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08 March 2008

We are so screwed. [More:]
It took less than two years for the Blue Brain supercomputer to accurately simulate a neocortical column, which is a tiny slice of brain containing approximately 10,000 neurons, with about 30 million synaptic connections between them. "The column has been built and it runs," Markram says. "Now we just have to scale it up." Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face.
...
After only a few electrical jolts, the artificial neural circuit began to act just like a real neural circuit. Clusters of connected neurons began to fire in close synchrony: the cells were wiring themselves together. Different cell types obeyed their genetic instructions. The scientists could see the cellular looms flash and then fade as the cells wove themselves into meaningful patterns. Dendrites reached out to each other, like branches looking for light. "This all happened on its own," Markram says. "It was entirely spontaneous." For the Blue Brain team, it was a thrilling breakthrough. After years of hard work, they were finally able to watch their make-believe brain develop, synapse by synapse. The microchips were turning themselves into a mind.
This is why I've stopped cursing when the ATM or my computer gives me any trouble. I treat the ancestors of our future robot overlords with respect and courtesy.
posted by birdherder 08 March | 16:31
Uh oh.
posted by seanyboy 08 March | 16:42
eponysterical, ibmcinty, I always thought YOU were a bot...

Still, could it REALLY do worse than we meat-brains (or meat-heads) are doing?

It's a cliche, but I, for one, welcome our neural circuit overlords.
posted by wendell 08 March | 16:54
Jeez, you'd think some of these nerds watched the Terminator series.
posted by desjardins 08 March | 17:42
Of all the things to worry about in the world, I don't feel this is one of the bigger ones in the near term. An evil super-intelligent artificial brain is still a few years off, I think. However:

From the wikipedia article on Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines:
≡ Click to see image ≡

Will I be unpopular here forever if I quote from the Unabomber Manifesto?:

But we are suggesting neither that
the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor
that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is
that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a
position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no
practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As
society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and
machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines
make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made
decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a
stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the
system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable
of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in
effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off,
because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would
amount to suicide.
posted by DarkForest 08 March | 17:50
I, for one, welcome our new Blue Brain overlord ...
posted by essexjan 08 March | 17:58
And why MUST a super-intelligent artificial brain automatically be EVIL? Although one that is universally GOOD might be just as much trouble.
posted by wendell 08 March | 18:14
To you, a computer is just a computer. But you haven't worked with them. You don't know them. They're a cleaner, better breed than we are.
posted by TheophileEscargot 09 March | 02:42
Hence the screwage, TE.
posted by ibmcginty 09 March | 10:33
Christ, what an asshole. || Bunny! OMG!

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