Simulated brain closer to thought

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8012496.stm

by alexandros • 17 years ago

62 54 17 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

quoderat• 17 years ago

So many things are converging at once on the AI front. I think it's probably likely we will have human-level AI in my lifetime (I'm 32).

Of course, AI, like nuclear fusion, is perpetually 50 years away, but this time I believe it's different.

chadmalik• 17 years ago

I really doubt digital computation will ever be a platform for intelligence as we understand it. Biological systems really are different than digital ones.

eru4• 17 years ago

I guess after we have created and understood intelligence once, we may be able to re-create it on much weaker hardware the second time.

Perhaps one day we'll even be able to e.g. beat the Turing Test on standard 2009 hardware with enough algorithmic knowledge.

alexandros3• 17 years ago

The understatement of the applications by the scientists makes me suspect that (a) they are being politically wise keeping it on the down low or (b) that the article's claims are exaggerated. If (a) is the case though, the potential consequences just blow my mind.. I mean, Robin Hanson has been talking about emulated minds on chips for a while, but I didn't think we were so close to real results. What this would do to arguments about religion, bioethics, irreducibles will make for very interesting discussion.

mixmax• 17 years ago

And very interesting science.

swombat• 17 years ago

"Mind-blowing" is the word indeed.

As I read through this article, my first thought was, what if they do create a full, human-like brain. Would it be immoral to then shut it down?

icey2• 17 years ago

From a morality standpoint, what is the difference between shutting it down and an indefinite state of stasis? The brain wouldn't know any different, it would just cease to process for a period of time, and then resume processing later. It would be just like a blackout. Except since the brain only receives stimulus from a simulated environment, the environment could be frozen as well.

So, if everything freezes and restarts at a later time, the brain would not perceive any missing time.

inconvenient2• 17 years ago

If they simulate my brain molecule by molecule, and consciousness emerges, which one is really me? If my physical self is then killed, do I in fact still exist inside the simulation? In which case, is it OK to kill off my superfluous physical presence in order to use my organs to help others? What rights does the simulated me have?

This will be a huge can of worms one day.

k0n2ad• 17 years ago

I guess that would depend on where (or from who) your morals come from.

gruseom• 17 years ago

I'm surprised that you thought the researchers were making understated claims:

When asked when the simulation would come up with something artistic or an invention, Professor Markram said it was simply a matter of money. "[...T]he technology is there today."

Boy does that sound like a lot of software projects I know.

pygy2• 17 years ago

I think we're getting closer to AI, but I'm not as optimistic as the Blue Brain lead quote in the article.

They are criticized for taking a reductionistic approach, and I actually agree with the critics. Metaphorically, they are now able to build puzzle pieces, but haven't yet figured how to make them fit, let alone how to assemble the big picture.

Embryogenesis and development are very complicated processes, and, even though we also have a good idea of the macroscopic function of the cortex (primary, secondary areas for different tasks, associative areas ), some structure are still very mysterious and entangled. The brainstem is still a maze, for example, as is the so-called "mesoscopic" achitecture of the cortex.

newsit• 17 years ago

Sounds strangely familiar: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

lucraft• 17 years ago

Seems unlikely that the researchers are really simulating this on a molecular level as claimed in that article. Perhaps they are using the neuron as the unit instead?

pygy2• 17 years ago

Minsky first wired a virtual neural net in the 1950's. Some science got done meanwhile ;-)

http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page18924.html#2

paulgb3• 17 years ago

Sounds like you are right:

"At the push of a button, the model could reconstruct biologically accurate neurons based on detailed experimental data, and automatically connect them in a biological manner, a task that involves positioning around 30 million synapses in precise 3D locations." [1]

It doesn't necessarily mean they aren't modeling molecules, but the wording hints that they aren't.

[1] http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/

Allocator2008• 17 years ago

One can only hope that as the reductionist principles upon which our consciousness operates are made apparent by projects like these, that the masses will finally begin to be disabused of the ever-persistent and pernicious god delusion which has impeded human progress and welfare since the dawn of recorded history.

mcslee• 17 years ago

Playing Devil's Advocate: if these simulations are truly modeled after humans, why are you so sure that they won't buy into many of the same religious ideas and reaffirm what many humans naturally think and do? Would a simulation like this even be aware that it was not just another person?

It seems like the answer to this question MUST be that the simulation cannot tell the difference between itself and a normal human. Otherwise, your argument is moot, because the religious folk will simply be able to point at this thing and say "clearly this thing is different from us -- it even knows that it's different, so obviously this is not the way our 'souls' work."

paulgb3• 17 years ago

I think what Allocator2008 is getting at is that creating artificial life would show that there is nothing mystical or non-physical about consciousness. This would partly poke a hole in the argument for existence of God that the creation of life and/or consciousness has never been witnessed.

To have the artificial brain not be aware it is not a regular person, or to have the brain buy into religious ideas, would actually make the point (that the artificial brain is just like a human's, and thus consciousness is not mystical or non-physical) stronger.

Edit: khafra, ericb, and alexandros made the point I was trying to make better and in less words in replies to this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=574258

kirse4• 17 years ago

So let's see, you set out to build a human brain and emulate consciousness, yet in the process you reaffirm to everyone that it takes a phenomenal level of supercomputing power, complexity and intelligent, purpose-guided scientists to create something that can operate on its own.

I may be mistaken, but tell me again how intelligently designing and creating an autonomous entity furthers the atheist world-view (which I am guessing you agree with, given your careful choice of phrasing ala god delusion)? If I was one of the masses -- who are evidently far less enlightened than yourself -- I would argue that this project demonstrates that an intelligent being is clearly involved in the production of a conscious entity.

alexandros3• 17 years ago

This is not about ID vs. evolution. It is about whether the brain can be reduced to a purely physical system or if there is something nun-physical about it, i.e. a 'soul'. Clearly, building a functioning artificial brain by copying the physical characteristics of a human brain should settle this one. I'm not saying we are there now, but there is certainly progress.

ericb3• 17 years ago

Probably won't change many minds, but it does prove there's no "magic" in the recipe, and proves that god(s) are not necessary for the creation of life. It challenges the assumption that some magic chunk of soul-cloth is required to make consciousness work.

That said, surely there will be those that argue that conscious machines have no rights because they are missing their chunk of soul-cloth.

khafra• 17 years ago

Philosophical dualism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)) is a mistake at the core of most religions. Making a human brain would contribute much to destroying the concept of the mind as something separate from the brain, rather than the mind as something the brain does.

tophat02• 17 years ago

I've never understood this argument. If an INTELLIGENT being produced the conscious entity, who or what was responsible for creating this intelligent being?

And no, you can't side step this question. You can't say "well, it's god" because that's special pleading. I just don't understand how people can assume that evidence of complexity requires a designer, but never seem to have a problem inventing said designer out of thin-air as a magically preexisting entity.

What's more likely: that a natural process of change followed by selection essentially navigated through an infinite search space of possible configurations, some of which would create things like intelligent life, or that there was, magically, a pre-existent eternal intelligent being that decided to create other intelligent beings?

GavinB• 17 years ago

I imagine you'll find it pretty frustrating when people start reprogramming their robotic servants to believe in their preferred god.

eru4• 17 years ago

That's what electric monks are for.

Raplh• 17 years ago

It won't seem much different to me than programming your children to believe in their preferred god.

gambling8nt2• 17 years ago

Precisely what makes you think that a group of people who dismiss a concept as simple and transparent as natural selection will accept a collection of--probably significantly more complex--"reductionist principles upon which our consciousness operates"?

Similarly (and in opposition to many of the opinions in the other responses), if faced with artificial consciousnesses, why do you expect them not to ascribe to them the same "soul" substance that they allow themselves (ultimately, anyway--early resistance is likely to be universal)? After all, it is immediately evident that people can perform an action that creates an entity with an independent consciousness; if humanity develops another such creation method, how would that contradict their theology?

sown2• 17 years ago

We are truly living in the future now.

sown2• 17 years ago

Down-mod me if you want, but this kind of thing excites me! If there is magic in the world, then this is the kind I would expect to find in the future and I find it gratifying that we might understand it someday. :)

Darmani• 17 years ago

Much more promising to me than simulating larger regions of the brain is the ability to trace the execution of this region from the brain in detail and try to come up with a clue at how intelligence works.

Evolution may be elegant itself, but it's not known for producing elegant systems. If either a human scientist or an AI is going to have any hope of designing efficient intelligent systems, we'll want something easier to work with than neurons.

jackchristopher2• 17 years ago

This wouldn't prove consciousness is physical. I'm not saying I'm a dualist, but pragmatically, the only thing I can say is that I'm conscious. It doesn't matter if scientists showed me a conscious computer, that event is still happening in my consciousness. Why believe a computer the computer is conscious, when I can't even prove other humans are conscious?

I don't necessarily believe the above, but no one mentioned this point.

Also, the multiverse makes this an odder issue. If the simplest algorithm is to output all possible universes, what's stopping a universe from having just one observer?

alexandros3• 17 years ago

Your position is dangerously close to solipsism. You allude to Occam's razor but it also answers your question. If the simplest algorithm does not imply limiting the amount of 'stuff' (universes), why would it limit the amount of observers?

jackchristopher2• 17 years ago

In principle I can't prove which I'm in. You're right. I left that out. But I see no reason to believe one over the other. But perpetual doubt is disempowering too.

And when I face an undecidable with equally plausible answers, I'm forced to test each view to see the results: what's life like with view x vs. view y. That result becomes the metric for a view's worth.

And honestly that could be solipsism. Although I know it as a similar concept some call "subjective reality". Again I don't believe in solipsism or SR, I'm just pointing out that either could be true and you could never know. I do believe in the multiverse though.

I always thought computers as conscious would prove consciousness was physical. I didn't realize my mistake till recently.

gambling8nt2• 17 years ago

Statistically, wouldn't one expect to find oneself in a many-observer universe (assuming that those universes weren't vastly rarer than the single-observer ones)?

Simulated brain closer to thought

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