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What precisely are those long-standing problems?

I ask because I actually know people who are starting to demonstrate the rudiments of intelligence using simulations of ~100,000 neurons.

Per upthread, that's a long way from a brain, and in fact we don't even know how all of the brain is wired, let alone how it works. But you might want to consider this and this and this.

If they're attempting the impossible, you should let them know not to waste their money.

autistic intelligence have been done for years with neural nets, the limitation is abstracting this basic equation estimation technique (which is all the neural construct really do.) and I guess the article describes a need way to overcome some obstacles.

IMHO the biggest challenge is really training data, you dont have enough of it, take a project like OpenCog, they've done simulations in secondlife, and this is problary the best route available for the moment. The best route would be to stuff the AI in an actual body, cause there is more training data in the real world than anywhere else.

What precisely are those long-standing problems?

I ask because I actually know people who are starting to demonstrate the rudiments of intelligence using simulations of ~100,000 neurons.

Per upthread, that's a long way from a brain, and in fact we don't even know how all of the brain is wired, let alone how it works. But you might want to consider this and this and this.

If they're attempting the impossible, you should let them know not to waste their money.

The National Academy of Engineering had an article a long while ago about the Challenges of Landing on Mars, detailing the various merits of the systems used for Viking, Pathfinder/Spirit/Opportunity, and the upcoming Curiosity. It's a little dry, but it explains with good reasoning why the chosen landing solution is appropriate for Curiosity.

A more engineering centric view of your general point.

And yes, the sounds were stupid.

Actually, the deuterium in the oceans would provide fusion energy sufficient for billions of years, the sun would scorch the earth to by expansion first before we ran out. And there is lithium and boron, and we can make tritium. Fusion really is the holy grail of power generation if we can't make solar power work. http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9079.aspx

Add this to your list of challenges:

Get the voting page http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/ to render properly in Firefox!
 

I wrote the parent comment. Since I posted it, I've been trying to understand how Ray Kurzweil could say something so foolish as "We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons."

Not only is he saying that there will be artificial intelligence in only 21 years, but he is saying that the computers on which the new AI runs will be so small they can travel like cells in our bloodstream, and do useful work based on an extremely advanced understanding of biochemistry and an ability to interact on a molecular level.

There is no evidence that anything like that is happening. It is wild imagining.

I'm guessing that Ray Kurzweil understood correctly that the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering is a publicity gimmick, and that the committee is a social group. Maybe Mr. Kurzweil decided to try to outdo everyone else in getting publicity. So, he put together the popular prefix nano- and the hot words robots, medicine, and AI. And he was successful. He tricked the BBC into quoting a prediction he himself doesn't believe.

Apparently, Ray Kurzweil interpreted the event as a socially backward macho male competition, and, given that, he won.

The National Academy of Engineering web page, Reverse-engineer the brain, is also wildly nonsensical, but somewhat more restrained, saying: "... further advances are needed...", and "Because each nerve cell receives messages from tens of thousands of others, and circuits of nerve cells link up in complex networks, it is extremely difficult to completely trace the signaling pathways."

There is lying, and then there is creative, energetic pseudo-scientific lying. There is treating other people badly, and then there is using a knowledge of science to take advantage of the shortcomings and weaknesses of other people. I suppose Ray Kurzweil was only getting into the mood of the baloney artistry the National Academy of Engineering created for him. But using baloney artistry to get attention is not only infantile, it is FRAUD.

This is all my opinion. If you can find a more positive interpretation of it, I'm interested.

Ray Kurzweil gave another interview about his imaginings that was rather uninformative, but not so nutty: Interview with Ray Kurzweil about the engineering challenges of the 21st Century (MP3, 6 minutes).

I wrote the parent comment. Since I posted it, I've been trying to understand how Ray Kurzweil could say something so foolish as "We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons."

Not only is he saying that there will be artificial intelligence in only 21 years, but he is saying that the computers on which the new AI runs will be so small they can travel like cells in our bloodstream, and do useful work based on an extremely advanced understanding of biochemistry and an ability to interact on a molecular level.

There is no evidence that anything like that is happening. It is wild imagining.

I'm guessing that Ray Kurzweil understood correctly that the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering is a publicity gimmick, and that the committee is a social group. Maybe Mr. Kurzweil decided to try to outdo everyone else in getting publicity. So, he put together the popular prefix nano- and the hot words robots, medicine, and AI. And he was successful. He tricked the BBC into quoting a prediction he himself doesn't believe.

Apparently, Ray Kurzweil interpreted the event as a socially backward macho male competition, and, given that, he won.

The National Academy of Engineering web page, Reverse-engineer the brain, is also wildly nonsensical, but somewhat more restrained, saying: "... further advances are needed...", and "Because each nerve cell receives messages from tens of thousands of others, and circuits of nerve cells link up in complex networks, it is extremely difficult to completely trace the signaling pathways."

There is lying, and then there is creative, energetic pseudo-scientific lying. There is treating other people badly, and then there is using a knowledge of science to take advantage of the shortcomings and weaknesses of other people. I suppose Ray Kurzweil was only getting into the mood of the baloney artistry the National Academy of Engineering created for him. But using baloney artistry to get attention is not only infantile, it is FRAUD.

This is all my opinion. If you can find a more positive interpretation of it, I'm interested.

Ray Kurzweil gave another interview about his imaginings that was rather uninformative, but not so nutty: Interview with Ray Kurzweil about the engineering challenges of the 21st Century (MP3, 6 minutes).

I wrote the parent comment. Since I posted it, I've been trying to understand how Ray Kurzweil could say something so foolish as "We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons."

Not only is he saying that there will be artificial intelligence in only 21 years, but he is saying that the computers on which the new AI runs will be so small they can travel like cells in our bloodstream, and do useful work based on an extremely advanced understanding of biochemistry and an ability to interact on a molecular level.

There is no evidence that anything like that is happening. It is wild imagining.

I'm guessing that Ray Kurzweil understood correctly that the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering is a publicity gimmick, and that the committee is a social group. Maybe Mr. Kurzweil decided to try to outdo everyone else in getting publicity. So, he put together the popular prefix nano- and the hot words robots, medicine, and AI. And he was successful. He tricked the BBC into quoting a prediction he himself doesn't believe.

Apparently, Ray Kurzweil interpreted the event as a socially backward macho male competition, and, given that, he won.

The National Academy of Engineering web page, Reverse-engineer the brain, is also wildly nonsensical, but somewhat more restrained, saying: "... further advances are needed...", and "Because each nerve cell receives messages from tens of thousands of others, and circuits of nerve cells link up in complex networks, it is extremely difficult to completely trace the signaling pathways."

There is lying, and then there is creative, energetic pseudo-scientific lying. There is treating other people badly, and then there is using a knowledge of science to take advantage of the shortcomings and weaknesses of other people. I suppose Ray Kurzweil was only getting into the mood of the baloney artistry the National Academy of Engineering created for him. But using baloney artistry to get attention is not only infantile, it is FRAUD.

This is all my opinion. If you can find a more positive interpretation of it, I'm interested.

Ray Kurzweil gave another interview about his imaginings that was rather uninformative, but not so nutty: Interview with Ray Kurzweil about the engineering challenges of the 21st Century (MP3, 6 minutes).