Making brains: Reverse engineering the human brain to achieve AI

[Studeo]

George Dvorsky
Sentient Developments

Posted: Aug 22, 2010

The ongoing debate between PZ Myers and Ray Kurzweil about reverse engineering the human brain is fairly representative of the same debate that’s been going in futurist circles for quite some time now. And as the Myers/Kurzweil conversation attests, there is little consensus on the best way for us to achieve human-equivalent AI.

That said, I have noticed an increasing interest in the whole brain emulation (WBE) approach. Kurzweil’s upcoming book, How the Mind Works and How to Build One, is a good example of this—but hardly the only one. Futurists with a neuroscientific bent have been advocating this approach for years now, most prominently by the European transhumanist camp headed by Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg.

While I believe that reverse engineering the human brain is the right approach, I admit that it’s not going to be easy. Nor is it going to be quick. This will be a multi-disciplinary endeavor that will require decades of data collection and the use of technologies that don’t exist yet. And importantly, success won’t come about all at once. This will be an incremental process in which individual developments will provide the foundation for overcoming the next conceptual hurdle.

But we have to start somewhere, and we have to start with a plan.......:eek:

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky20100820?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EthicalTechnology+Ethical+Technology#When:15:26:21Z

[Butangeld]

I agree with the sentiment, that you got to start somewhere. Though the assumptions made about the brain and its assumed role as the sole purveyor of intelligence will continue to flaw attempts to replicate its perceived product.

The problem is hinted at with the assurance that it will take a multi-disciplined approach to solve the mystery. My feeling is that it will take a whole lot more than that. I say it will take a holistic approach to really get results in the field of AI. Unless you are content with card tricks.

A philosophy lecturer once concluded at the end of his lecture on the subject of AI, that 'we would only truly have cracked the problem of AI once we have made a machine with the capacity to get horny.' This made a stark impression, to make a machine talk and seem intelligent is one thing, but for it to actually get horny requires more than just number crunching.

This approach of looking only to the brain as the key to unlocking consciousness and intelligence, is like reverse engineering the foot to understand why people run. Perhaps the brain is a receiver and the mind a transmitter.

[Fredkc]

Butangeld;
I think you got it in one ;)
Science seems convinced that if they build the computer, the software will magically appear.
Then once they've installed 'software' too, it will suddenly take on life.

In the end it reminds me that George Carlin may have been right;
"For every idiot just smart enough to nail two boards together, theres another who will buy it." ;)
Fred

2nd impression;
While I believe that reverse engineering the human brain is the right approach, I admit that it’s not going to be easy. Nor is it going to be quick. This will be a multi-disciplinary endeavor that will require decades of data collection and the use of technologies that don’t exist yet. And importantly, success won’t come about all at once. This will be an incremental process in which individual developments will provide the foundation for overcoming the next conceptual hurdle.
Boy! If this isn't someone fishing for the eternal research grant, to provide for their fiefdom, I just don't know........ much.