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When we finally design a simulated brain, I wonder if (1) it will be really good at spatial and behavioral behavior (balancing, motor skills, quick non-explicit

When we finally design a simulated brain, I wonder if (1) it will be really good at spatial and behavioral behavior (balancing, motor skills, quick non-explicit decision making etc), but really bad at doing math? Not to say we shouldn't keep trying, but we all seem to think that the best computer will evolve from solving lots and lots of partial differential equations into being like the brain, but animal brains have evolved to solve really different questions than why we have been making computers.

dkersten 15y ago
Thats ok, we can then connect a more traditional coprocessor to offload the math heavy work to (perhaps some kind of SIMD stream processor).
shantanubala 15y ago
Not to mention neuroplasticity: the brain literally can reallocate neurons to different functions based on whether they're used (and what functions are needed). It's a really fascinating aspect of psychological therapy and rehabilitation for people with birth defects or traumatic brain injuries. If a person has a damaged or missing part of their brain, they can develop the same functionality elsewhere. The brain is built to adapt to information instead of just processing information. EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
27182818284 15y ago
On Intelligence is a good, novice introduction to the brain, its parts like the neocortex, and how studying the brain can help us design better artificial brains. One point the book made that I thought was very insightful was that once we understand brains well enough to make artificial ones, we can pick and choose features like a little bit of Einstein mixed with a little bit of Zuckerberg's brain. Anyway, if you have some spare time, check it out. It is a short book and I learned a few things.
bermanoid 15y ago
Not to say we shouldn't keep trying, but we all seem to think that the best computer will evolve from solving lots and lots of partial differential equations into being like the brain, but animal brains have evolved to solve really different questions than why we have been making computers. The thing that always strikes me as interesting about the evolution of intelligence is that it's a mostly unnecessary latecomer to the evolutionary party: plenty of things thrive in nature without anything even remotely resembling human intelligence, even plenty of large animals that function quite well in complex environments rely mostly on hard coded "unintelligent" systems in their brains. The fact is, most of the problems that need to be solved to survive and reproduce can be solved very effectively without much general intelligence. Sure, once evolution discovers intelligence it turns out to be a very efficient way to implement a lot of functionality that would otherwise need to be hard coded, but it's not strictly necessary, and nature did just fine without it for a long time. The good news: that also means that it's unlikely that significant evolutionary pressures went into designing the complex systems responsible for intelligent thought, so they were probably accidentally "designed" via random drift. If you think about that, given the complexity of the algorithms involved, it means that the algorithm space at that level complexity is probably fairly dense with algorithms that function intelligently (where by "fairly dense" I mean that it's a lot denser than we might assume otherwise, and the solution that evolution came up with is probably not the only possible one). That means if we ever figure out how to do a guided search through algorithms of the right complexity in the right way, we may yet stand a chance of "accidentally" discovering intelligence rather than deliberately designing it.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Of course it's not neccesary. It's no more neccesary than being multicellular.
- Peaker 15y ago
  > that also means that it's unlikely that significant evolutionary pressures went into designing the complex systems responsible for intelligent thought, so they were probably accidentally "designed" via random drift I find this unlikely. Perhaps the initial "push" towards intelligence was based in random drift, but humans' evolutionary path has actually paid quite a dear price to have the high intelligence that we have: * Larger brains led to larger heads * Larger heads led to the need to give birth earlier, and with more risk * Earlier birth lead to helpless babies * Helpless babies require much more care, and mothers become dependent on fathers * Large brains are only very useful if trained for long periods of time leading to long, expensive and dangerous childhoods I don't think this whole process can be explained by random drift. I think the question of what caused pressure towards higher intelligence in our evolutionary process can be answered by competition. Analogously, consider tree heights. A tree doesn't need to be very high at all to collect sunlight. But a tree competing with other trees can grow to tremendous heights due to competition. When competing for resources with other similarly intelligent beings, more intelligence could definitely yield an evolutionary edge.
ignifero 15y ago
The assumption is that in the process we will have discovered new insights in the high-level functions of the brain that are not apparent in our current-level AI. We should then be able to figure out how to make it "better" at math or motor skills.

dkersten 15y ago

Thats ok, we can then connect a more traditional coprocessor to offload the math heavy work to (perhaps some kind of SIMD stream processor).

shantanubala 15y ago

Not to mention neuroplasticity: the brain literally can reallocate neurons to different functions based on whether they're used (and what functions are needed). It's a really fascinating aspect of psychological therapy and rehabilitation for people with birth defects or traumatic brain injuries. If a person has a damaged or missing part of their brain, they can develop the same functionality elsewhere. The brain is built to adapt to information instead of just processing information. EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

27182818284 15y ago

On Intelligence is a good, novice introduction to the brain, its parts like the neocortex, and how studying the brain can help us design better artificial brains. One point the book made that I thought was very insightful was that once we understand brains well enough to make artificial ones, we can pick and choose features like a little bit of Einstein mixed with a little bit of Zuckerberg's brain. Anyway, if you have some spare time, check it out. It is a short book and I learned a few things.

bermanoid 15y ago

Not to say we shouldn't keep trying, but we all seem to think that the best computer will evolve from solving lots and lots of partial differential equations into being like the brain, but animal brains have evolved to solve really different questions than why we have been making computers. The thing that always strikes me as interesting about the evolution of intelligence is that it's a mostly unnecessary latecomer to the evolutionary party: plenty of things thrive in nature without anything even remotely resembling human intelligence, even plenty of large animals that function quite well in complex environments rely mostly on hard coded "unintelligent" systems in their brains. The fact is, most of the problems that need to be solved to survive and reproduce can be solved very effectively without much general intelligence. Sure, once evolution discovers intelligence it turns out to be a very efficient way to implement a lot of functionality that would otherwise need to be hard coded, but it's not strictly necessary, and nature did just fine without it for a long time. The good news: that also means that it's unlikely that significant evolutionary pressures went into designing the complex systems responsible for intelligent thought, so they were probably accidentally "designed" via random drift. If you think about that, given the complexity of the algorithms involved, it means that the algorithm space at that level complexity is probably fairly dense with algorithms that function intelligently (where by "fairly dense" I mean that it's a lot denser than we might assume otherwise, and the solution that evolution came up with is probably not the only possible one). That means if we ever figure out how to do a guided search through algorithms of the right complexity in the right way, we may yet stand a chance of "accidentally" discovering intelligence rather than deliberately designing it.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Of course it's not neccesary. It's no more neccesary than being multicellular.
Peaker 15y ago
> that also means that it's unlikely that significant evolutionary pressures went into designing the complex systems responsible for intelligent thought, so they were probably accidentally "designed" via random drift I find this unlikely. Perhaps the initial "push" towards intelligence was based in random drift, but humans' evolutionary path has actually paid quite a dear price to have the high intelligence that we have: * Larger brains led to larger heads * Larger heads led to the need to give birth earlier, and with more risk * Earlier birth lead to helpless babies * Helpless babies require much more care, and mothers become dependent on fathers * Large brains are only very useful if trained for long periods of time leading to long, expensive and dangerous childhoods I don't think this whole process can be explained by random drift. I think the question of what caused pressure towards higher intelligence in our evolutionary process can be answered by competition. Analogously, consider tree heights. A tree doesn't need to be very high at all to collect sunlight. But a tree competing with other trees can grow to tremendous heights due to competition. When competing for resources with other similarly intelligent beings, more intelligence could definitely yield an evolutionary edge.

ignifero 15y ago

The assumption is that in the process we will have discovered new insights in the high-level functions of the brain that are not apparent in our current-level AI. We should then be able to figure out how to make it "better" at math or motor skills.