Artificial Synapse Created For Synthetic Brain

Zothecula writes "It's probably still going to be a while before autonomous, self-aware androids are wandering amongst us. That scenario has come a little closer to reality, however, with researchers from the University of Southern California having created a functioning synapse circuit using carbon nanotubes. An artificial version of the connections that allow electrical impulses to pass between neurons in our brains, the circuit could someday be one component of a synthetic brain."

Comments

Whatever you say

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's probably still going to be a while before autonomous, self-aware androids are wandering amongst us.

Sure, that's what they'd like us to believe, anyway...

(crap - forgot to post this anonymously!)

Re:Whatever you say

[symbolset]

The worry isn't in the hardware.

Re:Whatever you say

[camperslo]

The Androids would most likely be upset with software patents, a stifling inhuman rights abuse.

Re:Whatever you say

[treeves]

He doesn't have one, he IS one. Big difference.

"prosthetic nanotechnology"

[WizardMarnok]

nevermind fixing brain trauma, I want a brain expansion just to upgrade my intelligence and functionality. Where is my exobrain? I don't want to wait another 30 years.

Re:"prosthetic nanotechnology"

[WizardMarnok]

But I need one I can CONTROL, dammit!

Re:"prosthetic nanotechnology"

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Hello, Borg.

[scottbomb]

I dread to think of all the unintended consequences resulting from this nonsense. As the old saying goes, "just because something CAN be done, doesn't mean it SHOULD be done." This is definitely not a smart thing to do.

Re:Hello, Borg.

[Anonymous Coward]

God, Schmod! I want my monkey-man!

Re:Hello, Borg.

[interkin3tic]

I dread to think of all the unintended consequences resulting from this nonsense.

So instead you skipped right to the most absurd... borg. Skipped right over accidental contamination of workers and the environment, cancer, poisoning... took for granted that AI will be invented right around the corner... assumed sentient androids hellbent on the destruction of the human race was next.

Amazing how many luddites and technophobes are cruising around on slashdot. I'm assuming they're trying to get to Amish slashdot, using stone and straw computer boxes, because, you know, skynet.

Re:Hello, Borg.

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

Thank heavens your kind are in the minority. All you ever see is the negative. You would do well in the Vatican...

Re:Hello, Borg.

[GameboyRMH]

At least they would have a natural aversion for religious/superstitious delusions.

QT-1 would disagree...

Re:Hello, Borg.

[conspirator57]

i missed it: where did the GP say 'God'? Maybe he's worried about Skynet. Now who's the troll?

Self-assembly, too?

[macraig]

If these so-called synapses can't spontaneously self-assemble and inter-connect, they still have a LOT of work to do to achieve real AI. A more likely practical use for this was mentioned in another article about it: repairing damaged tissue in human brains (or perhaps deliberately "re-wire" portions to alter function).

Re:Self-assembly, too?

[Hognoxious]

For that it would need to be able to interface with plain old mark one grey matter, and there's nothing (wishes side) in the article to suggest that it can.

Until it can do that, why is this any better than simply emulating the connections with software?

Re:Self-assembly, too?

[AchilleTalon]

AI is not having anything to do with brain mimetism. You are confusing things here. The Watson computer playing Jeopardy is not a brain-like device and is somewhat near what can be called AI.

Re:Self-assembly, too?

[Talderas]

No only that, why would mimicking a human brain be a good option for an AI? Unless I'm mistaken, transistors fire a lot faster than neurons do. This would appear to be a downgrade for an AI.

But can it...

[MrQuacker]

FTA:In other words, it can take in the type of impulses generated by real neurons, and send them on in a form that could be further processed by other neurons

But does this mean that they have discovered a way to "plug in" a computer to a brain? Can these be used as an adapter to "talk" with neurons?

Re:But can it...

[OrigamiMarie]

And that quote makes me wonder about a synthetic bridge over nerve damage. Get the details right, and you have a cure for paralysis. Wow . . .

Re:But can it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more shocked why they would detract from the coolness of an analog transistor with some nonsense about it's later uses. This is really a very cool thing with lots of real-world applications TODAY (phased arrays come to mind offhand - which themselves have enormous potential in medicine, materials sciences and many other fields). Hyping up some bogus hypothesis of where it will go is so typical of these stoner journalists - get a real job!

Re:But can it...

[TheThiefMaster]

analog transistor

Transistors are analogue components.

Re:But can it...

[TheLink]

There are already plenty of existing ways to plug computers to brains. They have already been connecting animals to computers and having them play games, control robotic arms whether nearby or far far away.

The problem is doing that safely without killing too many neurons and having other long-term issues (e.g. infection). Brains are about as soft as tofu, and actually move about a bit within the skull. It is tricky to keep stuff attached to precise parts of a brain without causing severe brain damage when the person goes jogging, or gets patted on the head.

This artificial synapse doesn't seem to be about solving that problem.

Maybe they can use a flexible elastic membrane as a multipoint sensor and have some fancy way of recalculating offsets on-the-fly if the membrane shifts a bit.

Re:But can it...

[MrQuacker]

Yes, but damnit, I want us to reach the brain-in-a-jar-controls-robot stage of tech!

Re:But can it...

[golden age villain]

It's a nice feat but there is still a long way to go before this thing matches what a real synapse do.

Re:But can it...

[JuzzFunky]

"But does this mean that they have discovered a way to "plug in" a computer to a brain?"

No, well, at least not quite. To do so would require them to take a signal directly the neurons in your brain. Currently, the only way to do that at this scale is to cut open your skull and stick a whole lot of tiny electrodes in there.
What they have done is make a hardware implementation of an artificial neural network. These have been widely simulated in software, and loads of other people have done similar things. The thing that makes this project stand out is the scale - those things are tiny!

AI isn't far off

[CrazyJim1]

AI just needs to solve video cameras and laser range finders into a 3d representation. Once AI knows what is in its environment, robots can do all sorts of tasks and even understand natural language as a programming language. You can even make an AI which appears self aware by giving it desires to do different tasks, but that is kinda wreckless in my opinion. This AI isn't really that far off in the future. I know I'll be developing it when we got the software for turning environments into 3d levels. Imagine the Google cars driving down streets and instead of just taking picture, they're databasing the world for some sort of awesome MMORPG Cannonball run across continents. Imagine taking a video camera into the city and turning it into a big quake level. Once this is doable, it is going to be a race to have vision recognition of what is being looked at, who knows what player will do it? Open source I'm looking in your direction.

Re:AI isn't far off

[Anonymous Coward]

...The AI you're speaking of has a distinct lack of the I part. We can fake things along quite nicely, sure, but we're still ages away from true artificial intelligence. Slapping some cameras in front of a giant if/then/else statement ain't it.

Re:AI isn't far off

[Dachannien]

Deriving 3-d representations of the environment is mostly solved - what's needed is a way to recognize objects in the environment in an abstract fashion. There are techniques for recognizing, e.g., a specific box (one previously seen) in a complex scene, determining its 3-d position stereoscopically (no laser range finding needed), and interacting with the object robotically. What's needed is a way to classify unknown objects by abstract class, e.g., recognizing that there is a box in a scene, even though the specific box in the scene (say, something brightly decorated like a cereal box, or oddly shaped like some sort of product packaging) has never been seen before.

Re:AI isn't far off

[Neil Boekend]

You can even make an AI which appears self aware by giving it desires to do different tasks, but that is kinda wreckless in my opinion.

I prefer my AI's wreckless. If they create wrecks the autonomous vehicle projects should never go AI.

Re:AI isn't far off

[Hermanas]

robots can do all sorts of tasks and even understand natural language as a programming language

Not on their own - we'll have to endow the neurons with prior knowledge about how human language works. (The circuits for human language is ingrained into the brain at birth by our DNA; it is only by using the assumptions about language that we are born with that we are able to learn it within 2-3 years. A clump of neurons without these assumptions would find it extremely difficult to learn human language, if not impossible.)

But, if we know enough about language to give robots the necessary prior knowledge, language is completely feasible. We might even be able to achieve similar results with an evolutionary algorithm, that mimics the way language evolved in humans - though that might also be difficult without prior knowledge.

Re:AI isn't far off

[Troed]

... your post has a distinct lack of the I part. You can fake things along quite nicely, sure, but you're still ages away from true artificial intelligence. Slapping some words up on a giant screen ain't it.

(that is: We consider things to be magic^H^H^H^H^Hintelligent as long as we don't understand how they work. As soon as we do, we shift the threshold for what's magic^H^H^H^H^Hintelligence to what we don't, yet, understand)

Re:AI isn't far off

[Troed]

The circuits for human language is ingrained into the brain at birth by our DNA

I'd love to read more about that.

Re:AI isn't far off

[Theotherguy_1]

You're simultaneously overestimating and underestimating the state of computer vision. It's really kind of cute. It's actually very easy to make a 3D model of the world from sensor data now using a variety of simple, fast methods. The difficult part is perceiving what this data IS!

As a researcher in AI and robotics, I can assure you that we're a very, very long way off from having artificial intelligence which is even close to functioning autonomously in a human environment. I'd put the level of understanding and sophistication of current AI algorithms at about the level of a fly, or perhaps a cockroach if we wish to flatter ourselves. I think the closest we are to commonplace autonomous robotics is having autonomous cars, but even that has significant hurdles to overcome before it becomes commonplace (the typical $1,500,000 price of the sensors, for instance).

Re:AI isn't far off

[Scottingham]

"The circuits for human language is ingrained into the brain at birth by our DNA"

I would disagree and say it's more the function of mirror neurons versus any specific 'language only' neurons. Brain damage due to stroke or brain tumors show that the language centers of the brain can actually move around, suggesting that where the language centers are currently is not inherent to its function.

Re:AI isn't far off

[InsertCleverUsername]

I know I'll be developing it when we got the software for turning environments into 3d levels. Imagine the Google cars driving down streets and instead of just taking picture, they're databasing the world for some sort of awesome MMORPG Cannonball run across continents. Imagine taking a video camera into the city and turning it into a big quake level.

It's easy to imagine when it's already being done: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/24/1710210/Kinect-Hack-Builds-3D-Maps-of-the-Real-World

Like Gibson said, "The future is already here --it's just not very evenly distributed."

Re:AI isn't far off

[Troed]

For very simple definitions of "circuits", yes, maybe the GP could be considered correct. That wasn't what I thought was claimed :)

Re:AI isn't far off

[conspirator57]

i c wat u did thar.

Re:AI isn't far off

[amRadioHed]

What sort of sensors do autonomous cars require that would cost $1,500,000? That seems like a far fetched number considering these days you get phones with several camera's, gyroscopes, compasses and GPS for only a few hundred dollars. What else do the cars need?

Re:AI isn't far off

[Theotherguy_1]

I'm exaggerating only slightly, there should be one less zero there. Sensors for robotics cost an absurd amount of money. Velodyne lidars, for instance, cost $30,000 each. Infrared range cameras cost between 5 and 10 thousand dollars. Typical high speed stereoscopic navigational cameras typically cost about $3,000 each. 45 degree laser range finders typically cost a few thousand dollars as well. The computer we put on board the robot for the grand challenge cost $11,000, and so on and so on.

Great!

[Black Parrot]

All we need is about a quadrillion of them for a brain.

Can they get back to us with a time & cost estimate?

Re:Great!

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

All we need is about a quadrillion of them for a brain.

Maybe if we only used half or may be a third of that?

The first AI capable of acting as a CEO is still an achievement.

Re:Great!

[interkin3tic]

All we need is about a quadrillion of them for a brain.

Who wants to make brains out of these? I'm guessing not the researchers, since we can already make brains the natural way, and there's little advantage that I could see to making one synthetically.

Re:Great!

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

5 to 10 years, as always.

Re:Great!

[GameboyRMH]

There's already an investment firm in New York run by a program (I think the program was called Stella? Can't find a source now, I think it was either on Wired or CNN).

Quick learning like in "The Matrix"

[joesteeve]

Yes yes, I am jumping at the same thing :) I want 'the matrix' style 'quick learning'.. NOW NOW NOW :)

Re:Quick learning like in "The Matrix"

[GameboyRMH]

Quick Learning can wait. Load up Woman in Red please :D

Re:Quick learning like in "The Matrix"

[joesteeve]

Oh yeah.. I agree. 'quick learning' can wait.. :D

Re:I know it's a trifle but...

[VoidCrow]

pfft.

Some details from the paper

[kyle5t]

"Although there are a multitude of variations in synapses, we have modeled a typical cortical synapse. Action potentials, the signals from other neurons that arrive at the synapses are about a millisecond in duration and about 100 mV in amplitude. Under certain conditions, the synapse responds with an output potential of around 5-10 mV that lasts around 10 ms. Thus the synapse slows and spreads the effect of the action potential, synchronizing its effect with other action potentials, since not all action potentials arriving at the postsynaptic neuron will arrive simultaneously...The resulting postsynaptic potentials produced by many synapses combine to create enough potential (voltage) for the postsynaptic neuron to generate an action potential and fire."

I think the same thing could be achieved with just an RC filter. If I'm following this correctly, the difference here is a "demonstrated variation in synaptic strength, a key neural mechanism associated with memory and learning." Things will really start to get interesting when something like this circuit can be made that is also capable of amplification. That would be a complete artificial neuron.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5754178

Re:Some details from the paper

[VortexCortex]

"Although [we have an incomplete brain model description]."

I think the same thing could be achieved with just an RC filter. If I'm following this correctly, the difference here is a "demonstrated variation in synaptic strength, a key neural mechanism associated with memory and learning." Things will really start to get interesting when something like this circuit can be made that is also capable of amplification. That would be a complete artificial neuron.

Perhaps, but the model would still be wrong -- They're still fundamentally doing it wrong.

Brain waves form magnetic eddy currents which induce currents in near-by neurons that are NOT EVEN CONNECTED to each other.

This is where almost all AI research gets the brain wrong... The neuron connections are only part of the brain -- Actual thought is carried along the connections as well as in neurons that are physically close to each other (and to a lesser degree the neurons they are attached to).

There are so many papers on the therapeutic use of magnetic induction on the human brain, I see it as a failure that this subject is largely ignored by AI network design.

Article could use a fact-checker

[interactive_civilian]

From TFA:

"This is a necessary first step in the process," said Parker. "We wanted to answer the question: Can you build a circuit that would act like a neuron? The next step is even more complex. How can we build structures out of these circuits that mimic the neuron, and eventually the function of the brain, which has 100 billion neurons and 10,000 synapses?"

Uhhh... That number of synapses is off by about 10 orders of magnitude. I assume the number of synapses was meant to be a "per neuron" number, but that's a pretty glaring thing to leave out of that sentence. :-/

Re:Article could use a fact-checker

[JTsyo]

Also a study has shown that neurons also have a "wireless mode" in which information is passed via a electric field. I'll try to find the link.

Re:Article could use a fact-checker

[Hieronymus Cowturd]

Yeah, I remember this coming up before. A poster in that thread mentioned an instance where algorithmic circuit optimization produced a design that utilised the magnetic field generated by its components in its operation. Optimising neural networks using such techniques may yeild similar results (field strength notwithstanding).

Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

23 years since Penrose pointed out that the Strong AI proponents were wearing no clothes and still we're getting articles about their latest catwalk

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[amRadioHed]

I didn't find the arguments in that book very convincing at all.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

The argument is pretty simple. Every computer is a Turing machine. All Turing machines are essentially alike. Building faster computers is not going to bring about Strong AI.

If you think your brain is a Turing machine fine, I don't think mine is.

Strong AI needs something we haven't discovered yet, that something will probably explain our sense of consciousness too. It is probably some aspect of Physics that we don't understand yet. Penrose speculates about this for which he has been ridiculed but his basic argument that we are not Turing machines is sound and doesn't rely on his speculations.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[treeves]

"his basic argument that we are not Turing machines is sound"

Really? What is the argument? It needs to be more than just the assertion "I don't think my brain is a Turing machine."
I'd like to believe it is not, but I don't have an argument that it is not.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[urusan]

Here's an argument in favor of the brain being a Turing machine (or lower class of machine):
1. Any system that is not a Turing machine or emulatable on a Turing machine will be capable of hypercomputation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercomputation and will therefore be capable of being fashioned into a hypercomputer.
2. A hypercomputer can solve undecidable problems such as the halting problem and almost certainly can solve any decidable problem in a tractable timeframe.
3. Despite millennia of observation, the brain has not been observed to be capable of hypercomputation, such as the above.
4. Therefore the brain is almost certainly a Turing machine (or lower class of machine, such as a DFA).

I see only three possibilities:
1. The brain is a Turing machine or lower class of machine.
2. In the future we will discover how to do hypercomputation with our brains and become mental demigods.
3. The brain is not a system. It's some sort of metaphysical nonesense (I mean it literally doesn't make logical sense, it's mystical) and science will one day have to throw up its hands and give up on understanding it.

My money is on possibility one. If so, strong AI is definitely possible. In the worst case we simply copy the human brain directly, but I think it will be more flexible than that.

By the way, a similar argument can be extended to the entire universe. We haven't observed hypercomputation in nature at all and if we ever do we'll be able to exploit it.

If you know of an example of observed hypercomputation I'd love to hear about it. I want to build my own hypercomputer.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

How do you justify :

1. Any system that is not a Turing machine or emulatable on a Turing machine will be capable of hypercomputation?

That's a ridiculous statement therefore your argument is nonsense.

Certainly a system capable of hypercomputation would not be emulatable on a Turing machine (by definition if I understand the idea - I've only skimmed your link) but it doesn't mean that any system that is not a Turing machine is going to be capable of hypercomputation.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[amRadioHed]

I don't see any reason to believe my brain isn't a Turing machine. Why do you think yours is not?

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

Guess I believe in Free Will and you don't.

If you're right then I have no choice but to be wrong anyway.

If I'm right, you are just plain wrong with no excuses.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[urusan]

It's true that not every system that is not a Turing machine is capable of hypercomputation, because lower classes of machine exist...as do "better" machines that end up falling into the same class as Turing machines (which includes things like present day quantum computers). However, these machines are all equivalent to a Turing machine due to the Church-Turing thesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church-turing_thesis (The "better" machines are just faster.) Therefore they are all capable of being run on computers...unless they involve hypercomputation or are not systematic at all.

Actually, going over the Church-Turing thesis article reminded me of three things:
1. It's possible that the Church-Turing thesis is wrong, as it is not a theorem but an extremely well supported hypothesis. In that case, my argument does indeed fall flat.
2. It looks like Penrose was arguing that our brains use hypercomputation, so he was taking this all into consideration.
3. It is mentioned that there could be possibly be systems that involve hypercomputation that we can't take advantage of. I doubt this is the case, but I suppose it is possible. However, if this is the case then it does not bode well for the brain being in a higher class than a computer, because it would be a hypercomputer in a universe where those aren't allowed.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

I'm perfectly willing to admit that if we do not have free will then the brain is a Turing machine.

I happen to believe in free will though, in fact I think it takes an amazing self deception to pretend that you don't believe in free will, although as I stated before, if indeed there is no free will then we are both simply arguing because we have no choice in the matter.

There is no room in the laws of Physics as formulated at the moment for free will. I think therefore there is something missing, that that missing part probably explains consciousness and intelligence, and that therefore until we incorporate it into out attempts at Artificial Intelligence, those attempts will fail. I'm not some religious nut by the way, and I do believe we will eventually create true AI I just think we're not going to do it by simply ramping up our current hardware and designing better software.

Do you believe in Free Will? If so how do you explain it, if not why not? I've just read the Moral Landscape by Sam Harris and there is a section in there where he states the case against free will as well as I've seen anywhere. I still found it the least convincing part of the book though. I cannot understand how anyone can believe that everything is predestined inclusing their own thoughts. That said I cannot understand how anyone can believe in any of the religions and yet they clearly do.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[urusan]

I don't believe in free will the same way you do. I do have a useful conception of free will, but it's not the same as yours.

The basic problem with your argument is that you are taking free will on faith. This is fine if you're willing to accept other things on faith, but you don't seem to be that kind of person.

Let's assume free will exists and that we can rationally analyze it (that is, it is a system). How could free will work?

Let's say that after years of study we have put together a scientific theory of free will. Well, we should be able to use this theory to make predictions about free will...but this defeats the purpose of free will doesn't it?

Now, it might be that this theory is stochastic so we can't absolutely determine what you will do next. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic However, is this really any better? Instead of your actions being determined by your current state, they are determined by your current state AND a random roll of the dice. You're still not really in control of your destiny...the random elements described in the theory are.

There's a contradiction here. Free will can't be both exist and be systematic. Therefore, one of those must be false...either there is no free will or free will is not systematic (and therefore not understandable by science, so it must be spiritual or something along those lines).

I'm not willing to give up on science so easily, so I believe that the answer is that true free will does not exist. Our actions are determined by the rules of the universe, our previous state, and possibly by random microscopic physical elements.

That said, free will is not a useless concept. There's two areas where it makes sense.

Free will is a useful conception for everyday life, even if it is not absolutely true. Think of it as a rule of thumb that works well while ignoring finer details. In particular, it helps one avoid developing an external locus of control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control This is important because one's decisions really do matter, even if they are pre-determined. A student who works hard to get good grades will generally benefit in the long run regardless of how they came to that decision. Someone who uses determinism to justify bad decisions is just looking for an excuse to avoid the consequences of their actions.

Additionally, free will rings true to some extent even in a completely deterministic system. There are four classes of computable deterministic systems: static, repetitive, chaotic, and complex. If human minds are deterministic then they are complex systems. An interesting property of complex systems is that they are incompressible. You can compress orderly systems into a simple mathematical form that determines their state at a given time absolutely. You can compress chaotic systems into a probabilistic form that determines their behavior at a high level. You cannot do that to a complex system. The only way to perfectly predict a complex system's behavior is to create an exact replica of it and watch what happens. So in a sense complex systems have "free will" because their behavior cannot be practically predicted beforehand. If you'd like to know more, look up Stephen Wolfram and his book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_new_kind_of_science

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

and therefore not understandable by science, so it must be spiritual or something along those lines

I know when someone says 'trust me' that it invariably means they are a snake oil salesman ( or an omega 3 fish Birds Eye oil salesman) but trust me I'm no spiritualist.

You however say that you do not believe in Free Will. I think that that is a truly fundamentalist stance and I would say that if Ocham was still alive, your idea that everything was set in stone would not pass his test, simply because his test would therefore be pointless.

Free will is a useful conception for everyday life, even if it is not absolutely true.

If you believe that, why are you bothering to argue? If you have no free will you have no point. You must surely agree with me on that. No free will means this argument is pointless.What do you mean by 'absolutely'. Either you have Free Will or you don't. I'm betting you live your life as if you have. Whilst that doesn't prove you do have free will it surely makes you either pointless or a hypocrite.

I'm a little drunk now after the royal wedding, I'd love to continue this discussion though, I have a throw away address at richpegemail-at-gmail.com but if you have the inclination (who knows if you do or don't - it's in the stars according to you) replying here is easier.

I've had a similar argument to this, although you've put the case better, with a friend before and I still do not believe that he believe's he has no free will. It seems to me that believing in determinism is an act of faith pretty much up there with the 70 virgins waiting to greet you with the grapes.

I'd love to continue this argument more slowly and more soberly though. Possibly a bit like chess, if you're not a nut, you can compete if you slow things down, I think you'll run me over if I don't take more time.

I'm a theoretical republican by the way who would love to get rid of the royal family but hates the idea of almost anyone else being our head of state. We might get a Donald Trump equivalent for fucks sake. I shall now go to bed and sleep off the wine :)

God save the Queen :)

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[urusan]

You are drunk and it shows. It's probably a good idea to sleep it off and resume when you're sober.

I'd like to continue here on Slashdot as long as we can, but when the article gets archived I'll contact you at that address if we're still arguing. Don't worry about hurrying.

I'd like to point out here that you haven't really attempted to address my main argument about free will. If we can understand true free will then it is not really "free". Therefore it either must not exist or it must be a non-understandable phenomena (that is, non-scientific). Unless this argument can be overturned, those are the only two options. Tell me how understandable free will is possible.

A few things about what you said here:
Occam's razor is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast rule. You can't prove anything with it. You can only suggest that one explanation is better than another equivalent explanation. In fact, all else being equal Occam's razor would generally support a free will-less explanation over a free will-full explanation...adding free will to the mix when things can be explained without it would generally increase the number of assumptions being made. Additionally, Ockham would probably be aghast at both of us, him being a medieval theologian and all.

What is meaning? How do things acquire meaning? Do things need to have meaning? These are very difficult philosophical questions and frankly it's hard to get people to agree on what a term like "meaning" means...

In my opinion, meaning is acquired through the relationships between things. Imagine a separate universe where there is nothing but a single muffin floating endlessly through an infinite expanse of empty space. This universe is largely devoid of meaning...the muffin doesn't have a story, it's always been there and always will be. There's no other objects for it to be near, and even the universe that contains it doesn't have edges for the muffin to run into eventually. Any given time frame will be essentially identical to all the others. Of course, by imagining this universe you are giving meaning to it by creating it in your head...but we should imagine that it wasn't created in our heads, but rather that it just exists out there on a lonely plane of existence for no reason.

However, take that same muffin and put it on my desk and suddenly it is dripping with meaning. It was baked a few hours ago by my mother for the purpose of delivering delicious delicious calories to my body so I can continue to live and write responses to online philosophical arguments (actually, I'm making this up, though I want a muffin now). All the energy and matter that went into the muffin had a backstory and will have a continuing story afterwards. It is related to everything in the whole universe at this very moment. The whole muffin vibrates with meaning as it moves towards fulfilling its purpose...a human-created purpose.

Actually, the really crazy thing is that it's impossible to avoid meaning. Even a completely empty lonely universe is related...to itself. This is where things get really maddening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop

This argument has a point. I want to convince you and anyone else who reads it that free will is either non-understandable or false and that the brain is probably a Turing machine equivalent (and therefore AI is do-able using the same kind of technology we have today)...because I believe these things to be true at the moment and I'd like to hear other people's arguments so I can improve my own argument or even change my mind if I realize I'm wrong. It doesn't matter whether this came about due to me exercising my free will or due to me being predestined to do so, either way it is meaningful...it is not pointless.

As for my use of "not absolutely true", I mean it in the same way that Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is "not absolutely true". It's not true, but it's close enough to the truth to be useful without the added complexity of

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

I'm going to sidestep your point about meaning because I think it falls into a related but separate area from the initial discussion.

To reiterate my main argument, I believe that I have Free Will and that therefore I am not a Turing machine. Since all computers are Turing machines, regardless of parallel computing and so on, the Strong AI project of big computer plus clever software, is never going to emulate any real intelligence.

You deny that there is any Free Will in the universe, or at least redefine it to be simply a non-emulatable complex system. I can understand this argument but it simply doesn't feel true to me. I believe this is where we differ.

I think that most people who adopt your stance, do so because they cannot see how there could be such a thing as Free Will. The old concept of Dualism where mind stuff interacts somehow with real physical stuff seems implausible. How could this non physical mind stuff, even if it did exist, possibly have an effect on real physical stuff without violating the known laws of physics such as conservation of energy etc.

I do not believe you have to be a dualist however in order to envisage how Free Will might operate without breaking any laws. Particle decay for example is, as far as the current thinking goes, simply a series of random events that taken as a whole follow strict statistical rules. Changing the timing of the decay would certainly change the universe without violating any known laws.

It seems to me that it is conceivable as a thought experiment, and I say now I do not actually believe that this is what happens, but if the idea is even slightly plausible it opens up the likelihood that other more relaistic schemes might be in place, that when we exercide Free Will, which is basically making a choice, we might be entertaining two different scenarios in our head that are both possible but depend on some aspect of Physics that we currently treat as random.

Our consciousness for example might be in some way a non collapsed quantom state that reaches a decision and then acts by causing the decay of a particle. Again this seems very unlikely to me but it is not totally infeasible. My understanding of Penrose's argument is that he believes something along these lines. The Platonic world would possibly act as the firing range for testing out the scenarios allowing us to choose the most beautiful options from those on offer, our consciousness then manipulates the Universe in some way that we currently accept as being random in order to apply the choice.

I can't offer any real evidence that I am right or you are wrong, but then the reverse applies too. I think that not believeing in Free Will is a more fundamentalist attitude that answers less and cuts off avenues of exploration. I think it is a non answer to our very real questions about how and why we feel. It also seems unscientific to me as it is essentially a non explanation. I can see how you might feel the very opposite however, that my idea is merely a pipe dream with no basis in evidence, that it overcomplicates the world and that it seems implausible.

It might be worth discussing how we can actually answer the argument. When discussing climate change I'm always aware of the fact that presumably in 20 years or so one side will have been proven right or wrong (assuming that we don't actually cut emissions drastically before anything much happens, ehich seems likely). How long would you have to give Strong AI it's chance for before you might acknowledge that it was a dead end? Surely a combination of Moore's Law and advances in neuroscience should have led somewhere in 20 years time?

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[urusan]

I already handled your argument previously. The potential systems you propose are stochastic.

The problem is that such free will isn't really free. It is unpredictable, but in a merely random way. These particle decay-like events are essentially truly random dice rolls. It would be as though your life decisions were made by die rolls (well, more accurately die rolls filtered through layers of deterministic systems and possibly other stochastic systems, as there are clearly deterministic elements to our world's system).

In order for a person's free will to really be free, it can't be constrained by a system of prediction. Otherwise it's either a machine (deterministic) or a machine containing perfect dice as components (stochastic).

Consider your suggestion here:

Our consciousness for example might be in some way a non collapsed quantom state that reaches a decision and then acts by causing the decay of a particle.

How does our consciousness "reach a decision"?

You imply that this decision-making process comes about prior to the random decay. Is consciousness just a deeper system that is using a crummy signal to relay its desires to the wider world?

Really the interesting part of this proposal is the consciousness and its decision making process. Is it systematic? If so is it deterministic or stochastic? If we can come up with a scientific theory about how it works then it obliterates the illusion of free will that not understanding it creates. If we can't come up with such a theory then it's a non-understandable non-scientific phenomena.

As for cutting off avenues of exploration, that's a good thing as long as we know such avenues really are fruitless. For instance, it's good that we stopped exploring the notion of perpetual motion machines. Trying to tackle the perpetual motion problem will waste our efforts and never get us anywhere because it's impossible. It's better to use our efforts elsewhere. Furthermore, reducing the number of possibilities makes it easier to focus on the most fruitful ones. The whole world could potentially be explained with invisible magical leprechauns, but it would be tiring if at every scientific conference there was some guy who demanded to know if this new theory accounted for the leprechauns. So even possible avenues should be downgraded if they are unlikely...at least until someone makes a great case for that avenue.

Admittedly many of the deepest questions we have are almost complete mysteries. What is consciousness? What causes it? Why are we here instead of somewhere else? Why is consciousness persistent? Can we transfer it? I can't answer these questions, but I do know that their answers will either be systematic (and therefore not include free will) or non-systematic (and therefore non-scientific). My bet is on systematic and us just being extremely ignorant about such matters at the present day.

Finally, putting a time limit on strong AI is silly. Why? It's not a time based thing. AI researchers could all start twiddling their thumbs tomorrow and 20 years from now we will have made no progress in AI. Furthermore, strong AI is a grand project. It's not something that will come out of some kid's garage (at least at first). It will take a national-scale (or at least corporate-scale) effort many years to complete.

Probably the best thing to compare it to is permanently colonizing the Moon (or maybe Mars or something even further away depending on the difficulty). If the moon isn't colonized in 20 years then I suppose it'll never happen, right? /sarcasm The more effort we put into this project, the sooner it will be accomplished, but as we still don't have all the technology yet it's unknown exactly how many years it will take even if we give it our all. How will the moonies deal with living in low-G? How will they sustain themselves with food and air? How will they make replacement parts? How many people do we need to send to get a self sustaining population? How will we

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[rich_hudds]

You ask me whether the process I have in mind that might explain Free Will is either stochastic or deterministic, but It wouldn't be Free Will if it was either of those.

I'm not proposing a stochastic process, I'm proposing a way in which an unknown process, outside of the current Laws of Physics could in theory interact with the world without violating those Laws.

The example I gave was just that an example. I suggested that by influencing events that we currently think of as essentially random, a new process which is somehow under our conscious control, indeed is in fact our consciousness, could affect the world without violating any of our current Laws. I'm not suggesting that those random events in anyway constitue our Free Will.

I'm not sure you quite understand where I am coming from. If we have Free Will then it cannot be explained by our current understanding of Physics. We have to be able to make a choice that is not predetermined or random. I believe we have Free Will, that is I believe our choices are neither predetermined or random.

You then insist that if my idea of Free Will is not systematic, which it isn't, that it must be non-scientific and non-understandable. I do not agree here at all. We could most certainly investigate the mechanism of how this Free Will interacts with the world in a scientific way. Perhaps nailing it right down to a point where we have to insert a 'choice is made here' marker in our understanding. Obviously at some point however a choice has to be made that can only be understood by the person making it otherwise it would not be free will. That person would however understand it. Indeed you could argue that the understanding represented that person.

I do think that most of what makes up our everyday experience is simple reaction to our sensorary input. I'm aware that we are mostly unaware of what happens in order for us to see and feel and that we are probably mistaken about a lot of what we actually think we think. When I truly stop and decide a point though, such as 'Do I have Free Will', I simply do not believe that my cogitation is not my own.

As for the point about when Strong AI will come about, you say that you are 'constantly amazed by the progress being made with weak AI '. To be honest, I'm constantly amazed that anyone is at all impressed with the progress made in any form of AI as I cannot see any. Watson is no more or less impressive than a chess computer to my mind. What breakthrough or advancement is there in the design of Watson? What leads you to expect that more complication will lead anywhere? I'm sure you can simulate a brain, I don't believe we have some divine spark making us special, I just think we'll need new ideas and tools on order to do it. If we're a Turing machine you don't need to simulate the brain, you just have to wrtie the right algorithm and press Go. You could run your algorithm using pen and paper and it would be just as intelligent if a little 'slow'.

Your rejection of Free Will seems to me to be based on the fact that you simply can't think of how we couldn't be computers, rather than being based on any firm evidence. You're throwing away almost everything about life, ethics, morals, meaning simply because you can't see how they could be true. I personally find the idea that everyone is doing exactly what they have to do and has no choice about it even more depressing than the idea that their is some God watching over me all the time judging me for some unfathomable reason in order to decide which of his amusement parks I move to when I expire. I guess you'd say that I have no choice about feeling this way though.

Re:Emperor's New Mind

[urusan]

I misunderstood your argument earlier. You're right that your proposed system is not necessarily stochastic, as you were using that as an interface between your free will and the physical world rather than proposing it was free will itself.

However, what I said earlier still stands. The idea you propose in this post is non-systematic (and if not, it must be deterministic or stochastic).

The main problem is the 'choice is made here' marker you mention. Planting that flag there and leaving it there is just giving up...the explanation for the marker is basically "MAGIC!". If we've isolated the decision making part of the system, why can't we study it? Let's assume we study it in depth and that we haven't missed any possible systematic explanations. Either we must have found a system that explains how it works (in a deterministic or stochastic way)...or there is no system that explains how it works and thus it is non-systematic. There is no other possibility! Since free will can't be constrained by a predictive system, true free will must be non-systematic if it exists at all.

Further, I don't think a consciousness that exists as a subcomponent would "understand" things. Understanding is a very high level mental property while consciousness is either an emergent property ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence ) or a very small subatomic thing. If consciousness is emergent (arising from the entire brain) then it understands what the brain understands because it basically is the brain. However, if it is a tiny choice-maker thingamajig that communicates through particle decay or whatever...then either it doesn't understand anything or it contains its own brain-like system inside of itself that can understand things (which gets into homunculus territory).

Here I actually have some evidence to back me up. Your consciousness only "understands" what your brain understands. Human experience clearly shows that messing with the brain also messes with your consciousness and its "understanding" of the world. One example is getting drunk. Among other things, it impairs your memory. Neuroscience has tracked down alcohol's effects on the GABA system as a prime suspect in this memory impairment. However, your consciousness is also affected as you have no memory and no direct understanding of the events that occurred while you were under the influence. How could this molecular-scale brain impact have an impact on a quantum-scale consciousness? It would be roughly like trying to split an atom using a hammer. Does getting drunk also impair your consciousness through some other channel? How?

Altered states of consciousness make a lot more sense when you look at consciousness from an emergent rather than an atomic perspective. The brain is affected, therefore your emergent consciousness is affected too. Therefore I think that consciousness is probably emergent. It's possible to make up other explanations that make sense, so I can't say this is true with certainty though.

I don't see why you're not impressed by Watson. Are you sure you understand how Watson works and the implications of Watson's success?

Let's assume for a moment that Watson is just a hyper-powerful chess computer. Watson can answer natural language general questions (posed in the form of a question) with a higher success rate than most humans. Does that mean that we're barely better than chess computers ourselves? What will these "chess computers" be able to do after 10 more years of hardware improvement?

Of course the reality is that Watson isn't just a chess computer. Watson's algorithms are much more powerful than the nearly brute-force approach of chess computers. That's not to say that Watson is on a human level...or that you could talk to Watson (as it lacks speech recognition)...or that Watson thinks anything like a human (does a submarine swim?)...but none of that matters. The point is that Watson can do very complex things that only humans could do before and it loo

Re:I know it's a trifle but...

[Neil Boekend]

True, but before it's tested a lot of strange theories rest on faith. This could be viewed as a way of testing it.
Anyways: they want to use these these to help brain injuries. If the consciousness isn't reducible to neurobiology then the only other explanation I have heard is "The brain is a sort of antenna for the signals from the consciousness". This could be used to repair said antenna.

Lets not get carried away.

[Kuruk]

Its not like adrenaline will make the nano tubes toss a petri dish off of there siblings.

We cant weaponize it just yet :)

Humans:

[crhylove]

Don't really know how it works, but we can brute force a replica with a beowulf of these.

Why do robot brains need synapses?

[MMC Monster]

Just because biological brains have synapses, do computer brains need them as well?

Serious question. I don't know where AI is or where it's taking us.

This is more useful to study human neurology.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[Anonymous Coward]

ust because biological brains have synapses, do computer brains need them as well?

Serious question. I don't know where AI is or where it's taking us.

The answer to the question is simply: "nobody knows". Is the role of the synapse simply to connect one cell to another, like a piece of wire in a circuit, or does it have some deeper functional role? Its behaviour is certainly far more complex than the OP suggests. My money is on the current paradigm (the brain as a computer) being about as completely and utterly wrong as the previous paradigm (the brain as a clock-work mechanical machine) was.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

Some of the most useful achievements come from science mimicking nature.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[AchilleTalon]

No, current research in AI doesn't try to emulate the brain, it even doesn't study it. AI study knowledge, knowledge organization, logic and so on. Not biological brains and synapses.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[erroneus]

There are a lot of boxes that are hard for people to think outside of. For example, while this article was scant on technical details, I'll bet money that their "synapse" uses orders of magnitude more power than a biological synapse and that its accuracy/reliability is a great deal higher (not a desirable feature) and is not affected by neighboring artificial synapses.

Part of what makes the brain awesome is the low amount of power it uses. The "noise" in the brain is still a bit mysterious but also seems to be a functioning part of how it all works. The boxes that engineers have trouble thinking outside of involve a tendency to desire clean, clear and measurable signals giving way to accurate, predictable and reliable results. In a way, it's the very opposite of intelligence.

Unless they are proceeding with those types of things in mind, they are going down the wrong path.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[master_p]

Well, the brain is a massively parallel computer, so the only way such a massive parallel computer can be done is by imitating its structure.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[marcosdumay]

"First, we emulate, then we improve"

Say that for all the people that died trying to emulate bird flying.

Re:Why do robot brains need synapses?

[urusan]

I guess I should have posted this argument here instead, this thread is more popular :P
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2106768&cid=35956174

Essentially, if the brain is not a computer (or more accurately a system that could be run on a computer), then it is either capable of hypercomputation or not a system at all (magical).

Holy crap this is cool

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I literally almost drooled upon reading that.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Woah

[bipedalhominid]

Do not try and bend the spoon. Rather, try to realize the truth. Neo ==> What truth? There is no spoon.

airplane wings "flap" with feathers?

[peter303]

One hypothesis for A.I. or Androis is they dont have to copy human physical brains exactly. I recall some aeronautical pioneers tried to imitate birds very closely.

detachable what?

[conspirator57]

oh, detachable brainz0rz. well that's ok.

on a slightly more serious note (though still clearly fantasy) i expect connectivity, routing, and cooling to be an issue preventing integration on a scale allowing for androids walking about with us. which leads to the first androids "having the big head" or "being hot-headed". ba-da-bam. tsss! I'm here all the week. Try the chicken.

Re:I know it's a trifle but...

[amRadioHed]

Isn't the burden of proof on you to show that consciousness can't be reduced to neurobiology? Based on what we know, it would seem biology is sufficient.

Birth of the Positronic Brain?

[Tennessee Bear]

Its a start, how long till Asimov's Positronic Brain..........is US Robots's funding this?

Re:I suggest they start with

[treeves]

You mean so they will be able to store maps and such?