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DARPA Wants Computers That Fuse With Higher Human Brain Function
coondoggie writes "In the never-ending quest to get computers to process, really understand and actually reason, scientists at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency want to look more deeply into how computers can mimic a key portion of our brain. The military's advanced research group recently put out a call, or Request For information, on how it could develop systems that go beyond machine learning, Bayesian techniques, and graphical technology to solve 'extraordinarily difficult recognition problems in real-time.'"
Broadcast routines through The View - then you'll get millions of brains connected.
Oh wait, higher brain functions. I guess that demographic won't work then.
The opposite of progress is congress
"supersoldier," in a way that will compromise the long term health or well being of he human being.
I think the idea is to compromise the health of the other human being.
So the functions they are trying to emulate are "higher brain functions such as sensory perception, motor commands, spatial reasoning, conscious thought and language." (emphasis mine). I'm assuming they are looking (near term) for better filtering of that massive collection of data the NSA is collecting.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been? It's alright we know where you've been.
You've been in the pipeline, filling in time,
provided with toys and Scouting for Boys.
You bought a guitar to punish your ma,
And you didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool,
So welcome to the machine.
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream? It's alright we told you what to dream.
You dreamed of a big star, he played a mean guitar,
He always ate in the Steak Bar. He loved to drive in his Jaguar.
So welcome to the machine.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
They want AI killing machines ( aka "Autonomous Battlefield Robots") that can model human thought on some level, so as to be better equipped to deal with human or human-controlled targets. --- This is very "Terminator 2" you say? Well, maybe IT IS very Terminator 2 in real life? ----- But seriously, what possible good can come from a war-oriented defense projects agency trying to model the human intellect/neocortex? Are they going to create kiddie toys that speak & interact with a 3 year old child with this? Or will this new tech be put to more nefarious uses ---- solving the problem of how to break a big ass street protest up most efficiently, for example? Or searching through millions of database records of activists, and finding those who are likely to become - and this is very W. Gibson I admit - "SuperNodes" who can influence the behavior of thousands of other people? Imagine technology human-smart enough to identify the next Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela or Ghandi when they are still in high-school? It would be quite easy then to stop these people from becoming "SuperNodes", no? ---- That's your conspiracy for today. Check back tomorrow for more. =)
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Sooner or later some evil person is going to figure out a way to biologically/mechanically enhance a human being into a "supersoldier," in a way that will compromise the long term health or well being of he human being.
Or, alternately, some decent person will figure out a way to biologically/mechanically enhance a human being in a way that removes physical disabilities and/or existing physiological limitations, and amplifies intelligence to the point where we can effortlessly accomplish in a day what once took a week or more. It's not just military mad scientists who daydream about brain-computer interfaces and other forms of human enhancement; these technologies have potential far beyond warfare. I know I'm not the only person who has fantasized about what life would be like if I could have instant recall of any information available on the network, while running along 50km of undeveloped coastline. Instead, I'm sitting on in my Aeron in front of the computer, looking out the window as a beautiful day passes by, and wishing I could run for more than five minutes without shooting pains in my legs and lungs. So, honestly, I hope DARPA hurries up with this.
So they want to build computers like the one of Bomb #20 from Dark Star?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It has become pretty obvious that doing anything to help out DARPA is just going to be used against all of us, one way or another.
Yeah, it really sucks how the Internet has made commerce easier, information more accessible, and governments more transparent. Damn you, DARPA!
decent person will figure out a way to biologically/mechanically enhance a human
Perhaps. However, it would be very unlikely that this power to control a human mind would not find it's way immediately into political or military advantage.
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nor is today's government the same as the pasts
No, it's arguably less corrupt and violent than the governments that funded the early development of DARPA and the Internet. It's unquestionably building fewer weapons of mass destruction, anyway. I realize most of the people posting here weren't even born when the Vietnam war or the Cuban missile crisis or the Nixon administration were happening, but could you try reading some history occasionally?
The main issue, as far as I can see, is that technological advances have made certain types of malfeasance more accessible to those in power. Thus we have vastly more targeted assassinations (drone strikes) and surveillance (NSA) than we did in, say, 1970. On the other hand, in 1970 we were bombing Vietnam (and Cambodia) on a scale vastly more destructive than anything we've done to Iraq or Afghanistan, and Hoover was still in charge of the FBI. I realize that using this as a reference point for evaluating our current government is grading on a curve, but I fail to see how aiding DARPA in 2013 is any worse than aiding it in the development of the Internet.
Advances in military technology trickle down to civilian life all the time. Radar, computers, jet engines, satellites, the list goes on. (Oh, and the Internet, which I already mentioned below.) Battlefield medicine has made huge advances too, which are applicable to injuries that have nothing to do with warfare. The big area where I think there has been too little transfer is rocketry, where federal regulations severely restrict employment and the availability of technology.
I don't view any of this as an actual justification for military spending - I'm firmly in the camp that believes the US should be like Switzerland with nukes. But it's simply ignorant of history to claim that military research never benefits anyone but the military.
How much are they willing to spend this time around? A cool 5million?
I reckon you'd need at least six million.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Your fantasies are the sort of thing a young child would entertain.
But not the sort that a young child can attain.
The reality is going to be a lot less pleasant, because those in power ( and you might not be one of them, chum ) will make sure this is true, as they always have since the dawn of mankind.
There are things more powerful than the shadowy people holding you back. Ideas such as this are some of those things.
It never ceases to amaze me that for all the hardware the human brain possess, we are so bad at many of the tasks we perform. I mean, it's ludicrous to think how the avian or reptilian or cetacean or insect or even other mammalian species can perform advanced calculations in 1/100th the amount of time that it takes a human mind to complete the same damn calculation. I find that deeply troubling. A freaking spider can scan a series of stems, like a mainframe computer, and determine which one is the right one to climb, with a brain less than the size of a pin...and yet a human child, of several years of age, might fail at even understanding the task to be performed, let alone performing the task itself.
Part of evolution involves specialization, and we lose certain instincts or abilities that are unnecessary for maximum fitness. We don't have the speed of a cheetah, or the sense of smell of a bloodhound, or the vision of a falcon either. Instead, we ended up with verbal communication, opposable thumbs, and creativity and intuition beyond anything we've observed so far in the animal world. Seems like a fair tradeoff to me.
"Are we missing a gene or something?"
You raise good points.
Thing is, that's stuff those critters do the same way all the time because that's all that's needed.
I think it has to do with humans being much more open-ended. We have many more possibilities of what we might do with what we find at hand, let alone what we might contrive to aid the doing of something. Some things are simpler - we used to pick something edible and ate it; then we poked a hole in the ground and planted a seed or slip; then we built machines to poke the holes and plant the seeds. But even such a simple progression took a lot of time, mistakes, trial and error, making choices from competing workable solutions, all the while within a milieu of various economic and social ideas and implementations that allowed or impeded the work.
Even so, some things are built in fairly well; throwing and catching, for instance. It's learned, true, but the mechanism for the calculation itself is inherent and pretty nifty in its own right.
But even simpler critters make mistakes. I and several others once saw a cat trip over its front feet. A couple of us laughed. Cat shat on my pillow, and into another's boot.