Researchers Simulate Building Block of Rat's Brain 224
slick_shoes passes on an article in the Guardian about the Blue Brain project in Switzerland that has developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat. (Here is the project site.) The model, running on an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer, simulates 10,000 neurons and all their interconnections. It behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. Thousands of such NCCs make up a rat's neocortex, and millions a human's. "Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain."
Re:but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, why not just use a human brain if you want an identical machine? Well, for sending probes to mars. Or to the depths of the ocean. Or any other place that is too dangerous to send humans, but that a machine could survive in. Even if the brain was a replica of someone's personality, all they'd have to do is find someone who thinks it would be really cool to go to mars, and replicate their brain. It'd be a hell of a lot more intelligent than a traditional AI system at this point.
Secondly, if we want an AI system that better than the human brain, THIS IS THE WAY TO GO. Figure out exactly how the human brain handles thing that are really hard for computers, like object recognition. Once you've got that, you can replace//add on parts that do things better/faster than humans, like math. In terms of adaptability and general purpose use, NOTHING in AI comes anywhere close to the human brain right now. So trying to make an AI system that is better than the brain, a good first step is to try and make the human brain, then start tweaking that.
The point is to try and understand how biological brains do what they do, and how we can make computers do those things (which computers currently suck at). Sure, you can emulate basic behaviour in a pre-define environment, but try making a system that can differentiate a food source the 'rat' may never have seen before based on sight and smell in an environment that it's never been in.
Re:but why? (Score:1, Insightful)
The reason is that the artificial brain would have the benefits of intelligence, creativity, etc... that we see in people, but none of the limitations.
Imagine the smartest person you know, but with essentially unlimited memory, constantly increasing processing capability (with newer/faster processors) and the ability to live forever without a decline in function. That's better than a real human brain for sure.
But that's all science fiction, for now. If we could replicate even the modest abilities of a normal person, or even a primate, we'd be well on our way to true artificial intelligence (if not already there
Good experiment but still long way to go. (Score:2, Insightful)
Subject (Score:3, Insightful)
Why stop there?
The Intelligence Game (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amazing how some people want the computing resources to simulate a rat's brain but still can't simulate a honeybee's brain and the resultant behavioral complexity. After all, a bee's brain has only about a million neurons. It could probably be done on a desktop machine and yet, a bee's behavior is amazingly sophisticated. Is it me or does it seem that some people have no clue as to what constitutes intelligence and would rather spend the taxpayer's money on what can only be qualified as useless goals?
Would it not be much better to implement a downsized version of the human brain (with all the various cortices) and see if it can learn and adapt to the environment? But then again, that would be too much to ask since Markram et al don't have an overall theory of brain operation. It's better to keep your sights as high as possible and have an excuse as to why your artificial brain or cortical column is no more intelligent than a flea: you always need faster and more expensive computers. And more funding. Yeah.
Re:A long way off yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet no doubt when a competent emulation of a bird brain exists and is observed flying around, you will raise the bar again. Not long ago recognizing natural speech was offered as you offer the test of flight. We have since moved the bar because our inexpensive, portable, battery powered cell phones now understand the simple noises we make with accuracy approaching our own. Bipedal walking, land navigation, chess and facial recognition are more examples of tests offered that once solved, for some reason, no longer count.
Consider this; we're having to move the bar with greater frequency all the time. At what point does the realization occur that the problem of thought is finite and solvable? I believe that very soon we will have at least parity between ourselves and our machines. Not because the machines are tremendously powerful, but because we're not.
The count of neurons (100G+) and synapses (up to 10K per neuron) is well known. The switching speed of this finite set of electrical and chemical circuits is measured in (comparatively slow) milliseconds. Our brains run on a couple calories a minute and operate at approximately body temperature. In contrast to the infinite supply of uniform opinions offered here that effectively assert that the brain is too elaborate for it's own comprehension, there simply isn't enough space or energy involved to convince me that the brain is some unapproachably complex enigma forever beyond our capacity to emulate.
Every new milestone passed only reinforces my belief, regardless of how fast you raise the bar.
Re:The Intelligence Game (Score:2, Insightful)
First, we know more about mammalian brains and neurons than the honey-bee ones. The research in the last half century was mostly centered around the mammalian systems. Unless the governments are willing to fund projects on insects, or some wealthy philantropist is willing to take up the bills, expect similar things for the near future.
Second, the structure and organization of the cortex is quite similar across the whole brain and mammals. As the cortex (or more exactly, neocortex) is general regarded where most important cognitive processes occur, if you want to have some insight on a general computation network/machine, it's a reasonable place to start.
Third, it's probably easier to simulate the neocortex than the brain of honey bees, since as I said, we know more about mammals. Moreover, a lot of the structures and organization are quite regular in a cortical column, therefore, you'll have a better chance of guessing the missing information correctly.
Finally, don't be silly, a desktop won't make it. If you want a realistically simulation, you'll first need to have a good idea of the geometrical shapes of all the neurons and their projections, then a reasonable guess of the strength and locations of their synaptic contacts. You'll also need to have a good estimation of the channel density and distribution of the ionic channels. then the non-linear differential equations that govern their behaviors. Most of these numbers are not even measurable with current experimental technologies. I think these groups use some mathematical tricks to estimate these numbers
People have been dreaming of an abstract, reduced and simplified theory of the human brain since the study of the nervous system started. Nobody has quite managed yet... why don't you try?
Shooting for the stars. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not really that impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:cyber immortality? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hitler 2.0 (Score:3, Insightful)
I strongly consider you to perform a modicum of research [google.com] before you regurgitate knowledge you got at a party while partly intoxicated, and hoping to get that girl-in-the-green-dress' phone number.
Oh wait... do you get invited to those kinds of parties? Perhaps you think digital watches are a pretty cool idea?
Re:The Intelligence Game (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a fantastically broken sense of scale. The important bit isn't the neuron count; it's the interconnect count. In the sub-oesophageal ganglia alone you're looking at billions of interconnects. If you think that would run on a desktop machine, especially after you just (failed to) read the document explaining how much horsepower it took to deal with a rat's neocortex, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Maybe you should wait until you've actually tried this stuff before you start preaching about what can or cannot be done on a PC.
No, it isn't. A swarm's behavior is relatively easily described as the emergent properties of about two dozen behavioral rules. Consider taking a time machine back to the mid 1980s, when we started figuring this stuff out, so that you won't be so far behind when you begin the necessary process of playing catch-up.
Both.
Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's useless. The implications of a testable simulation of a biological brain are startling. Besides, the EPFL is a private institute (not everything with "federal" in the name is governmental,) and the vast bulk of this research was paid for by IBM.
Yeah, because if we've just now for the first time managed to simulate something that constitutes about half of one percent of a rat's brain, then surely we're in a position to implement a scaled-down human brain. Oh, and by the way, if it's scaled down, its results wouldn't be useless, or anything. Oh, and we all know how to scale a human brain down: it's in every textbook on "fantasy science for people with no ability to think through what they're saying," which they teach at the Zsa-zsa Gabor School of Diesel Mechanics.
In the meantime, we now have confirmation that our understanding of the basic principles of rat cerebral biology is complete enough that we can accurately simulate a significant and complex chunk of its brain in pure mathematics. I can't imagine how even a layman would be so dense as to think that useless. Maybe we should simulate you; lord knows we have the computing power for it.
Wait, let me get this straight. Something you suggest is too much to ask because other people don't know how to do it? Did it occur to you to just not say it, then? Or were you too busy feigning familiarity with something you know not even the most fundamental basic principles of? You suggested something so startlingly vague that I can't even begin to imagine what precisely you mean, and now you want it to be these other, actual productive scientist's faults that your fantasy doesn't make any sense?
What exactly would you suggest is the nature of a "scaled down human brain" ? Be precise.
Yes, because simulating half a percent of a rat brain is a much loftier and more vapid goal than some arbitrary reduction of the human brain, cough. By the by, if you had actually read anything about the research, you wouldn't be making comparisons to fleas, since the simulated rat brain is actually quite capable. But, don't let knowledge or famili
Re:The Intelligence Game (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. An abstract computer chess simulation routed through the physical world mimics a reduced human brain in the same way that playing with legos is a reduced version of engineering a skyscraper. You've managed to fill a webpage with a bunch of blathersceit and big words. Way to go, jack. In the meantime, all you've really got is an Armitron driver. Why chess is even on that page is something of a mystery, since your software doesn't know how to play chess - it can't even make legal moves in any more significant frequency than dice.
Yes yes, clueless amateurs have been saying this for decades. Go sit at the back of the class with Minsky where you belong - you're replying to an article where something has been done by saying "this is a pipe dream and cannot be done." I'm reminded of the story of the Kitty Hawk newspaper reporter who was thrown into jail for fraud, claiming that a heavier than air machine had flown; when shown photographs, the police officer who'd made the arrest calmly remarked that they were obvious fakes, and that science forbode such a thing from happening.
Well, sir, all I can say is that I'm glad your kind aren't cops anymore.
That's one of more than a dozen known mechanisms, actually. There are several involved mechanisms with electricity alone - pulse amplitude, duration and frequency are all involved in the electrical system, and that's before you get into what the chemicals around them are doing. Chemicals are involved in the system too. Or did you think that cocaine was just a bunch of tiny batteries?
This is demonstrably false. Several classes of injury and disease that rob a previously functioning brain of its ability to think have literally nothing to do with its electrical system, something you'd know if you weren't a talentless hack also ran with neither education in the matter nor any form of degree. Go find out what happens in a mye
The brain isn't discrete, as the various parts of the brain operate distinctly from one another, at different speeds, using different mechanisms. The brain isn't a temporal mechanism, something which anyone with multiple sclerosis knows in a deeply tragic way. The brain is not, in fact, even a mechanism, since a mechanism has a definite design, and brains are grown (and differently, to boot.) People's brains are actually shaped differently, have different sized bits and pieces. Lots of the brain is specific purpose, but lots of it is general purpose, and the way that people handle many fundamental tasks is quite significantly different from individual to individual. Hell, not even all of us end up with cognition in the same lobe of the brain - that bit about "left brained" and "right brained" was based on actual science, something none of what you've said seems to be. If the brain was a mechanism, we'd all be working the same way.
So, not discrete, not temporal, and not a mechanism. I smell failure, and its name is MOBE2001.
Wait, it's discrete and it uses integrated clusters? Just what do you think discrete means?