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Towards Artificial Consciousness
jzoom555 writes "In an interview with Discover Magazine, Gerald Edelman, Nobel laureate and founder/director of The Neurosciences Institute, discusses the quality of consciousness and progress in building brain-based-devices. His lab recently published details on a brain model that is self-sustaining and 'has beta waves and gamma waves just like the regular cortex.'" Edelman's latest BBD contains a million simulated neurons and almost half a billion synapses, and is modeled on a cat's brain.
Eugene Izhikevitch [a mathematician at the Neurosciences Institute] and I have made a model with a million simulated neurons and almost half a billion synapses, all connected through neuronal anatomy equivalent to that of a cat brain. What we find, to our delight, is that it has intrinsic activity. Up until now our BBDs had activity only when they confronted the world, when they saw input signals. In between signals, they went dark. But this damn thing now fires on its own continually. The second thing is, it has beta waves and gamma waves just like the regular cortexâ"what you would see if you did an electroencephalogram. Third of all, it has a rest state. That is, when you donâ(TM)t stimulate it, the whole population of neurons stray back and forth, as has been described by scientists in human beings who arenâ(TM)t thinking of anything.
SKYCAT became self-aware on August 29th, 2009.
The best method we have at this point is a Turning Test.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
... if they use Pentiums, Schrodinger might finally know if the cat is alive or dead.
A cats brain? Its as if he is deliberately trying to enslave humanity.
So, if processing power doubles every 2 years, this should realistically take about 35 years to accomplish. Which means we may have artificial human level intelligences before I retire. Perfect, now I can have a care taker that doesn't get fed up with me when I can't pour his coffee because I have parkinsons.
except if the artificial intelligence is human-level then it will probably still get fed up with you
bite my glorious golden ass.
cool! Soon it will evolve to the point where it will ignore its owner and never make up its mind whether it wants to be inside or out.
Remember, computers are currently our tools. If we give them consciousness, would we then be treating them as slaves?
McDonald's employees have consciousness. How do we treat them?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
"How is this possible? I cannot even think how one would test this with another human"
One method they use is to put the virtual brain into a virtual body and watch what it does in virtual world. Personally I would like to see them install it on honda/sony robots and have them fight each other with cattle prods.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"If its will is to enjoy and prefer to care for the elderly"
Kepp your machine away from me, I have a deal with my adult daughter that when the time comes she can put me in a home provided it has a cute nurse doing the sponge baths.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"Hey Robot! Sudo can you fix me some coffee"
If this proto-type-AI-dude gets out of control. Plug him into the Internet and he'll be experiencing Information overflow, and with some luck stuck revisiting p0nR-movies in a loop...
I doubt they have already taught it to filter out what is relevant information and what is not.
"Anonymous Coward is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported."
Tester: So, uh, how do you feel? SKYCAT: Meow. Tester: Hey guys, I don't think this is going to work.