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BLUe Brain
BLUe Brain
3m, 2010
- How facts & ideas about the brain may predict the Singularity - Project Blue Brain: Supporting evidence & milestone for the Singularity?
Brain Development
The human genome has only 30 - 100 million bytes of info, in compressed form, less than some existing computer programs,
but gives rise to an adult brain that would need at least terabytes or petabytes to fully describe.
This is because brain development happens by a probabilistic fractal process. A few simple rules for cell division, migration, and connection act huge numbers of times, with some randomness each time. Mathematical metaphors are the Mandelbrot set, and cellular automata, as demonstrated by Stephen Wolfram.
http://www.miqel.com/images_1/miqel_data/fractal_images/cool_organix4_whoa.jpg
Until the last 10-20 years, predictions about AI and robots surpassing general human intelligence (strong AI) had been repeatedly overoptimistic.
E.g.: In 1977, Marvin Minsky, A founding father of modern AI, said that general artificial intelligence at or above human level (aka strong AI) would be achieved within a generation.
Ray Kurzweil, in his 2001 essay "The Law of Accelerating Returns", extends Moore's Law to describe an exponential growth of technological progress in general.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commo
He predicts that this will lead to superhuman general intelligence by about 2029. He defines this as it the ability to pass the Turing Test.
Singularity video
The Singularity By Ray Kurzweil at the TED conf. 2009 (23:41)
brain info starts at about 17 min. http://sciencestage.com/v/562/ray-kurzweil-.html
IBM says they are doing project Blue Brain to advance treatment of brain disorders, including senility.
But they surely appreciate the possibility of huge military AI contracts, as increasing aversion to casualties in Western countries has led to the a strategy of "Our technology against their sons."
E.g.: Robart 3 The warfighters associate http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/movies/RobartIIITheWarfightersAssociate.wmv
I have not found recent technical info on Blue Brain, possibly because they don't want to give away anything useful to potential competitors.
More Resources
Ray Kurzweil's AI/Singularity website:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1
Why We Can Be Confident of Turing Test Capability Within a Quarter By Ray Kurzweil The advent of strong AI (exceeding human intelligence) is the most important transformation this century will see, and it will happen within 25 years, says Ray Kurzweil, who presented this paper at The Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Conference: The next 50 years (AI@50) on July 14, 2006
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=1 The Singularity Is Near (2005) - The current "bible" of technology futurics