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Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

canada.com

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Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#21

Post by akosednar »

georgeorwell wrote: post #3

Here's the paper in Science for anyone with an account: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?si... I couldn't find a pdf that wasn't behind a paywall. Also, there are different details at popsci.com: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-fir... As for my own comments, I think it's actually a promising approach but that down the road it will be necessary to model emotions if hum…

If you have an account with a university they probably have a subscription to the library. (You will need to login to the university tho).

ASU students, for example, can access it here for free: http://www.sciencemag.org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/content/338/6...

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#22

Post by mtgx »

While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else these guys can make.

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#23

Post by lukevdp »

mtgx wrote: post #22

While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else the…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the most advanced quantum computers today still grappling with basic arithmetic?

What makes a quantum computer better at AI?

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#24

Post by seiji »

mtgx wrote: post #22

While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else the…

Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else these guys can make.

Math or it didn't happen.

Speculation without hard facts to back it up is poppycock gobbledygook.

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#25

Post by robotresearcher »

mtgx wrote: post #22

While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else the…

You think so? Why? You're making a pretty serious claim without giving any any argument, evidence or citation to support it.

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#26

Post by rm999 »

ekianjo wrote: post #12
goolulusaurs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the brain, the hardware and the software are the same thing. To understand what processes the brain carries out would be to understand intelligence.

Well you do not need to understand the low level of physics (quantum physics) to make very accurate predictions about ballistics with traditional, high level physics rules. You could as well understand the overall principles of the brain and have a high level model for it instead of trying to understand its smallest parts. This approach is also very valid, it all depends on what your expectations are.

But we don't understand the high-level 'physical rules' of the brain. While gravity could be explained by simple equations, the high-level operation of the brain has escaped us despite a lot of effort.

This goes back to the top-down vs bottom-up debate in studying the brain. What you are discussing is a top-down approach, where we understand what the brain does and then figure out how it works from there. A lot of people believe the 'correct' path is more similar to a bottom-up approach, where we understand the lowest levels of the brain and work up from there. This may be more feasible because we may actually have a chance at comprehending what a single neuron does. But amazingly our understanding of a single neuron's behavior is still limited. Some scientists believe we would need an entire computer to properly simulate what a neuron does (and others believe a standard computer can't physically do it).

There's a third group of very pragmatic people who believe the best approach will be a compromise between top-down and bottom-up - meaning we may not need to perfectly simulate a neuron nor completely emulate the brain's higher level function to make progress in understanding how the brain works.

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#27

Post by ilaksh »

After reading halfway through Kurzweil's new book How to Create a Mind and getting all of the detailed explanations of hierarchical hidden Markov models and why they are better than neural nets, I am surprised to see so much news about neural nets.

How do Spaun's neural nets compare with the type of HHMMs in Kurzweil's book (in terms of capability)?

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#28

Post by lutze »

rck wrote: post #18
lutze wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotions are difficult, as they're (probably) as much physiological responses as they are cognitive ones. You could possibly simulate those, but I'd ask why bother? Why would we need AI to be human-like at all? We already have a form of human intelligence, us! It's like the android fixation with robotics... arguably the most useful robots don't look anything like us. The human brain is a good starting point, but in t…

You're right that a lot of the most useful AIs won't (or don't) need to think like humans, but one large class of AIs that will at least need that capability are the ones that have to interact with people in social settings. I'd be surprised if that didn't become common. As for simulating emotion, there's a bit of evidence that such abilities may have therapeutic applications: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/robots-chil…

Ah, but that's not simulating emotion, it's simulating the appearance of emotion. Big difference!

If we were going that route, I'd rather an AI actually feel empathy, rather than just being able to look like they do... Because faking it is pretty much textbook psycho!

Edit: Just to clarify, when I say AI, I'm referring to strong AI, not anything that we have now (or are even close to getting).

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#29

Post by w1ntermute »

georgeorwell wrote: post #3

Here's the paper in Science for anyone with an account: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?si... I couldn't find a pdf that wasn't behind a paywall. Also, there are different details at popsci.com: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-fir... As for my own comments, I think it's actually a promising approach but that down the road it will be necessary to model emotions if hum…

> I couldn't find a pdf that wasn't behind a paywall.

Here you go, I uploaded it to 2 different sites:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zz8c6dnp99abdlg

http://ompldr.org/vZ2kzbw/Science-2012-Eliasmith-1202.pdf

Re: Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

#30

Post by georgeorwell »

seiji wrote: post #24
mtgx wrote: post #22

While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else the…

Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else these guys can make. Math or it didn't happen. Speculation without hard facts to back it up is poppycock gobbledygook.

This kind of research / line of thinking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

if true, appears to support his claim, assuming that if we do have quantum minds that they cannot be simulated by non-quantum computers. Roger Penrose is certainly well-respected. I don't have a strong opinion either way.

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