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DARPA's IBM-Led Neural Network Project Seeks To Imitate Brain
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article in the BBC, IBM will lead an ambitious DARPA-funded project in 'cognitive computing.' According to Dharmendra Modha, the lead scientist on the project, '[t]he key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain.' The article continues, 'IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integrate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do. The longer-term goal is to create a system with the level of complexity of a cat's brain.'"
Can a universal turing machine limitedly investigate another universal turing machine and detect halts and infinite loops? I can.
We can look at gunk like
10 Print "Hello"
20 goto 10
Yeah, that's a loop. But we can also look at graphs of y = sin(x) and understand why it repeats. I can also detect patterns and iterations that most likely go for infinity, else find a hole where the assumption falls apart. Last I checked, the computer cannot do that. Not yet, at least.
The backup possibilities are also intriguing.
Actually organic brains in chips would have massive advantages over organic brains in meatspace. They could control other bodies, which are smaller, or stronger. They could be backed up, making them effectively indestructible.
Need a third arm ? Why not have it installed, 50% off this week !
Need to put down a building ? Why not hire this crane-like body that effortlessly lifts 5 tons.
Need to fly ? No problem !
That crawlspace with all those important network cables too small for you ? Well here's a smaller body.
Can't reach in there ? Can't see what you're doing in small space ? Why not have a special-purpose arm installed with a camera inside.
Want to colonize mars ? Bit of a downer not being able to breathe 99% of the way ? Why not turn yourself off ?
Colonize alpha centauri or even further ? No problem.
What this would enable "us" to do is to design new intelligent species to specifications. It would remove all limits that are not inherent to intelligence but are inherent in our bodies. There's quite a few limits like that ...
Hopefully you'll work on your writing skills before sending the application away. Few universities admit illiterates.
You might be surprised...
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot" covers this (in a manner of speaking) in the final chapter. More precisely, the self-aware robots that control the world's economy do everything they can to simultaneously preserve their positions as advisers to the human race while dispensing the best advice possible for the continued peace and prosperity of humanity.
Do note, however, that in the continued Asimov universe, mankind really didn't explode out into space until he disposed of the "robotic overlords". Those few cultures ['Spacers'] who held on to their robots slowly stagnated and died off.
Asimov's self-aware robots were never the violent, conquering overlords seen in many other sources of fiction (Terminator, Matrix), nor were they really human-equals (Star Wars, Star Trek), but were rather a crutch for mankind that man needed to discard to truly progress.
Also, please note that I am willfully ignoring anything in the Foundation Universe not written by Asimov, as well as Asimov's last book "Foundation and Earth", for reasons that anyone who has read it will clearly understand.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Not really. Unless it is sentient and is able to control it's patterns of thought in certain ways, it will not be capable of addressing the same lines of creativity no matter how "fast" the algorithm runs or how detached it is from other chores. There will be a set of functions that will lie outside its ability. Cats may be aware of themselves at a very primitive level, but reflecting on their own thoughts (which is crucial) seems a little far fetched. Certain apes, maybe. Or Dolphins. Heck, even they may be restricted somewhat in the reflective/understanding scheme of things. The topic is still shrouded in mystery.
Also realize that a major problem with this sentience business is how to keep it going. Lots of sci-fi (and academic) work work simply ignores the fact that a lot of what we do is fueled by emotions. It is quite possible that a sentient being without emotional drive could just stop thinking, or keep thinking the same things, even if you instill a memory in it. Why would it want to consider its environment, or humans controlling it, or the world, or any other concept? We may be able to think 'purely' sitting in an office, concentrating on some idea, but the necessities of life are what got us there to begin with, as well as some pleasure or desire to to obtain some knowledge..etc. If we didn't have that, if we didn't want to live because of all the drives we've evolved, I assure you suicide rates would hit the roof, and very little of what we can come up with/understand/achieve would have been as is. It's hard to replicate that in a machine.