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It's fascinating that this is so close to reality, at least in terms of preserving the information that encodes our memories and identities. Of course there is

It's fascinating that this is so close to reality, at least in terms of preserving the information that encodes our memories and identities. Of course there is the issue of reviving the person, either biologically or digitally. As computing power grows, I don't see any barrier to simulating an entire human brain. Sure it will take time: according to this[0] and applying Moore's law, it will take about 60 years before we can simulate a brain in real time with a single machine. This whole field makes me very uncomfortable. I'm not saying it's wrong, but the potential for harm (particularly to those being simulated) is very great. There's a Greg Egan story where reanimated humans live as "AI" characters a game simulation, waiting for when society will wake up and grant them rights. [0] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163051-simulating-1-second-of-human-brain-activity-takes-82944-processors http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163051-simulating-1-secon...

lfam 11y ago
Which Greg Egan story is that?
- JesperRavn 11y ago
  I can't remember (possibly not Greg Egan). In case someone else knows, the main plot is that the characters have to act as inhabitants of a primitive village, in a computer game/simulation.
  - shabble 11y ago
    Probably neither of these (depending on your definition of primitive), but they're interesting anyway: The Cookie Monster[1] by Vernor Vinge Glasshouse[2] by Charles Stross [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%... (WP link, contains spoilers) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29
- Udik 11y ago
  Possibly he refers to Permutation City. Absolutely necessary read.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Almost all of them.
coldtea 11y ago
>and applying Moore's law, it will take about 60 years before we can simulate a brain in real time with a single machine. What Moore's law? This has already stopped.
- JesperRavn 11y ago
  Re Moore's law, the best answer I could get was from Intel via Wikipedia[0] "our cadence today is closer to two and a half years than two." So I wouldn't call that "stopped" but slowed. On the other hand, there are other kinds of advancement that don't really fit into any kind of "law" but might make up for this slowdown, resulting in long term exponential growth, e.g. the transition from CPU to GPU computing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Intel was slow (delayed) with the Skylake, and poised to get even more delayed in delivering the next series, that jumps to 10nm. So this "2.5 years" is just the first slowdown -- it gets worse. It's not like we just change 2 to 2.5 and continue for the next 10-20 years. Probably not even 2 or 3. After 10nm, which is already challenging, you're basically screwed with any kind of process known/used today. And the costs for a fab are into the billions (and get higher with lower sizes), so it's not like small players can even compete in that field. And that's for multicore -- so unless we also get a way to write more programs to be massively parallel (which lots of algorithms cannot be made) -- we don't get the "free boost" from Moore's law with regards to speed that we used to get. Not only it's dropped to 2.5 years, but it's also more useless, just giving us more transistors in not readily usable cores. That's why Intel devotes large part of the CPU to the embedded GPU -- it doesn't have much else to do with it.
    - walterbell 11y ago
      Multiple cores are useful for virtualization or any collection of programs which each use one core. If the future is one of many cores, we can invest into software architectures that make it easy for parallel processes/VMs to cooperate securely, e.g. message bus.

lfam 11y ago

Which Greg Egan story is that?

JesperRavn 11y ago
I can't remember (possibly not Greg Egan). In case someone else knows, the main plot is that the characters have to act as inhabitants of a primitive village, in a computer game/simulation.
- shabble 11y ago
  Probably neither of these (depending on your definition of primitive), but they're interesting anyway: The Cookie Monster[1] by Vernor Vinge Glasshouse[2] by Charles Stross [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%... (WP link, contains spoilers) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29
Udik 11y ago
Possibly he refers to Permutation City. Absolutely necessary read.
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
Almost all of them.

coldtea 11y ago

>and applying Moore's law, it will take about 60 years before we can simulate a brain in real time with a single machine. What Moore's law? This has already stopped.

JesperRavn 11y ago
Re Moore's law, the best answer I could get was from Intel via Wikipedia[0] "our cadence today is closer to two and a half years than two." So I wouldn't call that "stopped" but slowed. On the other hand, there are other kinds of advancement that don't really fit into any kind of "law" but might make up for this slowdown, resulting in long term exponential growth, e.g. the transition from CPU to GPU computing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
- coldtea 11y ago
  Intel was slow (delayed) with the Skylake, and poised to get even more delayed in delivering the next series, that jumps to 10nm. So this "2.5 years" is just the first slowdown -- it gets worse. It's not like we just change 2 to 2.5 and continue for the next 10-20 years. Probably not even 2 or 3. After 10nm, which is already challenging, you're basically screwed with any kind of process known/used today. And the costs for a fab are into the billions (and get higher with lower sizes), so it's not like small players can even compete in that field. And that's for multicore -- so unless we also get a way to write more programs to be massively parallel (which lots of algorithms cannot be made) -- we don't get the "free boost" from Moore's law with regards to speed that we used to get. Not only it's dropped to 2.5 years, but it's also more useless, just giving us more transistors in not readily usable cores. That's why Intel devotes large part of the CPU to the embedded GPU -- it doesn't have much else to do with it.
  - walterbell 11y ago
    Multiple cores are useful for virtualization or any collection of programs which each use one core. If the future is one of many cores, we can invest into software architectures that make it easy for parallel processes/VMs to cooperate securely, e.g. message bus.