Supercomputer Simulates Human Visual System

An anonymous reader writes "What cool things can be done with the 100,000+ cores of the first petaflop supercomputer, the Roadrunner, that were impossible to do before? Because our brain is massively parallel, with a relatively small amount of communication over long distances, and is made of unreliable, imprecise components, it's quite easy to simulate large chunks of it on supercomputers. The Roadrunner has been up only for about a week, and researchers from Los Alamos National Lab are already reporting inaugural simulations of the human visual system, aiming to produce a machine that can see and interpret as well as a human. After examining the results, the researchers 'believe they can study in real time the entire human visual cortex.' How long until we can simulate the entire brain?"

Comments

New goal...

[dahitokiri]

Perhaps the goal should be to make the visual system BETTER than ours?

Re:New goal...

[CodeBuster]

You do realize that such an ocular system, which undoubtedly works well for the limited needs of the shrimp, may have accompanying disadvantages for complex land based life forms such as humans. The human vision system while not optimized for certain specialized uses, such as the aforementioned shrimp, is never the less a very decent general purpose system that has served our species well for eons. It is likely that our current system of vision, especially when compared to the possible trade-offs for increased capabilities (less general intelligence capabilities as more of the brain and nervous system is devoted to complex autonomous image processing for example), is fairly close to optimal given the other constraints of our bodies. Besides, for those situations where a particular aptitude is useful but not always desirable, night vision for example, human intelligence has allowed us to construct external enhancement devices that we can turn on or off at will. Animals which have developed night vision naturally as part of a nocturnal lifestyle cannot turn that feature on or off at will and thus are at a disadvantage during the daytime whereas humans are more generally adaptable. It is fairly clear that innate intelligence is among the very best, if not the best, of the natural abilities that have developed under evolutionary pressure. How else to explain why humans have dominated the earth and essentially escaped the natural system that once controlled them?

Re:New goal...

[thanatos_x]

There's little doubt that innate intelligence can overcome brute force, but the incredibly crucial part is the ability to build upon previous generations work and to work collaboratively.

Termite and ant colonies are examples of this. There was a group of scientists who injected a mound with concrete, and when they excavated it, the inner area was dozens of cubic meters. Large nests can protrude 9 meters above the surface while the underground area can extend 25 meters. The nests are climate controlled, including ventilation and are somehow protected against rain.

All this from an insect that few would call intelligent. Compared to the relative size it dwarfs all but the largest cities man has built. General intelligence is nice, but even if we had 10 times the processing power of our current brains, but had to learn everything from scratch each time, I doubt anyone would ever get past the iron age. There is only so much one can do with a lifetime.

Also humans don't have a great deal of general intelligence it seems. There is a great deal of our brains dedicated to social interactions and emotions. If we ran with a simpler set of social interactions, I have no doubt the average human would make Einstein look like an idiot regarding physics. Some evidence of this can be found in individuals with certain mental 'defects', like autism, which are able to master a task well beyond what most other humans can hope to, even with intense effort.

Finally... it really depends on what you mean by control. Vermin and bacteria spring to mind as creatures that exist nearly everywhere, despite our best efforts to eliminate many of them. Yes, we thrive with the most purpose and with the fastest increases (hence the idea of a singularity), but we are not the only species to thrive on this planet.

The Singluarity is Near

[Richard.Tao]

It's nice to see progress is being made. It's scary how accurate Ray Kurzwiel's predictions seem to be, he said that by early 2010 we'll have simulated a human brain. (he's a technological analyst and author of "The Singularity is Near"). Todays desktops are faster then the super computers of the 90's. I can't wait till I'm able to get a laptop smarter then me in every way (queue joke about how stupid I am), that'll be a cool time to live in. Seems it's only a matter of decades away. Probably 20 years.

Re:The Singluarity is Near

[4D6963]

It's nice to see progress is being made. It's scary how accurate Ray Kurzwiel's predictions seem to be, he said that by early 2010 we'll have simulated a human brain. (he's a technological analyst and author of "The Singularity is Near"). Todays desktops are faster then the super computers of the 90's. I can't wait till I'm able to get a laptop smarter then me in every way (queue joke about how stupid I am), that'll be a cool time to live in. Seems it's only a matter of decades away. Probably 20 years.

OMG a super computer! It's so powerful it can probably pop up a consciousness of its own!

Sarcasm aside, computer power and strong AI are two very distinct problems. Computer power is all about scaling up power so you can do more in less time, that doesn't allow you to do anything new, only the same things except faster. Strong AI is all about algorithms, and nobody can tell if such algorithms exist. And anyone who talks about human-like strong AI is a crackpot (Kurzwiel is a crackpot to me for his wacky predictions), as we have yet to see a bug-like strong AI, and if it was just a problem of power we'd already have something working in that field.