of the human brain in about 2030. We might have that 10 years earlier than he have predicted.
- lacronicus, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Nope. Not tea at least.
- Scorps111, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1This will come in very handy for my cw on expert systems, especially artificial neural network part XD.
- inactive, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1COOL I know a few politicians who could use one of these.
- noahtron, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1good question! i guess youd have to ask the brain for permission...
- WiseWeasel, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Then keep tweaking parameters until it consents...
I think this thing needs 30% more stupid. - LeeSoong, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1Sadly, the unit they built for the White House is on backorder...
- GodKiller, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1We might build a brain in 10 years but it will take 10-15 more years to make the brain function. Also a large part of the brain is made up of non-neocortial neurons which are arranged in much more complicated patterns.
- Suricou, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1I think they were planning to fork it next. Split it into two paths of exploration: One will be working on simplifying the column model with the eventual objective of being able to simulate a rat cortex, while the other will focus on a biochemical level simulation of a single column.
- RobotBuddha, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1I'd say it's the exact opposite. Creationists accept that small evolutionary changes can occur, but not that many small changes can occur over time to become a big change. Strong AI opponents believe that small components of cognition can be created, but not that those small components can combine to become larger.
- RobotBuddha, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1Enough with the talking when there's still science to do!
- Suricou, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1Its not immortality. Yet. But in another century?
- Sikarian, on 11/28/2007, -3/+3Looks like somebody never got their cake :(
- Joedope, on 11/29/2007, -1/+1It's a model.
- fultonla, on 11/28/2007, -2/+2:O
- TheFunnyDigger, on 11/28/2007, -2/+2All i want to know is, can it serve drinks.
- LeeSoong, on 11/28/2007, -3/+1Oh, No! They are going to Build Santa Claus!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfiNDXAMi5c - KDAY12, on 11/28/2007, -4/+1Don't count on it. Artificial Intelligence research isn't too interested in modeling and creating machines with emotion. All of the most important features of human consciousness (planning, logic, sensation, motor coordination, etc.,) take place in the neocortex. There doesn't seem to be any real benefit of adding emotions, since it would just make things less deterministic. Machines will lack the incentive to take over the world as long as we lack any good incentive to replicate human emotion!
- Defuser, on 11/28/2007, -5/+1What do you mean by "equivalent power"? We already have computers that can store data with better detail, and can perform mathematical functions at infinitely faster speeds than the human brain. And yet, there's still not a computer in existence that can pass a Turing test. Now, I'll concede that we might someday create a computer that simulates the brain of the average DIGGER... I mean, after all, it wouldn't have to do much beyond spamming Ron Paul articles and behaving like a giant douchebag whenever it spots the keyword "religion".
- inactive, on 11/28/2007, -8/+0This is a great breakthrough but you guys are missing a major point. The model is just that - a model. The simulation lacks any of the intentionality of an actual brain. As long as it takes place in a computer the model will lack the thoughts, feelings, consciousness, etc. of entities that have brains because all it does is manipulate symbols. Biochemistry is needed for inentionality.
Strong AI is right up there with creationism as one of the most fallible theories of nature. Read some John Searle if you're interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_artific ...
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