4 ms·

Doesn't the human brain have millions of years of band aids?

• jacobush 7y ago
  Yes and at this pace it may take thousands (or at least hundreds) of years to patch up our A.I. to general A.I.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  No, most likely not. Our best theories of the brain are both computationally and evolutionarily parsimonious.
  • gnramires 7y ago
    You can make a simple theory of anything. An airplane as a spherical ball of varying friction with a steerable propulsion. Or a massive electro-mechanical system. There's a fidelity curve as you progress in complexity. Fidelity curve of a literal ball stabilizes quickly, while the fidelity curve of an airplane extends far. The brain is massively complex, we still don't understand the ways that it computes and learns in detail except generalities such as using electrical and chemical signals, neurotransmissors, and some knowledge of architecture and region differentiation. Those models all point to an extremely complex system with quite a number of different specialized parts, with neurons individually having quite amazing complexity (and so on for capsules, neuronal systems). I think it's unlikely a "simple" system (if you could consider a vanilla CNN simple, for example) will solve human-like AGI efficiently (either data-efficiently or computationally efficiently). There are too many requirements. Also, while simplicity is good... a researcher shouldn't be caught obsessing over it exclusively, as it is not the end goal, which personally would be the advancement of understanding and of our capabilities instead.
    • eli_gottlieb 7y ago
      >The brain is massively complex, we still don't understand the ways that it computes and learns in detail except generalities such as using electrical and chemical signals, neurotransmissors, and some knowledge of architecture and region differentiation. Again, not really. Broadly speaking, the AI community is pretty far behind the neuroscience community in terms of understanding the basic principles underlying how brains work. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/principles-neural-design https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/principles-neural-design
    • Retric 7y ago
      The human brian is encoded via surprisingly limited amounts of information in DNA. It’s therefore more elegant than many modern AI systems. The often quoted 6×10^9 base pairs overstates the complexity as a lot of non coding DNA exists, and much of what’s left is redundant or does not relate to the brain. PS: We actually know quite about about how the brain learns and computes information. The are really interesting information about how the optic nerve encodes information for example.
      • visarga 7y ago
        > The human brian is encoded via surprisingly limited amounts of information in DNA. Same DNA that is referred to in other discussions as 'the ultimate spaghetti code'.
      • fg6hr 7y ago
        DNA by itself doesn't produce a human or a cell. You need another functional cell or human to create a replica. I would compare DNA with instructions to create a new car: the instructions are incomplete and assume the existence of a car factory. DNA tells "now paint the car with of these colors", but it doesn't tell how.
        • Retric 7y ago
          Computer programs don’t include the CPU design. DNA on the other hand encodes everything which then gets leveraged during cell division. Basically, DNA includes the design for both the car, car factory, and all the component factories that feed the car factory, and the mines that feed the component factories. People have dependencies on their diet for things like vitamin C, but that’s a whole other issue. PS: Mitochondria also have DNA, but that’s just location specific and can simply be added to the total for the cell.