Can We Build a Human Brain Into a Microchip? 598
destinyland writes "Can we imprint the circuitry of the human brain onto a silicon chip? It requires a computational capacity of 36.8 petaflops — a thousand trillion floating point operations per second — but a team of European scientists has already simulated 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections. And their brain-chip is scaleable, with plans to create a superchip mimicking 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses. Unfortunately, the human brain has 22 billion neurons and 220 trillion synapses. Just remember Ray Kurzweil's argument: once a machine can achieve a human level of intelligence — it can also exceed it."
Easy! (Score:4, Funny)
All you have to do is pick the right person [www.cbc.ca] and you can greatly reduce the number of neurons you'll need to model.
Re:How about the converse (Score:5, Funny)
I'm more interested in whether or not we can build a microchip into a human brain. At least then I might be able to remember my wife's anniversary...
You could try remembering your anniversary instead. :-)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Running the human brain in a virtual machine creates lots of overhead.
Re:Intersting tidbit (Score:3, Funny)
Do you mean that, while in the process of simulating human intellect, the simulator itself becomes self-aware? Then what if the simulacrum becomes aware of the simulator? Would it create a metaphysical singularity, or just blow the stack?
Inquiring minds want to know.
-dZ.
Re:How about the converse (Score:4, Funny)
If there was only some other way that you could store information in a mechanical system for (perhaps automatic) retrieval and display at a later date.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Funny)
The former doesn't start smelling funny when you leave it on the lab counter overnight.
Interesting question. (Score:5, Funny)
Do you work in management?
already done (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's your birthday... (Score:3, Funny)
If they look like Sean Young, i welcome them too.
Re:Can We Build a Human Brain Into a Microchip? (Score:3, Funny)
Stop crushing our scifi nerd pipe dreams, you bastard!
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Emulating brain on x86 - ?
Priceless?
Re:How about the converse (Score:1, Funny)
My anniversary is the day before April Fool's Day. Also not a coincidence.
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:3, Funny)
Just think (Score:3, Funny)
Just think what might happen if Apple got the patent on these suckers and brought them to market as the personal implant - the IThink?
Imagine waking up morning and Ithinking "I'd like to fall in love today", so you make a mental link to the App Store and download "Love" for £1.95. On your way to work, you spot someone that takes your fancy, so you make a quick connection and download Flirt for a further £2. Things go well: Entertain £2, ShowYouCare £3.30, Intimate £10. A while passes and you're happily married (or have both downloaded LiveInSin-Noshame), so Broody is added to the bill.
What a wonderful life..well, if you download 'Harmony'
Re:Undue Credit to Kurzweil (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, implementation would be trivial.
10 PRINT "What?"
20 PRINT "I don't understand"
30 PRINT "Where's the tea?"
40 GOTO 10
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Profit!
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Do they need to map the entire brain (Score:4, Funny)
There are people who use 100% of their neurons simultaneously on a daily basis.
We call them epileptics.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Funny)
The former doesn't start smelling funny when you leave it on the lab counter overnight.
"My dog doesn't smell!"
"You gave him a bath?"
"No, I cut off his nose!"
Re:There. Fixed that for you. (Score:3, Funny)
This got me wondering if silicon based females have carbon implants.
Re:Undue Credit to Kurzweil (Score:3, Funny)
In fact, implementation would be trivial.
10 PRINT "What?" 20 PRINT "I don't understand" 30 PRINT "Where's the tea?" 40 GOTO 10
What?