I don’t even know how to categorize this…it’s just stunning.

To quote Elvis: “Technology is Cool!”

Update: So you say, “Big deal, that’s neato, but what would I use that for.”  Well take a look at this video.

That’s so cool it made me cry.

One of the stumbling blocks with regards to creating a true conscious machine is that the way silicon chips are designed makes them perform inherently different than neurons.  Researchers at IBM are working on designing a system from the ground up that would emulate how the human brain is put together.  Not just try to make silicon “think”  but to first reverse engineer the architecture, then institute the method of thought.

In what could be one of the most ambitious computing projects ever, neuroscientists, computer engineers and psychologists are coming together in a bid to create an entirely new computing architecture that can simulate the brain's abilities for perception, interaction and cognition. All that, while being small enough to fit into a lunch box and consuming extremely small amounts of power.

read the whole thing: Cognitive Computing Project Aims to Reverse-Engineer the Mind

Rich and I got in a big discussion about this over lunch the other day and I wanted to see if it could spur some debate in the vast world spanning techRivet Community.

It goes a bit like this.

Assumptions:

1. Hard AI is eventually possible. [Rich BTW does not agree that it is]
2. Moore's law holds across technology implementations.  Meaning it is not tied to just silicon based semiconductors but will continue its pace of increasing speed as replacement technologies are developed.

If those assumptions are true then it follows that:

1. Hard AI is inevitable.
2. At some  point Timmy the 14 year old nerd will have a simulated universe in his mom's basement on his $400 Dell.  Complete with trillions of legitimate sentient beings.
3. We have no way of knowing if we are not already on Timmy's machine.

If those assumptions do not hold then:

1. Is that an implication that there is something unknowable about the human mind? 
2. A soul perhaps?

Of course you can take the practical way out and agree with Descartes "I think therefore I am." and call a spade a spade and that this whole argument is just foolish sophistry.

...but what's the fun in that?

TechRivet has previously posted about the Blue Brain project here: Reverse Engineering the Brain - IBM's Blue Brain Project.

Here is another in depth article illustrating how they have been able to achieve so much: Out of the Blue

Some key points:

According to Markram, the patch clamp robot helped the Blue Brain team redo 30 years of research in six months. By analyzing the genetic expression of real rat neurons, the scientists could then start to integrate these details into the model. They were able to construct a precise map of ion channels, figuring out which cell types had which kind of ion channel and in what density. This new knowledge was then plugged into Blue Brain, allowing the supercomputer to accurately simulate any neuron anywhere in the neocortical column. "The simulation is getting to the point," Schürmann says, "where it gives us better results than an actual experiment. We get the same data, but with less noise and human error." The model, in other words, has exceeded its own inputs. The virtual neurons are more real than reality.

Fascinating.  Essentially Dr. Markram and his cohorts are getting to the point that they can replicate this small section of a rats brain in a supercomputer accurately and dynamically.

Go read the whole thing.

So.  Some stroke victims that have experienced paralysis on one side of their body experience something called "anosognosia".  They believe that the paralyzed limb attached to their body does not belong to them.

In fact, fibers in the motor cortex on the right side of her brain, which controls movement on her left side, have been irreparably damaged by the stroke, and she will never use her left arm again. But Mrs. M. is not a stubborn old woman refusing to admit a difficult truth. A few minutes later Mrs. M. looks at her left hand, resting inertly in her lap.

Doctor, she asks, whose hand is this?

Whose hand do you think it is?

Well, it certainly isn’t mine!

Then whose is it?

It is my son’s hand, Doctor.

They honestly, completely, consciously deny the fact that the paralyzed limb belongs to them. 

This article is fascinating if a bit long: The Brain That Misplaced Its Body

Should we design our AI to be weird too?

A tangential discussion can be raised around the attempt to create "hard" AI.  There a lot of people that think we are on the verge of creating AI.  I know, I know it's been talked about for decades but you must admit, there is compelling facts of computer speed and memory size that are providing some merit behind the discussion.

Well what if one of the key features of our intelligence is the plain weirdness of the architecture and structure of the human brain.  What if all the randomness and madness is a necessary "razors edge" that's needed to achieve consciousness and intelligence?

Can we architecture weirdness into a design?  Can logical computer scientists plan for all this fuzzy logic?

Can they make an AI doubt the existence of its limbs?