The Blue Gene project was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2009, and just two years ago it needed 147,456 (then-Power-PC) processors to simulate a cat brain. It now has the cat simulation down to 24,576 processors, and has squeezed 4.5 per cent of the human brain into the same 147,456 processors. And it’s still on pace to finish the job of turning the human mind into a componentially replicable thing by 2019, which researchers think will take about 880,000 processors. So you’ve got eight years to figure out a way to contribute to society that isn’t wholly reliant on your brain. [IBM via Scientific American]
Image: EUSKALANATO
wes
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 9:39 AMseeing as humans do not use 100% of their brains, 4.5% of a human brain should be enough to emulate the normal behaviour of a human being!
Eccentric
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 11:31 AMThat’s a Myth dude, look it up eh
NotWes
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 10:00 AMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth
sketchy
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 11:41 AMI’m curious, what are the laws regarding AI? is there limit to how intelligent we allow it to become? or is it just a free-for-all?
Are there laws set in place restricting certain interactions with humans? It seems almost ridiculous to discuss it at this stage, but given the amount of research and development going into it, and the rate at which technology advances, shouldn’t we be putting something in place now on a global level?
Steve
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:11 PMNo laws exist against developing inteligence. Only cloning and stem cell research. I dare say that when they have made a brain work and the competition groups start waging war like AMD against Intel sort of thing, then there will be regulations on stuff like how many processors a synthetic brain can have over catagories like public brains and government brains etc. It’s like an Isac Asimov novel coming to life!
Eddy
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 12:11 PMSketchy,
This is the perfect time for such discussions imo, Humans and computers are becoming more interlinked and computers are not all that far away from having real intelligence rather than an appearance of intelligence. I think the right time was when asimov came up with the three laws(four really) of robotics many years ago.
We are evolving and could go in any number of directions. I think we should be seriously considering what we want to evolve into rather than just letting it happen. We should be discussing where we want to be in a million years time and planning how to get there.
sketchy
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 5:46 PMMy thoughts exactly. Although my knowledge on this subject is fairly limited, I do know of the predicted ‘Singularity’ period where human intelligence is matched and then quickly over-taken by some form of technological intelligence.
What happens after this time is unclear though. Do we live a peaceful existence aided by this new intelligence? Do we become unnecessary, perhaps seen as a burden on the future of this planet and it’s resources? And what’s to stop someone (or something) hacking, modifying or simply just ignoring these 4 laws Asimov created and making intelligent weaponry hostile towards certain ethnic groups or countries? or humanity itself?
And who decides what is ethically right and wrong during the learning process?
Matt L
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 12:37 PMThis is how we move humans to another planet… Clone to computer, hybernate or assign control positions. Simulate our lives in a virtual world (COOL!). And once we reach the destination, transfer brain data into mechanical man to build a lab to build a person… This is my heaven project… If you can clone a humans brain onto computer, you could run it on that computer in a simulated environment… Forever.
L Toms
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:41 PMThere are many published works dealing with this very type of situation, both fictional and non-fictional. Brain scanning and mem-cording have long been a dream of many looking to become an immortal existence, whether in physical or mental form. This project and others like it (eg intel’s research into synapse like self learning processors) lead us closer to that lofty goal.
Now we could discuss the ethics of this, but, as mentioned, many published works exist on this topic. The fictional works of Neal Asher I quite enjoy, for instance. However I just wish to say how excited these advances make me, to thank the researchers for their hard and amazing work, and to hope that, one day, I can live in a world where these dreams are a reality, for everyone.
Craig
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:29 PMCreating a computer with the parallel processing capacity of the human brain does not give it any cognitive intelligence at all. That’s all down to programming by humans and I imagine that part of the project is well behind the hardware phase. Sticking 1000′s of processors together is child’s play in comparison.
Matt L
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:20 AMThe idea is to replicate the “programming”… For example, once we learn how the brain talks to other parts of the brain, this can run itself… However, there will be no conditions for it, you’ll need to run it in a virtual enviromnetnt you program… You could program and modify the brain, for example, you could allow direct thought access to the “virtual physical” environment and allow the user to manipulate the environment in any way (set by the boundries of the environment)… So you could fly, make objects appear, and walk thru walls… God mode!
Nitin
Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 6:38 PMOnly when Watson will understand Theory of relativity(I know that nearly very very few humans can understand it)I can imagine that it’s time for Terminator in a real movie . Are we intelligent enough to understand what is intelligence?. Time will tell.