> Brain * Develop a mathematical theory to build a functional model of the brain that is mathematically consistent and predictive rather than merely biologicall

> Brain * Develop a mathematical theory to build a functional model of the brain that is mathematically consistent and predictive rather than merely biologically inspired. My gut reaction to that was: that’s pie-in-the-sky outlandish. However, with more thought, I agree it is possibly the most important in the list. In the past year, Congress demanded a powerful general AI. (1) Many have been and continue to be concerned that AIs will fail in the areas of ethics and morality. An unethical and immoral AI could be chaotic and unpredictable. It could try to kill everyone (Skynet) or manipulate them for its amusement or quest for knowledge, or it could leave Earth in a spaceship never to be seen again, since it would have no obligation to us. An ethical and moral AI on the other hand might decide that it should keep humans alive and happy in a virtual world to save us from ourselves or to better control disease, hunger, and other risks. But by doing so, would take away our actual physical freedom. The problem with the human brain as a model is that it’s not necessarily going to be much better. For example, consider how humans treat other animal species: we let some roam free, we study some, we heal some, we feed some, we have pets, we have zoos, we milk some, we take their eggs, we eat them as food, some hunt them for sport, and some accidentally run them over with vehicles. Perhaps if we only were to try to make AI purely just do some human jobs to save money or to act as a scalable collection of virtual human minds, that could in-theory be less risky than a hyper-intelligent general AI. That’s not going to stop development of such a general AI. But, maybe it could help defend us better and could help those designing that AI to make dystopia less eminent. (1) https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/intelligence-authorization-act-fiscal-year-2021 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/intelligenc...