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Jeffrey Fadness

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Are we on the brink of creating a human-like digital mind?

The human brain contains some 100 billion neurons, grouped in specialized function zones, connected by a hundred thousand billion synapses - the neurons representing individual data processing and storage units; and synapses the data transfer cabling, connecting all the processing units.

Correlating its processing ability to a supercomputer, it's been estimated it can perform more than 38 thousand trillion operations per second, and hold about 3.6 million gigabytes of memory. Equally impressive, it's estimated that the human brain executes this monumental computational task on a mere equivalent of 20 watts of power; about the same energy to power a single, dim light bulb. In today's technology, a supercomputer designed to deliver comparable capabilities would require roughly 100 megawatts (100 million watts) of power; an energy equivalent that could fully satisfy the power consumption needs of roughly a thousand households.

An ambitious $1.3 billion project was very recently announced in Europe to simulate a human mind in the form of a complete human brain in a supercomputer. It's named the Human Brain Project. A similar project in the U.S. planned by National Institutes of Health (NIH) is called the Brain Activity Map project.

Assuming we learn enough from these efforts to design a new architecture in computer processing which can approximate the ability of the human brain - what's to stop us from creating the cognitive faculties that enable consciousness, thinking, reasoning, perception, and judgement? After all, we as human beings develop these abilities from data we acquire over time through sensory inputs connecting us to our experiences, and from information communicated to us by others.

Think about it. Is there anything related to our experience - be it physical, historical or conceptual - that cannot be described in language, and therefore be input as executable data and programming to create a human-like digital mind?

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    Shantanu Rai

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    Mar 21 2013: I am reminded of a few things from the movie industry..the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic "Rise of Machines" and Also the Matrix trilogy.
    Rise of the Machines starts from the time SkyNet becomes "Self Aware".. likewise the Matrix is a much evolved version of the Self aware SkyNet.
    Flipping over, there are number of articles today that mention that the inflexion point when the total number of connect sensors/transistors/computers in the world would exceed the human brain, is not too far into the future.

    So a slightly scary thought is whether the Internet as we know of will become "Self Aware" at some point in the future ? If so, what could be its moral compass ?

    Hence, in my view, the ability of any system to reproduce itself is the first milestone of non-linearity. Similar to bacteria and other single cellular animals.

    The second milestone of non-linearity is the system becomes "Self Aware" a bit like tiny insects who interact to the surroundings.

    Similarly, the ultimate milestone is the ability of a system to abstract itself and reproduce physically and also intellectually, i.e. convince another system to behave like it. To me it appears another milestone of non-linearity.

    The fact that a lot of this has echos of philosophy is a question for another debate.
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      Casey Christofaris 10+

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      Mar 21 2013: Lets hope its more like bicentennial man, than. I would guess if and when AI becomes self aware it would react to how we react to it. So if we see it as less then us, as we are its master then most likely it will repeat human history and go to war with us. But if we can find true equality here on earth first and realize any being that is self aware will never want to be controlled I don't think there will be a problem. The problem comes when we put ourselves above other. However there is a difference between a machine that has an intention, because machine's love intention. If you have ever ridden a motorcycle or driven a high performance vehicle you will get the sense that the machine is enjoying the ride as much as you are. However I repeat a self aware being of any kind will never want to be controlled.
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      Jeffrey Fadness

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      Mar 25 2013: Life often imitates art. So many times in the past, what was fantasy and fiction becomes reality in the future. I often think of "2001 A Space Odyssey" the "Terminator" series, and my favorite the "Matrix" when I'm contemplating this subject. Thank you for your thoughts!
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        Casey Christofaris 10+

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        Mar 25 2013: Oh yeah you can use art not only to predict life but use it as a basis for R and D. One of the coolest things that I think happen from the patent war between apple and samsung was that samsung said the idea of the tablet came from "2001 A Space Odyssey" or something like that mystery science theater.

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