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Supercomputer that simulates entire human brain will switch on in 2024
(www.westernsydney.edu.au)
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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I have huge ethical concerns, but even more so I wanna know how they think they can start up a brain minus the development process.
To actually simulate a brain you'd have to put its connections and weights in there and AFAIK that data simply doesn't exist. Not even the connections.
What this is is a computer capable of simulating neuronal nets of the size of the brain... and AFAIU only the synaptic network. There's a hell a lot more going on in actual wetware, think neurotransmitters, plasticity, gene expression changing on the fly etc. To actually simulate a brain you'd either have to have a scan that's rather inconceivable to get in the necessary detail, or you need to grow it virtually from virtual DNA, simulate the development of the whole body and an environment for it to develop properly as our genome expects environmental stimulus, a mould to grow in.
That's pretty much what I got from the article, that they managed to build a computer that theoretically has the horsepower to compare to a human brain, but specifically what they want to use it for was more vague in the article than the headline implies.
Your last paragraph is spot on imo if they are going to straight-up simulate intelligence. People underestimate how much "training" we go through ourselves. Millions of years of evolution training our instincts encoded in dna + training through a body with dozens of senses (input data) collecting data 24/7, that can manipulate itself and interact with the environment (output data) and observe the results (more input data) for at least a few years starting from embryo.
Which means this headline is extreme clickbait.
Kinda OT regarding simulating something if you have the DNA, but evolution itself learned how to learn, it's not just random chance: If you take the natural error rate during DNA transcription it's quite high, error correction processes then take it down to practically nothing, and after that randomness is again introduced, in a controlled manner, to still allow mutations -- our genome could in principle spit out clones with no mutations whatsoever but it doesn't because being adaptive is beneficial for the species. That is, evolution is not a random walk through the possibilities, "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks", but an algorithm deliberately employing randomness to introduce variety when it has reason to believe that it's beneficial.
And ironically evolutionary scientists don't like to hear that, physiologists have a hard time getting through to them. "We don't care whether that mechanism is theoretically unnecessary to explain that stuff evolves and adapts, it's what's happening in the actual body, here, have a microscope". And while the genome using deliberate strategies to create mutations may indeed be strictly speaking unnecessary, from a computational POV it's way more efficient: Makes no sense to fuck with mitochondrial DNA if your bird has trouble drinking nectar, better mess around with the beak.
That was… a very interesting thought experiment you just sent me on. I’d never considered this, but it immediately sounds plausible upon hearing it. Thanks for mentioning this “off topic” idea :D
Here's a talk by Denis Nobel, physiologist who compiled all the various evidence into an argument
As soon as I saw the word "wetware" my mind started picturing all of this like some shit you'd see in a Cronenberg film lol
Haha, yep. My thoughts followed that same exact path while reading that.
I, for one, welcome our hideously deformed, puss-dripping, biological computer overlords.
Long live the new flesh!
We're on the same page it seems, but did you just quote Ex Machina?
Now imagine you're a brain that's been properly scanned into this computer. What about your environment? Are they emulating your sensory input? There's just so much about this that makes me expect the being to be suffering terribly.
Relevant: https://youtu.be/0Gkhol2Q1og?si=QULzMbNN59hey8GF
People like to dramatically simplify what they think is good or bad. A living being needs so very much more than just a sustained existence.
I welcome the path towards singularity.
I reject it entirely. People can't get over what shape their genitals are. There's no goddamn way we can trust anyone to be in charge of an entire emulated being, even with a large staff of people fretting over every detail with checks and balances in place.
If I say I wanna die(and I do) I get an army of people telling me how stupid and wrong I am. "It gets better." No it doesn't. You wanna know why they reject my desire to die? It's because what they want from me matters more than ethics to them. I'm not granted personal agency as an actual living being. How can we trust anyone when it's "just a machine" and there's power dynamics at hand? Political image leads people to keep downs syndrome people who self harm alive while they pretend for the camera that they're providing a healthy fulfilling life for them.
Nobody is ready for this.
Literally no one can stop you from killing yourself. You don't require approval from anyone. I'm not sure why this makes you so angry.
I tell people not to kill themselves because I am a former suicidal person who doesn't want people to make a choice they cannot undo, not because I want anything from them. If you're totally sold, it's trivially easy to end your own life.
I'll disagree with you, sure, but that's rather a moot point.
I'm Pretty sure they're speaking hypothetically, as if they were the artificial brain.
Being able to chose your form and synthetically modify your body doesnt really change your ability to choose to keep living or not
Brain scans. It’s actually a person.