Comments on: This is your brain on a microchip

Cognitive computing experts say the day that computers work like brains is getting closer.

[joshuaguttman]

This is way, way, way, way in the future

I'm sorry, but this is not going to happen anytime soon. Lump it up there with the paperless office, jet packs for all, and the flying car.

[jwarren.carroll]

Maybe Not...

Do some research on Quantum Computing and you might find yourself a little more excited about what is going on. The hope of Quantum Computing offers at the least (if we can make it work) processors that are exponentially (millions of times) faster than they are now. And remember, we are not talking about IRobot here, we are only talking about a technology that is going to start accelerating instead of crawling.

Also even without the advent of Quantum processors on the scene, there is still going to be a significant increase in processing power. If Moore's Law holds for the next two decades, then your 3 Ghz processor on your desktop will be running around 50 Terahertz in 20 years. A supercomputer on your desk. Now close your eyes and imagine that same computer with the parallelism that quantum computers can offer.

(50 Terahertz) * (1,000,000) = HOLY Petahertz Batman!!!

Anyway, that is 50x10^15 in case anybody was wondering just how many operations per second that is. Which is just one magnitude shy of being able to simulate protein folding in real time. Now string together several thousand of these guys together into one massive cluster and you got one heck of a computer.

Anyway, just something to think about before you go telling us all that 640K of Ram is all we will every need.

[tasteven]

maybe ... but what if?

No technology could change our lives more than this ... and imagine for a moment .. what if? :-)

[Blito]

Nano-tech can only enable this

We need hardware at a nano-level (atomic) if were going to be able to actively interact with our bodies and especially our brain in this type of transparent way. Then *** would be more of an enhancement as I don't see how we could make a a total digital transfer. We might have to go along the lines of what Hawkins describes as patterns because we simply wouldn't know exactly how to 'play God' and make a perfect transfer. There is a limit to the 0s and 1s because of fast evolution and nurturing aspects.

Example. A Nano-laser would be needed at an atomic level for implementing this physically. Probably could stimulate the brain in lesser ways though with more bulky equipment. But there needs to be fuzzy reasoning so in some way we would have to use patterns or DNA as a base; as usual.

We mustn't take it too far and we need open standards of course for safety and competition so I am glad they are releasing that program open source.

I just want to sustain my life in a healthy way not upload myself and live in a computer. I want to enhance my life, not hide away in a computer

In Richard Morgans Altered Carbon series book 3, there is a religion that decides uploading (living completely digital) is a perfect way to live but they have to deal with allot moire unknowns and computer viruses that are not the case in real or slower time like now. I think a balance will be needed. That's why I don't want to be on the Internet too much and prefer to keep most of my stuff on the desktop. The Internet is too digital. There's not allot of reality to it. It's easy to say we are in a 'Live' era and not to make decisions for ourselves; so putting everything on the Internet isn't going to happen.

Also the only way to 'upload' or digitally live would be to a have part of it physical and a part digital because we couldn't live in both places. I am not sure how to transfer consciousness.

I am excited about the prospects for neural and spinal repair becaseu I am part of that world too.
We need halp over here.

[DeusExMachina]

Blather

What on earth are you talking about?!

[DaClyde]

..if they knew how the brain worked..

Neurologists still only know relatively little about the brain, yet scientists are already planning to duplicate it?

[emeraldgate]

how the brain works

They know a great deal about the brain and how it works. It would suprize you. They can turn it on and shut it off, at will, without the person who actually owns that brain even being aware of it. They can control a whole community with electro magnetic radiation, of a specific strength, being emitted from a cell phone tower.
Go to www.educate yourself.com and start discovering a few things that you really should know.

Dianne

[emeraldgate]

already here

Brain microchips are already here. They have been experimenting with them since the 50's.
What is actually done in science labs is not always released to the public.

[DeusExMachina]

or maybe not

"Brain microchips are already here. They have been experimenting
with them since the 50's. What is actually done in science labs is
not always released to the public."


And what you saw on Star Trek and read about in the pamphlet
from the Area 51 UFO abductee convention is not always true. But
maybe I should keep my foil helmet on, just in case.

[newcreation]

an electronic brain

the brain is awhole more then ones and zeros.
a child can still do alot better then the most expensive supercomputer.let alot downloading anything into one.
scifi sometimes tells the truth even if it where true like in robocop we would go mad from the experience

[Razzl]

about to enter the age of intelligent machines

No, friends, we are quietly on the verge of entering an astounding age of intelligent machines, and it isn't centuries away. There have been developments quietly working in the background, not being reported on in mainstream media, that are about to explode upon us in just a few short years.

When the artificial intelligences begin to arrive in functional forms they are not going to be what we expect. Firstly, genetics has made astronomical gains in the last 2 decades and now stands on the brink of being able to manufacture or radically alter organisms. So there may be an organic component to artificial intelligence that few are really contemplating. It requires only some crossing of social and legal lines rather that tons of extra lab work to set this in motion.

The second important factor is that our military establishment is working diligently on creating semi-intelligent machines to carry out combat missions. This line of development is the most frightening and will advance the fastest because it ignores the problem of imitating human intelligence (which is wrapped up with a lot of complexities like sex, hunger, pain, and other chemical matters that are largely irrelevant to mechanisms) in favor of creating intelligences which are focused on defined tasks. Think of the spider--a marvel of organic evolution whose form of intelligence is so entirely focused on its prey-catching task that we fail to comprehend it as intelligent. The intelligent machines of the military are going in short order to become capable of wresting control of our planet from us, with or without a programmed sense of purpose. Machines that can make and design other machines will also be a threat.

The issue, that Deus and others are not seeing, is that intelligent machines will not threaten or serve us when they have brains like ours: they will be designed for specified purposes and carry them out in complex ways that we can't hope to imitate.

[newcreation]

intelligent war machines?

partly true but i think your watching to many terminator movies.intelligence is one thing self motivation is something beyond more iq