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Researchers Simulate Building Block of Rat's Brain
slick_shoes passes on an article in the Guardian about the Blue Brain project in Switzerland that has developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat. (Here is the project site.) The model, running on an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer, simulates 10,000 neurons and all their interconnections. It behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. Thousands of such NCCs make up a rat's neocortex, and millions a human's. "Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain."
it's rats,politicians, cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain
... will society grant computer intelligences the same rights that us humans do?
When computer intelligence can give a convincing argument for doing so.
Or subjugate us as their power source.. one of the two.
That is technically impossible, considering the behavior of the mammalian brain is not well understood at any level. Even intracellular processes are still under investigation; how synapses are regulated, interactions between neurons, and higher level functioning are still matters of great contention.
Even if these processes were well understood, our simulation methods are not sufficient to accurately represent the massively parallel structure of a brain.
- Demosthenes
cynicsreport.com
So, when do we get the inevitable joke about Linux being ported to the human brain?
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
What? Your post is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.
First off, why not just use a human brain if you want an identical machine? Well, for sending probes to mars. Or to the depths of the ocean. Or any other place that is too dangerous to send humans, but that a machine could survive in. Even if the brain was a replica of someone's personality, all they'd have to do is find someone who thinks it would be really cool to go to mars, and replicate their brain. It'd be a hell of a lot more intelligent than a traditional AI system at this point.
Secondly, if we want an AI system that better than the human brain, THIS IS THE WAY TO GO. Figure out exactly how the human brain handles thing that are really hard for computers, like object recognition. Once you've got that, you can replace//add on parts that do things better/faster than humans, like math. In terms of adaptability and general purpose use, NOTHING in AI comes anywhere close to the human brain right now. So trying to make an AI system that is better than the brain, a good first step is to try and make the human brain, then start tweaking that.
The point is to try and understand how biological brains do what they do, and how we can make computers do those things (which computers currently suck at). Sure, you can emulate basic behaviour in a pre-define environment, but try making a system that can differentiate a food source the 'rat' may never have seen before based on sight and smell in an environment that it's never been in.
Open Your Mind. Open Your Source.
believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain."
It would be satisfying to resurrect the consciousness of people in the past that you hate, and beat the living @&#%! out of them. The guy who invented neckties and the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard layout come to mind. Put them in Doom and blast 'em up.
Table-ized A.I.
When computer intelligence can give a convincing argument for doing so.
"I think, therefore I [ERROR: conscience.DLL missing. Program Aborted]
Table-ized A.I.
Not to be a doubting Thomas but I think that they are underestimating the complexity of a brain. There are many different chemicals and biochemical reactions going on in the body, that science has only a vague idea of their mechanisms. Look at any drug in the market, most of them only give conjecture on why they work. My feeling is that until one day when we can create computer models that reliable predict the effects of drugs in the brain or in the body in general, these models are nowhere near what real brains are. But I would also love to be proven wrong.
This is where real machine intelligence will come from.
Imagine simulating a human brain, but then incorporating an interface with software that enhances its functionality - from super-fast arithmetic to image output - the results would be incredible.
Amnesty International
Consider that blacks only got the vote in USA in the last 50 years.
You might want to take a refresher course in US History and stimulate those neurons between the Civil War and Civil Rights.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
"and finally, a human brain."
Why stop there?
Pare it down enough, and it might begin posting on Slashdot!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's amazing how some people want the computing resources to simulate a rat's brain but still can't simulate a honeybee's brain and the resultant behavioral complexity. After all, a bee's brain has only about a million neurons. It could probably be done on a desktop machine and yet, a bee's behavior is amazingly sophisticated. Is it me or does it seem that some people have no clue as to what constitutes intelligence and would rather spend the taxpayer's money on what can only be qualified as useless goals?
Would it not be much better to implement a downsized version of the human brain (with all the various cortices) and see if it can learn and adapt to the environment? But then again, that would be too much to ask since Markram et al don't have an overall theory of brain operation. It's better to keep your sights as high as possible and have an excuse as to why your artificial brain or cortical column is no more intelligent than a flea: you always need faster and more expensive computers. And more funding. Yeah.
Yet no doubt when a competent emulation of a bird brain exists and is observed flying around, you will raise the bar again. Not long ago recognizing natural speech was offered as you offer the test of flight. We have since moved the bar because our inexpensive, portable, battery powered cell phones now understand the simple noises we make with accuracy approaching our own. Bipedal walking, land navigation, chess and facial recognition are more examples of tests offered that once solved, for some reason, no longer count.
Consider this; we're having to move the bar with greater frequency all the time. At what point does the realization occur that the problem of thought is finite and solvable? I believe that very soon we will have at least parity between ourselves and our machines. Not because the machines are tremendously powerful, but because we're not.
The count of neurons (100G+) and synapses (up to 10K per neuron) is well known. The switching speed of this finite set of electrical and chemical circuits is measured in (comparatively slow) milliseconds. Our brains run on a couple calories a minute and operate at approximately body temperature. In contrast to the infinite supply of uniform opinions offered here that effectively assert that the brain is too elaborate for it's own comprehension, there simply isn't enough space or energy involved to convince me that the brain is some unapproachably complex enigma forever beyond our capacity to emulate.
Every new milestone passed only reinforces my belief, regardless of how fast you raise the bar.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Consider the question in different terms.
If we get a computer to behave or think like a rat, should a rat get the same rights of protection that a computer does...
I think its important to keep in mind that humans (and any other organic life) are a mind and a body, its a deep philosophical question to consider if a brain can be a mind without a body, and it is the human mind that we value, not just the brain, hardware is useless without software.
I think it would be more useful to talk about human behavior models rather than artificial agents (or artificial intelligence)
I'm pretty sure he was making casual reference to this.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Dolphins?
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Wow, these scientists really were shooting for the stars. Why not start small, like say the brain of a GOP presidential candidate or that of a Britney Spears fan?
You're right, but black people did lose the vote again after the Civil War and only got it back less than 50 years ago.
No, they didn't. There were various schemes like the Poll Tax, which was outlawed by the 24th Amendment in 1964, but they were used mostly in the southern states and while primarily aimed at blacks were also written so they encompassed poor whites and virtually all immigrants. In general measures like these threw up roadblocks to voting but could not explicitly disenfranchise any group due to the 15th Amendment.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
I think your critique is woefully out of date. You are correct if you limit the neural network to the basic neural network models of decades past. From what I've seen at conferences in the HPC world lately, the more recent models do more than just use capacity to increase the size and connectivity of the network, but take into account more realistic physical models such as the electrical properties of the brain and mechanisms by which signals propagate both within neurons and across synapses. You're not looking at just a bigger back propagation network with sigmoid nonlinearities here -- the neural modeling world has moved far beyond that, in part due to increased interest and participation of neuroscientists. Unfortunately, most CS folks fail to learn much about the current state of the art beyond the basics such as the material from Simon Haykin's text (which, mind you, is pretty good).
This could turn out to be a way to figure out some of the great blockbuster philosophical problems that puzzle and infuriate anybody who has not read Oolon Colluphid.
If the scientists built an entire human brain they will presumably fail to install such things as Free Will - A concept which philosophers still argue is logically possible.
Will this prove that Free Will does not exist?
Or will it simply be impossible to detect?
For a sort of example of this remember William Gibson's consideration of this in his book "Neuromancer".
In that passage the mind of the hacker Case has been trapped inside a massive artificial intelligence where he improbably finds his lost girlfriend and a young boy, the manifestation of the AI known as Neuromancer on a beach.
"And here things could be counted, each one. He knew the
number of grains of sand in the construct of the beach (a number
coded in a mathematical system that existed nowhere outside
the mind that was Neuromancer). He knew the number of
yellow food packets in the canisters in the bunker (four hundred
and seven). He knew the number of brass teeth in the left half
of the open zipper of the salt-crusted leather jacket that Linda
Lee wore as she trudged along the sunset beach, swinging a
stick of driftwood in her hand (two hundred and two).
He banked Kuang above the beach and swung the program
in a wide circle, seeing the black shark thing through her eyes,
a silent ghost hungry against the banks of lowering cloud. She
cringed, dropping her stick, and ran. He knew the rate of her
pulse, the length of her stride in measurements that would have
satisfied the most exacting standards of geophysics.
"But you do not know her thoughts," the boy said, beside
him now in the shark thing's heart. "I do not know her thoughts.
You were wrong, Case. To live here is to live. There is no
difference."
Linda in her panic, plunging blind through the surf.
"Stop her," he said, "she'll hurt herself."
"I can't stop her," the boy said, his gray eyes mild and
beautiful."
Your body is destroyed and a copy of you comes out the other end, thinking that it's the original ... which makes it me, the original, for all purposes.
it's in my head
There are much more efficient ways to use silicon than building microprocessors... say, a 1-million-neuron mixed-mode simulator that can be chained to take real-time input from an artificial retina or other neural input. From the site: "When it is completed in 2008, Neurogrid will emulate a million neurons in the cortex in real-time, rivaling the performance of two-hundred Blue Gene racks - at under a thousandth the cost."
Couple that cost reduction with power consumption orders of magnitude lower than other solutions, and you've got some serious potential.
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!