Two brains use slightly different neural connections based on their genetics and experience, but comparing those subtle differences to the differences between how a brain functions and how a computer functions is silly. I completely understand that non-biologists, who don't understand biological complexity, can think that making an artificial brain is quite doable. But considering we are decades, if not centuries, away from even sort of understanding how the brain works, I think you are going to have a bit of trouble making an imitation brain using hardware. But please, give it a shot.
It won't work if you are trying to make a simulated brain that works like a brain using silicon. It may imitate the brain in superficial ways, but that's about it. I am sure they will make good advancements in computing, but not in artificial minds. They will just be putting imitative lipstick on a hardware simulation.
It is a simulation. A pretty good one, but just a simulation. Cortical columns don't work in isolation, and they are microscopic in width. There are vast numbers linked in extremely complex ways in cortex, and that is just neocortex. Then there are the sensory systems, the motor systems, thalamus, hypothalamus, the entire midbrain, and then the hugely complex cerebellar cortex and deep cerebellar nuclei, plus brainstem and spinal cord, not to mention the peripheral nervous system. Then there are the vast fiber pathways that link them all. Simulating one cortical column is about 1 one billionth of the way to simulating the brain.
Simulating the weather on a computer is not making weather, just like simulating a brain in a computer is not going to give you anything like a mind. I applaud people for doing this work, but they should not overstate what they are working towards, and what they can expect to accomplish "in silico".
Like I said, good luck. People have been trying for decades, and haven't gotten anywhere near emulating brain activity in silico. I am not saying people shouldn't try, They will discover all sorts of interesting things along the way, but they will not come up with anything like brain activity in a computer.
Your plane analogy was good, they don't reproduce, they don't flap their wings, they can turn on a dime in mid air with a flip of their wings, and they can't land on a tree branch. They can't build nests or nurture their young, They aren't alive, so they don't do the same things, other than "fly". That is not making an artificial bird, that is making a plane that flies people around. They are not even slightly the same.
So why hasn't it been done? And what makes you think that weather is more chaotic than neural activity? What you are saying is coming from a lack of knowledge about how the brain works. You know why? Because neuroscientists don't know why either, and they spend all day studying it. You can't imitate something that you don't understand. Understand?
I love it when engineers try and tell biologists how biology works. But please, be my guest and try and make a brain out of silicon. I am a neuroscientist by profession, and I and many neuroscientists outside of the cognitive neuroscience subfield say that if you want to make something that works like a brain, you will need to do it with wet-ware, not hardware. But I am not discouraging you from trying. Give it a shot and get back to us biologists in a couple decades with your results.
Why can't you do it? Because there are far too many things happening at too small a scale to even measure, let alone imitate. The unknowns in neurosicence far outnumber the knowns. Just like you can't make an artificial bird that can move and fly exactly like a real bird (even though you can make planes and drones) you can't make a brain out of hardware. Let me know when your planes and drones can reproduce sexually.
You can model certain brain functions with software to see what happens if you alter inputs to a neural circuit, but it will only be as good as weather predictions done in silico.
We already have thermostats and controllers. They don't have to act like a human brain, and in fact, they shouldn't act like a human brain that might get distracted or confused. There is absolutely no need to make controllers more "brain like", but the meme has been put out there by Hollywood, so you get people wasting time like this. Mapping the brain is critical to understanding better how it works, but trying to make computers act more like brains is just not a sound scientific concept. Brains and computers do different types of tasks well.
Agreed, but MS did not become that big because they had a failing business model. Their OS on a PC was considered more affordable than Apple's alternatives, and easier for users than Linux. They could have kept that position and continued to sell to both businesses, the government and the non-Apple non-Linux masses. Windows also allowed people to play lots of games long before that was doable on an Apple or Linux box. Game developers wrote to Direct X rather than OpenGL for the most part. MS had carved out a big and profitable niche. I think if they had really innovated with W10 they could have done very well. Instead they go for the ad, telemetry and app revenue streams. Maybe it is a great business move, but I am not so sure. I have been buying and using Windows since version 1 (started on DOS if you discount punchcards). I built PCs for a living for about 5 years, and in the process I bought and installed hundreds of copies of Windows. Alienating people like me is probably not their best business decision. Windows 8 showed they were not taking the PC desktop space seriously. I think that decision is continuing to hurt them, rather than help them. We will see how putting a facelift on W8 works out.
Everything MS has been doing with Windows is on the cheap, and comes out shoddy as hell. I can't believe any companies are even thinking about migrating to the buggy new crap that offers nothing useful. Upgrades are supposed to upgrade system capabilities, not degrade them.
What they are trying is not new, as you point out. It is just following the rest of the IT industry. Not particularly innovative, and not something I want to support. I don't want suggested apps on the start menu because I don't need or use apps on my desktop computers. Almost everything they added is not something I wanted in a new version. I get nothing from Cortana, the apps store, the crappy PC settings, a "Microsoft account", oh boy. The horrible 2D interface is unbearable. If I could give you one of my supposedly free copies I would. MS is trying to make money in different ways, and I don't like any of them. I just want o pay for my copy and be done with it. Anyway, you said it, people don't want to pay for spyware, and that includes me. If they make a much improved version based on the Enterprise version and sell it as Windows 10 Ultimate, I might reconsider.
What made you think I was surprised? They will continue to lose market share. They shouldn't be surprised either.
Based on their extremely shoddy recent updates and patches, I doubt they are paying much for maintaining several versions. A couple of young programmers in India don't cost much at all.
Yeah, "Free" is a very subjective term here. Google is free by the same definition. But the so-called free copies of Windows 10 are not like buying something and it being yours, and owned by you (while also being far less encumbered by ads, telemetry and data mining). I own my copies of Windows 7, but MS "delivers" Windows 10 as a "service". It is their decision to make, but I will stick with Windows 7 because that is my decision now that I have shut auto-updates off (which had always been on with my computers until the new paradigm of forced upgrades to Windows 10).
Forced updates that also force the upgrade to Windows 10 are a great way to boost adoption rates. Also a great way to destroy what infinitesimal amount of good will and reputation you have left Microsoft. I put the emphasis on infinitesimal.
All my computers still run Windows 7 and are protected with GWX Control Panel. One of the major consequences of MS forcing updates and upgrades on people is that people who still have Windows 7 have all shut off automatic updates. Good going MS. Apple sales and Linux converts will continue to grow.
Yeah, tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste is a very clean way to go. Stop being silly. Many of the existing plants were built in the 60s and 70s, and need to be shut down. It is a dead technology, but the people working in the business want to keep it going because that is how they make money. They get the profits, and the public gets the bill for construction, maintenance waste storage and cleanups. It's a really bad deal for the public.
Nuclear power is a dead technology, like CRT TVs. People in the business want to keep it going, but it is dead. You can't deal with the waste, and the accidents create uninhabitable zones in the middle of civilization. The proponents aren't thinking very hard when there are so many better alternatives.
This is unsafe technology from the 1950s, and no amount of tweaking it going to make it safe and affordable when you take the insurance, waste handling and disaster cleanup costs into account.
What an absurd thing to say. The total amount of CO2 is not the thing to pay attention to. That is a huge number. The thing to pay attention to is the CO2 level in the atmosphere which has gone from around 280 PPM range in the 1800s to over 400 PPM now. That released CO2 will eventually be processed by biology, but that takes time, and in the process the oceans will acidify, which screws up many organisms including coral and calcifying algae. It of course also forces warming and climate change. So stop talking nonsense about what percent of the total CO2 humans have generated relative to the amount in the whole world.
And now the "vendors" want to upgrade the arsenal to the tune of at least a trillion tax dollars. Not to "make us safer", but to make them richer. Your tax dollars, not at work.
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Two brains use slightly different neural connections based on their genetics and experience, but comparing those subtle differences to the differences between how a brain functions and how a computer functions is silly. I completely understand that non-biologists, who don't understand biological complexity, can think that making an artificial brain is quite doable. But considering we are decades, if not centuries, away from even sort of understanding how the brain works, I think you are going to have a bit of trouble making an imitation brain using hardware. But please, give it a shot.
It won't work if you are trying to make a simulated brain that works like a brain using silicon. It may imitate the brain in superficial ways, but that's about it. I am sure they will make good advancements in computing, but not in artificial minds. They will just be putting imitative lipstick on a hardware simulation.
So you think that the ANN is thinking like a person does? That would be very interesting considering we have no idea how the brain works.
Sure, that must be how it works. I am sure that it would be a self aware, thinking, feeling robot, because that's what I saw in the movies.
Again, good luck with that. You will need a lot of luck.
Stating something is going to work, and getting something to actually work are very different things.
It is a simulation. A pretty good one, but just a simulation. Cortical columns don't work in isolation, and they are microscopic in width. There are vast numbers linked in extremely complex ways in cortex, and that is just neocortex. Then there are the sensory systems, the motor systems, thalamus, hypothalamus, the entire midbrain, and then the hugely complex cerebellar cortex and deep cerebellar nuclei, plus brainstem and spinal cord, not to mention the peripheral nervous system. Then there are the vast fiber pathways that link them all. Simulating one cortical column is about 1 one billionth of the way to simulating the brain.
Simulating the weather on a computer is not making weather, just like simulating a brain in a computer is not going to give you anything like a mind. I applaud people for doing this work, but they should not overstate what they are working towards, and what they can expect to accomplish "in silico".
Like I said, good luck. People have been trying for decades, and haven't gotten anywhere near emulating brain activity in silico. I am not saying people shouldn't try, They will discover all sorts of interesting things along the way, but they will not come up with anything like brain activity in a computer.
Your plane analogy was good, they don't reproduce, they don't flap their wings, they can turn on a dime in mid air with a flip of their wings, and they can't land on a tree branch. They can't build nests or nurture their young, They aren't alive, so they don't do the same things, other than "fly". That is not making an artificial bird, that is making a plane that flies people around. They are not even slightly the same.
So why hasn't it been done? And what makes you think that weather is more chaotic than neural activity? What you are saying is coming from a lack of knowledge about how the brain works. You know why? Because neuroscientists don't know why either, and they spend all day studying it. You can't imitate something that you don't understand. Understand?
I love it when engineers try and tell biologists how biology works. But please, be my guest and try and make a brain out of silicon. I am a neuroscientist by profession, and I and many neuroscientists outside of the cognitive neuroscience subfield say that if you want to make something that works like a brain, you will need to do it with wet-ware, not hardware. But I am not discouraging you from trying. Give it a shot and get back to us biologists in a couple decades with your results.
Why can't you do it? Because there are far too many things happening at too small a scale to even measure, let alone imitate. The unknowns in neurosicence far outnumber the knowns. Just like you can't make an artificial bird that can move and fly exactly like a real bird (even though you can make planes and drones) you can't make a brain out of hardware. Let me know when your planes and drones can reproduce sexually.
You can model certain brain functions with software to see what happens if you alter inputs to a neural circuit, but it will only be as good as weather predictions done in silico.
You will need to make it out of nerve cells and glia then, because silicon won't cut it.
We already have thermostats and controllers. They don't have to act like a human brain, and in fact, they shouldn't act like a human brain that might get distracted or confused. There is absolutely no need to make controllers more "brain like", but the meme has been put out there by Hollywood, so you get people wasting time like this. Mapping the brain is critical to understanding better how it works, but trying to make computers act more like brains is just not a sound scientific concept. Brains and computers do different types of tasks well.
Agreed, but MS did not become that big because they had a failing business model. Their OS on a PC was considered more affordable than Apple's alternatives, and easier for users than Linux. They could have kept that position and continued to sell to both businesses, the government and the non-Apple non-Linux masses. Windows also allowed people to play lots of games long before that was doable on an Apple or Linux box. Game developers wrote to Direct X rather than OpenGL for the most part. MS had carved out a big and profitable niche. I think if they had really innovated with W10 they could have done very well. Instead they go for the ad, telemetry and app revenue streams. Maybe it is a great business move, but I am not so sure. I have been buying and using Windows since version 1 (started on DOS if you discount punchcards). I built PCs for a living for about 5 years, and in the process I bought and installed hundreds of copies of Windows. Alienating people like me is probably not their best business decision. Windows 8 showed they were not taking the PC desktop space seriously. I think that decision is continuing to hurt them, rather than help them. We will see how putting a facelift on W8 works out.
Everything MS has been doing with Windows is on the cheap, and comes out shoddy as hell. I can't believe any companies are even thinking about migrating to the buggy new crap that offers nothing useful. Upgrades are supposed to upgrade system capabilities, not degrade them.
What they are trying is not new, as you point out. It is just following the rest of the IT industry. Not particularly innovative, and not something I want to support. I don't want suggested apps on the start menu because I don't need or use apps on my desktop computers. Almost everything they added is not something I wanted in a new version. I get nothing from Cortana, the apps store, the crappy PC settings, a "Microsoft account", oh boy. The horrible 2D interface is unbearable. If I could give you one of my supposedly free copies I would. MS is trying to make money in different ways, and I don't like any of them. I just want o pay for my copy and be done with it. Anyway, you said it, people don't want to pay for spyware, and that includes me. If they make a much improved version based on the Enterprise version and sell it as Windows 10 Ultimate, I might reconsider.
What made you think I was surprised? They will continue to lose market share. They shouldn't be surprised either.
Based on their extremely shoddy recent updates and patches, I doubt they are paying much for maintaining several versions. A couple of young programmers in India don't cost much at all.
Yeah, "Free" is a very subjective term here. Google is free by the same definition. But the so-called free copies of Windows 10 are not like buying something and it being yours, and owned by you (while also being far less encumbered by ads, telemetry and data mining). I own my copies of Windows 7, but MS "delivers" Windows 10 as a "service". It is their decision to make, but I will stick with Windows 7 because that is my decision now that I have shut auto-updates off (which had always been on with my computers until the new paradigm of forced upgrades to Windows 10).
Forced updates that also force the upgrade to Windows 10 are a great way to boost adoption rates. Also a great way to destroy what infinitesimal amount of good will and reputation you have left Microsoft. I put the emphasis on infinitesimal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
All my computers still run Windows 7 and are protected with GWX Control Panel. One of the major consequences of MS forcing updates and upgrades on people is that people who still have Windows 7 have all shut off automatic updates. Good going MS. Apple sales and Linux converts will continue to grow.
Yeah, tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste is a very clean way to go. Stop being silly. Many of the existing plants were built in the 60s and 70s, and need to be shut down. It is a dead technology, but the people working in the business want to keep it going because that is how they make money. They get the profits, and the public gets the bill for construction, maintenance waste storage and cleanups. It's a really bad deal for the public.
Nuclear power is a dead technology, like CRT TVs. People in the business want to keep it going, but it is dead. You can't deal with the waste, and the accidents create uninhabitable zones in the middle of civilization. The proponents aren't thinking very hard when there are so many better alternatives.
This is unsafe technology from the 1950s, and no amount of tweaking it going to make it safe and affordable when you take the insurance, waste handling and disaster cleanup costs into account.
What an absurd thing to say. The total amount of CO2 is not the thing to pay attention to. That is a huge number. The thing to pay attention to is the CO2 level in the atmosphere which has gone from around 280 PPM range in the 1800s to over 400 PPM now. That released CO2 will eventually be processed by biology, but that takes time, and in the process the oceans will acidify, which screws up many organisms including coral and calcifying algae. It of course also forces warming and climate change. So stop talking nonsense about what percent of the total CO2 humans have generated relative to the amount in the whole world.
no
And now the "vendors" want to upgrade the arsenal to the tune of at least a trillion tax dollars. Not to "make us safer", but to make them richer. Your tax dollars, not at work.
Hopefully the site is big enough and remote enough that poaching will be minimal. It will be fascinating to see what they turn up.
Agreed, but how many of them are connected to the Internet, and how many were touted as "smart"? Remember, in 1984, everything means its opposite.
Yeah, and 1984 was supposed to be a cautionary tale for the public, not an instruction manual for the psychopaths running things.
If it is a recording device, that's what it is supposed to do.