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I almost dislocated my jaw while reading this article. When we come to understand how brains function, we should become able to build amazing devices with cogn

I almost dislocated my jaw while reading this article. When we come to understand how brains function, we should become able to build amazing devices with cognitive abilities -- such as cognitive cars that are better at driving than we are because they communicate with other cars and share knowledge on road conditions. Later: As this cognitive infrastructure evolves, it may someday even reach a point where it will rival our brains in power and sophistication. Intelligence will inherit the earth. Uhh... talk about lack of imagination. Self-driving cars? Smart power grids? Those are toys compared to other consequences of brain emulation. And "someday"? If you can model 1/1000th of a human brain at full speed today, then you'll be able to model a whole brain in 20 years (assuming no software speedups). 2 years after that, you'll have a model that runs at 2x human speed. Then it's off to the races. Biological humans are nowhere near the upper bound for intelligence. Just one example of our inefficient brains: Our neurons conduct signals at 0.000001c. If these things are as smart or smarter than us, then they'll be able to build even smarter intelligences even faster than us. Lather, rinse, repeat; you have I. J. Good's intelligence explosion. A minor detail in this future would be, "Oh by the way, biological humans can upload themselves and become practically immortal." Seriously, cars are the best the writer can come up with?! What's the point of cars if you can transfer consciousness at the speed of light?

kul 16y ago
I don't think it's a given that our brains are "ruthlessly inefficient". In a complex system of trade-offs, they are actually pretty damn good at what they do. Human vision alone is incredibly complex. Anyone interested in how difficult it is to replicate the brain should read Steven Pinker's "How the Mind works".
- AngryParsley 16y ago
  Sure, the brain is impressive. It's not bad considering the limitations of biology. Likewise, I think the human eye is impressive. I'd certainly have a hard time designing a video camera made of jelly. But the brain, like the eye, is highly sub-optimal compared to non-biological solutions. The laws of physics allow for brains that run a million times faster than ours while consuming the same amount of energy. And that's without using tricks like quantum or reversible computing. Evolution can only hill-climb. It can't jump to the highest points of the solution space, and it can't explore any areas of the solution space surrounded by valleys. This is why no animal has evolved wheels, treads, or impeller pumps. This is also why animals haven't evolved brains made out of materials that conduct signals at speeds close to c.
  - lkozma 16y ago
    "This is why no animal has evolved wheels" instead animals evolved brains and hands that invent and build wheels. Nice way to jump out of the supposed limitation of hill-climbing algorithm.
    - AngryParsley 16y ago
      Evolution has limitations that go beyond inefficiency. For example: it is completely indifferent to the organisms it operates on. Evolution has absolutely no compassion. It will not select for traits that reduce suffering in dying organisms. Evolution isn't forward-looking. It doesn't notice when it starts on a journey to trap itself in a local maxima. Evolution is slow. Life started on this planet not long after the surface solidified, but it took 4 billion years for general intelligence to evolve. 4 billion years and countless organisms suffering and dying just to get 3lbs of gray matter. Had it taken much longer, the Sun would have gotten farther along in its life cycle and sterilized the Earth before evolution stumbled on general intelligence. Sorry for that mini-diatribe, but I don't like it when people paint evolution in a positive light. It really is one of the dumbest possible ways to explore a solution space.
  - joubert 16y ago
    You're right - evolution by natural selection does not have the luxury of foresight. Regarding wheels, i seem to recall the bacterial flagellum is the one organism that has in fact evolved a wheel.
SeamusBrady 16y ago
Trapped by a metaphor... a mind is like a computer, but a mind is not a computer. If you build a fast computer model of a mind, then you have - wait for it! - a fast computer model of a mind! Sentience is more than just a matter of modelling, surely? Note, I did not say that a sentient, non-human thinking being is an impossibility, but I am not sure that it would happen by building big fast models.
- ericb 16y ago
  > Sentience is more than just a matter of modelling, surely? Why? What if it is the pattern that matters for sentience, not the form of the implementation, and a model captured that pattern?

kul 16y ago

I don't think it's a given that our brains are "ruthlessly inefficient". In a complex system of trade-offs, they are actually pretty damn good at what they do. Human vision alone is incredibly complex. Anyone interested in how difficult it is to replicate the brain should read Steven Pinker's "How the Mind works".

AngryParsley 16y ago
Sure, the brain is impressive. It's not bad considering the limitations of biology. Likewise, I think the human eye is impressive. I'd certainly have a hard time designing a video camera made of jelly. But the brain, like the eye, is highly sub-optimal compared to non-biological solutions. The laws of physics allow for brains that run a million times faster than ours while consuming the same amount of energy. And that's without using tricks like quantum or reversible computing. Evolution can only hill-climb. It can't jump to the highest points of the solution space, and it can't explore any areas of the solution space surrounded by valleys. This is why no animal has evolved wheels, treads, or impeller pumps. This is also why animals haven't evolved brains made out of materials that conduct signals at speeds close to c.
- lkozma 16y ago
  "This is why no animal has evolved wheels" instead animals evolved brains and hands that invent and build wheels. Nice way to jump out of the supposed limitation of hill-climbing algorithm.
  - AngryParsley 16y ago
    Evolution has limitations that go beyond inefficiency. For example: it is completely indifferent to the organisms it operates on. Evolution has absolutely no compassion. It will not select for traits that reduce suffering in dying organisms. Evolution isn't forward-looking. It doesn't notice when it starts on a journey to trap itself in a local maxima. Evolution is slow. Life started on this planet not long after the surface solidified, but it took 4 billion years for general intelligence to evolve. 4 billion years and countless organisms suffering and dying just to get 3lbs of gray matter. Had it taken much longer, the Sun would have gotten farther along in its life cycle and sterilized the Earth before evolution stumbled on general intelligence. Sorry for that mini-diatribe, but I don't like it when people paint evolution in a positive light. It really is one of the dumbest possible ways to explore a solution space.
- joubert 16y ago
  You're right - evolution by natural selection does not have the luxury of foresight. Regarding wheels, i seem to recall the bacterial flagellum is the one organism that has in fact evolved a wheel.

SeamusBrady 16y ago

Trapped by a metaphor... a mind is like a computer, but a mind is not a computer. If you build a fast computer model of a mind, then you have - wait for it! - a fast computer model of a mind! Sentience is more than just a matter of modelling, surely? Note, I did not say that a sentient, non-human thinking being is an impossibility, but I am not sure that it would happen by building big fast models.

ericb 16y ago
> Sentience is more than just a matter of modelling, surely? Why? What if it is the pattern that matters for sentience, not the form of the implementation, and a model captured that pattern?