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"Replicating the neocortex, the part of the brain that sees, controls the body, understands language and does math. Translate the neocortex into computer code a

"Replicating the neocortex, the part of the brain that sees, controls the body, understands language and does math. Translate the neocortex into computer code and 'you have a computer that thinks like a person,” says Vicarious co-founder Scott Phoenix.'" Do you? Other than the language part it sounds like you may instead have an electronic lizard or cow. Add language and you might have an electronic parrot or dolphin(they can do some language processing). Something's missing - the ability to reason: deduction, induction and abduction. The ability to set goals and to find a path to those goals. These are the magic that everyone has been seeking and not finding for a long time. The pieces the Vicarious found speaks of are available today. We have exquisite computer vision, pretty good language understanding and fair robots but no strong AI and certainly no embodied AI. The promises above are hollow. But it will make some people a lot of money.

NoodleIncident 13y ago
Not trying to be rude here, I promise. Don't those other animals not even have neocortices? Or if they do, they are very thin and smooth? I was under the impression that the human neocortex is abnormally thick and wrinkled, making it plausible that the reasoning capabilities are in fact in there. The neocortex doesn't directly control the body or see, but there are bits that light up when we do. Lizards have the other parts of their brain, directly wired in. We have those parts, too, in addition to our neocortex.
Houshalter 13y ago
Well it's not clear where such high level functions come from, but it's certainly progress. Making an AI as smart as an animal would be an incredible advancement btw.
- giardini 13y ago
  "Making an AI as smart as an animal would be an incredible advancement btw." Only if your goal was to make an artificial (non-human) animal. But would that be a step toward making an artificial human?
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Of course it would be. Human brains are only slightly different than animal brains. Most of the work goes into getting to chimps, then it's just a short distance to humans. Animal brains have incredible pattern recognition and reinforcement learning. We don't have to take the path evolution did of course, but it would be progress.

NoodleIncident 13y ago

Not trying to be rude here, I promise. Don't those other animals not even have neocortices? Or if they do, they are very thin and smooth? I was under the impression that the human neocortex is abnormally thick and wrinkled, making it plausible that the reasoning capabilities are in fact in there. The neocortex doesn't directly control the body or see, but there are bits that light up when we do. Lizards have the other parts of their brain, directly wired in. We have those parts, too, in addition to our neocortex.

Houshalter 13y ago

Well it's not clear where such high level functions come from, but it's certainly progress. Making an AI as smart as an animal would be an incredible advancement btw.

giardini 13y ago
"Making an AI as smart as an animal would be an incredible advancement btw." Only if your goal was to make an artificial (non-human) animal. But would that be a step toward making an artificial human?
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Of course it would be. Human brains are only slightly different than animal brains. Most of the work goes into getting to chimps, then it's just a short distance to humans. Animal brains have incredible pattern recognition and reinforcement learning. We don't have to take the path evolution did of course, but it would be progress.