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I think you missed the main point, replicated economically. Given unlimited budget, I think simulating the human brain might be possible if one could use a powe

I think you missed the main point, replicated economically. Given unlimited budget, I think simulating the human brain might be possible if one could use a powerful enough computer for evey neuron.

vidarh 6y ago
The article title makes an unqualified claim about realisation, and so it was what I responded to, but the article itself also makes the same strong claim: > A closer look reveals that although development of artificial intelligence for specific purposes (ANI) has been impressive, we have not come much closer to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). The article further argues that this is in principle impossible, and it revives Hubert Dreyfus’ argument that computers are not in the world. This is not an argument about cost - the article argues that it is "in principle impossible". Any argument about cost I think is also irrelevant: We know from the existence of the brain and how a brain is produced that it is possible to produce one relatively cheaply via biological processes. It seems highly unlikely that our ability to produce an artificial brain will not eventually approach the cost of growing one, because the "worst case" scenario is for us to find ethical ways of growing brain matter via biological processes and hook them up to computers, and it would seem unlikely that we will not eventually find cheaper ways of doing so than growing full mammalian bodies with it, and that we can not find any ways of optimising the process.
- Balgair 6y ago
  How the brain grows and develops in humans is not very well understood. We mostly use animal models to understand the nervous system, not humans. As an example of why this is problematic: mouse embryos pretty much turn inside out at day 3, and are the only known mammal to do this. All others, including humans, don't. Why and how are unknown, as are the effects on long term development. Basically, mice are better subjects than zebrafish, but not very good being humans. The limiting factor is not budget or time, but 'stomach'. How elastic are your ethics?
  - vidarh 6y ago
    It's not very well understood, but the process is known to exist and work. To assume it can't even in principle be replicated would be an extraordinary claim. Yet the article suggests artificial intelligence can not exist even in principle.
    - Balgair 6y ago
      I mean, from a biochem perspective, it's flabbergasting that intelligence exists at all. The brain is so noisy. To me, it's not far fetched to say that you can't make it happen again. Though I think it's technically possible. We're missing something big with intelligence. We know neurons and synapses a little bit. We know a few dozen neurons a little, though it's complexity is crazy big. But that gap between a normal brain down to a few dozen neurons is just boggling right now. There are just so many questions that need to be studied ethically. It may not be possible to answer them all in a reasonable time window.
      - chess_buster 6y ago
        Counter perspective: The process by which the brain produces intelligence might not be complex at all. Maybe it is just a simple algorithm which, when applied en masse, produces it. See for example the neocortex is made up of billions of cortical columns which are all basically the same architecture.
        Balgair 6y ago
        A few generations of biologists have tried to reason it out. I think it's safe to say that whatever is going on is either very complex or we just do not have the right tool to study it right now. Something really new, like radios were to communication, or steel hulls to shipping, is needed in bio to get things moving apace. The tools we have are really great, but they are a bit slow it seems. Also, the neocortex is somewhat stereotypical, but those long range projections that come in/out at every layer are the things that make the brain so hard to understand. Everything is flying everywhere all at once.
blacksqr 6y ago
The author explicitly stated that the main point is that the goal is fundamentally unachievable, regardless of economics or budgets.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  The authors main point is bunk if his only defense of that point is that humans are smart. The "learning" problem is solved. We've developed numerous algorithms to take a neural network and have it learn a task. We've solved specific problems, including image recognition, and text synthesis. Companies have figured out how to make sensory equipment including cameras, microphones, touch sensors... Just because no one has managed to put together all the pieces doesn't mean it will never happen. People for thousands of years did not think it was possible to build a flying machine, until someone did.
  - blacksqr 6y ago
    I was not suggesting that I agree with the linked article's argument (I don't). Just that the poster above me misstated the article's main point.
woeirua 6y ago
Ah, but this point has yet to be proved to even a small degree. Neural models of very simple organisms do tend to show that adequate connectome models appear to be enough to produce similar behaviors, but we know for a fact that there's a ton of biochemistry going on in the brain that we will not be able to replicate with just the connectome. If I were a betting person, I would wager that the connectome is enough to get something like intelligence, but that without the biochemistry the entire system is unstable in some way. The chemistry that we see in the brain is far more complicated than what would be required to minimally sustain the cells. There's a reason all of this chemistry is going on, and unfortunately I think we're going to find that intelligence just cannot exist as we know it without the chemistry. If that's true, then we're talking hundreds of years before we have computers powerful enough to model the chemistry at the requisite level.

I think you missed the main point, replicated economically. Given unlimited budget, I think simulating the human brain might be possible if one could use a powerful enough computer for evey neuron.

vidarh 6y ago

The article title makes an unqualified claim about realisation, and so it was what I responded to, but the article itself also makes the same strong claim: > A closer look reveals that although development of artificial intelligence for specific purposes (ANI) has been impressive, we have not come much closer to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). The article further argues that this is in principle impossible, and it revives Hubert Dreyfus’ argument that computers are not in the world. This is not an argument about cost - the article argues that it is "in principle impossible". Any argument about cost I think is also irrelevant: We know from the existence of the brain and how a brain is produced that it is possible to produce one relatively cheaply via biological processes. It seems highly unlikely that our ability to produce an artificial brain will not eventually approach the cost of growing one, because the "worst case" scenario is for us to find ethical ways of growing brain matter via biological processes and hook them up to computers, and it would seem unlikely that we will not eventually find cheaper ways of doing so than growing full mammalian bodies with it, and that we can not find any ways of optimising the process.

Balgair 6y ago
How the brain grows and develops in humans is not very well understood. We mostly use animal models to understand the nervous system, not humans. As an example of why this is problematic: mouse embryos pretty much turn inside out at day 3, and are the only known mammal to do this. All others, including humans, don't. Why and how are unknown, as are the effects on long term development. Basically, mice are better subjects than zebrafish, but not very good being humans. The limiting factor is not budget or time, but 'stomach'. How elastic are your ethics?
- vidarh 6y ago
  It's not very well understood, but the process is known to exist and work. To assume it can't even in principle be replicated would be an extraordinary claim. Yet the article suggests artificial intelligence can not exist even in principle.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    I mean, from a biochem perspective, it's flabbergasting that intelligence exists at all. The brain is so noisy. To me, it's not far fetched to say that you can't make it happen again. Though I think it's technically possible. We're missing something big with intelligence. We know neurons and synapses a little bit. We know a few dozen neurons a little, though it's complexity is crazy big. But that gap between a normal brain down to a few dozen neurons is just boggling right now. There are just so many questions that need to be studied ethically. It may not be possible to answer them all in a reasonable time window.
    - chess_buster 6y ago
      Counter perspective: The process by which the brain produces intelligence might not be complex at all. Maybe it is just a simple algorithm which, when applied en masse, produces it. See for example the neocortex is made up of billions of cortical columns which are all basically the same architecture.
      - Balgair 6y ago
        A few generations of biologists have tried to reason it out. I think it's safe to say that whatever is going on is either very complex or we just do not have the right tool to study it right now. Something really new, like radios were to communication, or steel hulls to shipping, is needed in bio to get things moving apace. The tools we have are really great, but they are a bit slow it seems. Also, the neocortex is somewhat stereotypical, but those long range projections that come in/out at every layer are the things that make the brain so hard to understand. Everything is flying everywhere all at once.

blacksqr 6y ago

The author explicitly stated that the main point is that the goal is fundamentally unachievable, regardless of economics or budgets.

ggggtez 6y ago
The authors main point is bunk if his only defense of that point is that humans are smart. The "learning" problem is solved. We've developed numerous algorithms to take a neural network and have it learn a task. We've solved specific problems, including image recognition, and text synthesis. Companies have figured out how to make sensory equipment including cameras, microphones, touch sensors... Just because no one has managed to put together all the pieces doesn't mean it will never happen. People for thousands of years did not think it was possible to build a flying machine, until someone did.
- blacksqr 6y ago
  I was not suggesting that I agree with the linked article's argument (I don't). Just that the poster above me misstated the article's main point.

woeirua 6y ago

Ah, but this point has yet to be proved to even a small degree. Neural models of very simple organisms do tend to show that adequate connectome models appear to be enough to produce similar behaviors, but we know for a fact that there's a ton of biochemistry going on in the brain that we will not be able to replicate with just the connectome. If I were a betting person, I would wager that the connectome is enough to get something like intelligence, but that without the biochemistry the entire system is unstable in some way. The chemistry that we see in the brain is far more complicated than what would be required to minimally sustain the cells. There's a reason all of this chemistry is going on, and unfortunately I think we're going to find that intelligence just cannot exist as we know it without the chemistry. If that's true, then we're talking hundreds of years before we have computers powerful enough to model the chemistry at the requisite level.