> The holy grail of neural nets has always been to build a simulation of the brain, figure out how it works, and apply that knowledge to how the human brain mig

> The holy grail of neural nets has always been to build a simulation of the brain, figure out how it works, and apply that knowledge to how the human brain might work. I'd say that's a goal for some people -- for those whose goal is to figure out how the brain works, rather than constructing a more ideal and powerful GI. Remember the brain is great at some things, but laughable at others -- such as a "7 +/- 2" items in short term memory, inability to immediately retain rote knowledge after one instance and in great numbers, etc. It's the merging of the fuzzy, goal-directed behavior of the mind, in conjunction with its ability to effect the "real world", and the super-human memory and computational capabilities of computers that makes possible future GAIs that are so powerful and possibly scary.