Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain, which appears to beat evolution.

Chris Eliasmith has spent years contemplating how to build a brain.

He is about to publish a book with instructions, which describes the grey matter’s architecture and how the different components interact.

www.montrealgazette.com...

I guess intelligent design has once again beat evolution, as I have watched evolution and noticed how few it has actually developed. LOL

Soon, virtual brains will be the norm. Will that give everyone there own A.I. or a new master?

Originally posted by winterkill
Chris Eliasmith has spent years contemplating how to build a brain.

He is about to publish a book with instructions, which describes the grey matter’s architecture and how the different components interact.

www.montrealgazette.com...

I guess intelligent design has once again beat evolution, as I have watched evolution and noticed how few it has actually developed. LOL

Soon, virtual brains will be the norm. Will that give everyone there own A.I. or a new master?

Maybe they could ship a few hundred of these to parliament in Ottawa. This has got to be the "stupid" capital of Canada. Surely with the decisions these idiots make, they need all the help they can get.

Cheers - Dave

There's money to be made here replacing world government.

I'm not trying to nit pick..., but I think it's hilarious that the title of the article identifies the scientists as Canadian, as to try and prove something.

A study by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston — led by neuroscientist and former McGill University postdoctoral fellow Mauro Costa-Mattioli with contributions from a couple of Canadians — found suppressing a molecule called PKR in the brains of mice improved the rodents' memory function and learning abilities

lol Montrealgazette

I'll believe it when I see it lol. reading on...

So Eliasmith’s team built Spaun, which was billed Thursday as “the world’s largest simulation of a functioning brain.”

Spaun can recognize numbers, remember lists and write them down. It even passes some basic aspects of an IQ test, the team reports in the journal Science.

Did they just make a computer that simulates a computer, and is dumber? But it learns!

Interesting article, but here was the part that caught my attention:

He says it hard to predict the future, but he expects to see an explosion in artificial intelligence and more “human-like” machines.

“A robot that is able to navigate through a city and deliver a package from one place to another,” he says. “I think that kind of thing will be within reach in the next 10 years.”

So delivery drivers will be unemployed. How many other jobs will be automated out of existence. I know it's supposed to free up humans, but for what?

Is there any alternative to putting vast numbers on welfare? Paid for, one would hope, by increased productivity, but that means the government would have to take all the money and allocate it as it sees fit. Some professions might be untouched, but for the majority?

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by bobs_uruncle

NO! Send them to DC!

After watching the classic “Frankenstein” film, I’ve just started reading the book. Not everyone values philosophy over scientific triumphs, but it seems to me that man has never been successful at messing with nature. “It’s alive!” is all that Dr. Frankenstein cared about, until he realized what “abomination” means.

AI has no soul, no inherent compassion. Although it’s true that moral software could counteract this, true AI would be able to surpass such restraints (as a person could.) True AI would think for itself and make whatever decisions it concluded best for itself (or from its own reasoning.)

If anyone wanted to see what a colony of robots with limited intelligence would be like, imagine bio-engineering a colony of human-sized ants. Good idea? Now imagine giving them human-level intelligence. Remember that ants, like AI, are not “human” (they do not have compassion, would lack our ages of growth as a species and the generic wisdom (here is a new concept) through that evolution to evolve to the wisdom that we have.

Ants have barely changed for millions of years, perhaps as their biology has proven ideal for their means and so they have faced less testing than humans to evolve. As limited as our wisdom can be, an ant colony (or a robotic one) would lack this entirely. Wisdom is learned through personal and racial growth, by facing and overcoming trials which cause such growth, unlike simple knowledge or morals (which can be enforced, but also abandoned.) Babies start off small and simple, and grow from there. Likewise, all life started off as protein formed from amino acids.

Creating an intelligent being from scratch = brilliance to science, insanity to wisdom.

reply to post by LoneCloudHopper2

Racial growth? WTH is that? That is just ridiculous.

Otherwise, you made sense.

Interesting stuff. So they've basically created the next generation of artificial neural networks. Short term memory is nothing new for ANN's though... in fact all the problems they claim this artificial brain can solve, can already be solved by much simpler ANN's. In fact I'm not even sure if this artificial brain is any better at solving those tasks, or if it's simply more 'special' because the structure replicates large parts of a real brain.

One more step closer to finally putting the "smart" in my smartphone... I always thought something was missing from it.

Originally posted by PrplHrt
reply to post by LoneCloudHopper2

 

Racial growth? WTH is that? That is just ridiculous.

Otherwise, you made sense.

Evolution. I guess that's the writer in me: avoiding the repetition of the same word or phrase, as possible.

A next step towards transhumanism.

I'm sorry to be off-topic, but I couldn't resist.

Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain, which appears to beat evolution.,

Does this mean that Canada now has a functioning brain? No wonder they're celebrating!

(Both my parents are Canadian, I love the place. Please, don't get mad.)

reply to post by winterkill


Oh what rot!! Has no one ever told you not to believe everything you read in print, no matter what letters the author has after their name, of what accredited academic institution they belong to etc., etc.. Have people's minds really sunk so low that they can be replicated with a DIY kit? Well, speak for yourself.