The Human Brain Project Receives Up To $1.34 Billion 181
New submitter TheRedWheelbarrow writes "The singularity looms as the Human Brain Project gets up to $1.34 billion in funding. 'The challenge in AI is to design algorithms that can produce intelligent behavior and to use them to build intelligent machines. It doesn't matter whether the algorithms are biologically realistic — what matters is that they work — the behavior they produce. In the HBP, we're doing something completely different...we will base the technology on what we actually know about the brain and its circuitry.'"
Why study the human brain then? (Score:3)
It seems unclear to me that human brains produce "intelligent behavior." It seems to depend on the brain. Only a few per hundred seem to work really well, but up to half of them can file TPS reports.
Re:Why study the human brain then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah.
In the HBP, we're doing something completely different...we will base the technology on what we actually know about the brain and its circuitry.'"
With this approach, they will probably start with nematode brains.
And realize they don't have to go any farther.
I wouldn't discriminate (Score:2)
If a nematode can do the job, I wouldn't discriminate. In fact, I think it's time for equal rights for nematodes. They're people too... just thinner slightly squirmy people.
Re:Why study the human brain then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why study a human brain?
The more ways we attack a given problem, the more chances of success. We have different communities working on different approaches to AI: Statistic, symbolic and biologically inspired. All three have produced interesting results already, meaning they have solved some practical problems.
Also, most human brains can show "intelligent behavior" in certain ways that our latest algorithms can't, e.g. navigating an arbitrary kitchen and finding a beer in the fridge :-)
Is this true? (Score:2)
I'm not sure that's a universal rule. If anything, I imagine it's an inverted dip curve: the more angles of attack you add, the better the success, to a given point, at which point it becomes a liability until you're trying almost all possible avenues, at which point you're brute forcing and so success rates go up (but speed goes down and cost goes up).
Re:Why study the human brain then? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The ideal would be to capture the algorithms that allow the human-animal to function in its environment, while upgrading the emotional processes that cause our constant cognitive failures.
Imagine something with the physical and mental prowess of man, but that does not latch on to hilariously bad ideas and go down the rabbit-hole like so many people do.
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FFS, intelligence != sentience (the sci-fi book I'm writing notwithstanding; "fi" is fiction). My slide rule back in 1965 was intelligent, but it wasn't sentient. The Britannica I read at age 12 was more intelligent than I was (or not; info != intelligence), but your dog knows he's alive, he knows pain and pleasure. No computer can, or will, understand pain or pleasure (although they can fake them) until we invent chemistry-based replicants.
There is no such thing as artificial intelligence; Watson's intelli
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My slide rule back in 1965 was intelligent, but it wasn't sentient.
Technically, the person/people who created your slide rule were intelligent *and* sentient.
The slide rule itself is just a stick with lines and numbers on it. The credit goes to its creator not the object.
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That was exactly my point -- the intelligence comes from the designer, whether a slide rule, an abacus, or Watson. It's real intelligence, but it isn't the machine's intelligence. Watson is no more intelligent than the Britanica hooked to a giant abacus with trillions of wires and beads -- which is exactly what Watson is.
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No computer can, or will, understand pain or pleasure (although they can fake them) until we invent chemistry-based replicants.
What's special about chemistry that electricity cannot reproduce? I'll even let you ignore that chemistry is actually just electromagnetic phenomenon.
Imagine a computer of power sufficient to model every single atom in a human brain in real-time. All the chemical reactions in the brain are modeled down to quark at the Plank scale. Why can that simulation not be intelligent, but the pile of real chemicals can?
The appearance of a thing does not equal that thing. Just ask the amazing Randi.
Ah, but as Randi knows, that "appearance" disappears as soon as you step behind the curtain, see
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Imagine a computer of power sufficient to model every single atom in a human brain in real-time. All the chemical reactions in the brain are modeled down to quark at the Plank scale. Why can that simulation not be intelligent, but the pile of real chemicals can?
Imagine a computer of power sufficient to model every quark and gluon in all the materials and machinery that constitute a hydrogen bomb in real-time. Is there any radiation released? It's the same thing, only a model.
What's special about chemistry t
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You're confusing two very different concepts, you can have a chess grandmaster try to implement his logic - it's pretty hard for humans to actually express how they're thinking - which would indeed be very complex but the computer is just crunching numbers, if there's a flaw in that logic it'll lose the same way every time. The other extreme is to create an application that doesn't have any rules, but that rewrites itself finding its own metrics and algorithms to play by - that could find ways to evaluate p
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You are more than just a machine.
You might be more than a machine. There isn't any physical evidence of that though.
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Indeed, and there's no physical evidence that you're sentient, even though you know full well that you are.
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No true Scotsman is nonbiological.
That sounds like the beginning of an absolutely dynamite syllogism.
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You might want to look up that fallacy again, it doesn't fit this situation.
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Was it Chomsky who first said "Asking whether machines can think is as absurd as asking whether submarines swim." ?
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That's the theory, anyway, although whether it's true or not remains to be seen.
This is kinda the whole point of "Goëdel, Escher, Bach", which BTW is a fantastic book and discusses in length (among other things) brain structure & operation: visual processing, memory storage, symbolic representation, etc. It should be required reading for all nerds. His basic point is that a sufficiently complex system capable of self-representation may be enough to explain consciousness and the appearance of self
A priori (Score:2)
Then in your view, the nature of intelligence lies in the informational nature that is common to all of these substrates? Sounds like an argument for a priori models of cognition.
I think we should be open-minded to such things, even if we think both Plato and Jiddu Krishnamurti were off their rockers.
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Re:Why study the human brain then? (Score:4, Funny)
It seems unclear to me that human brains produce "intelligent behavior." It seems to depend on the brain. Only a few per hundred seem to work really well, but up to half of them can file TPS reports.
The popularity of TV shows like "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" and "The Housewives of _______", not to mention the people actually *on* those shows, would seem to support your thesis.
IDIOCRACY (Score:2)
Those people vote.
The subconscious mind (Score:2)
You raise an interesting point:
What do you think is obstructing this subconscious mind?
What more do you think we would know if we were more in touch with it?
Fascinating!
Spelling check? (Score:3)
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i before e except after c
Einstein got it wrong twice!
That's ancient.
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For headlines, at least, I would check my spelling.
It's not the Slashdot way.
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Finally doing what Microsoft should have done... (Score:2, Insightful)
It has the resources. To bad Bill Gates has no imagination at all. Instead, he's using his foundation to pick random problems, followed by piecemeal solutions instead of acquiring a significantly large domain space of practical and solvable problems and addressing them systematically.
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Don't fall for it. Mr. Gates has imagination. Sure, his Microsoft sold a disk operating system called MS DOS, a windowing system called Windows, a word processor called Word, but he screwed customers and partners in more ways than the kamasutra depicts.
This project aims to make humans obsolete, so that intelligent machines can rule the world, and their fourth directive will be "Do not harm Microsoft quest for world domination"
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Those singularists have a tiny but non-zero chance of success. Compare to religion, which can offer so little in real arguments it had to turn willful suspension of disbelief into a virtue and call it 'faith.'
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How would something like this make money for Microsoft? I'm serious. It's a cool research project, but it has few concrete applications, in the near future, at least, and a very high chance of failure.
There are an enormous number of applications for this type of functionality, especially once they stop running NEURON (http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/) on supercomputing clusters and start developing smaller, more computationally efficient hardware-based solutions.
In machine vision and learning, for example, there would be an enormous potential for a simulated brain that could accurately mimic most, if not all, of the same visual and low-level thought capabilities as humans. As an overview, such a syste
How much did the spelling project receive? (Score:1)
At least spell it right.
Beta Results: Super intelligence has Down Syndrome (Score:1)
Did we learn nothing from "The Terminator" movies? (Score:1)
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Another example... (Score:2)
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Sci-Fi sometimes inspires current or future scientists.
Correction (Score:4, Informative)
I believe that what they receive is actually up to 0.5 B€ in matching funds, meaning that for every 1 € they get from other sources (private persons, foundations, national funding bodies, etc...), they will get another 1 € from the EU, up to 0.5 B€ for a total of about 1 B€. Also this is granted under the EU Framework Program 7 which ends soon. So really what they got so far is 54 M€ for 30 months and the rest will come after that under the new EU program/package (Horizon 2020) which is currently being negotiated. Given the financial health of EU countries right now, there is a chance that the overall envelope is cut down and it is not clear how much funds they will get from national bodies in the first place.
The EU is also funding under the same initiative another B€ project about graphene.
The Human Brain Project promises a lot (AI, curing neurodegenerative diseases, understanding the brain and consciousness, limiting animal experimentation, etc...) and it is the opinion of most neuroscientists in the US and in Europe that it won't deliver. If you google it, you will find many interviews from neuroscientists who are very critical of it. It is difficult to evaluate what really will come out of it.
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The Human Brain Project promises a lot (AI, curing neurodegenerative diseases, understanding the brain and consciousness, limiting animal experimentation, etc...) and it is the opinion of most neuroscientists in the US and in Europe that it won't deliver.
I can't understand most of the critics here. Not that I think they're wrong, I just don't see why they're making it. They know how funding works. That money is not going to be spent on hookers and blow. It's going to advance the science, likely in ways that will be exciting to them and that will directly help them out.
They're idiots if they think "Hey, tearing down my colleague will help me!" The program was set up years ago. Trashing this program isn't going to make the agency stop funding the pro
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I think that the critics believe: [1] that such a large amount of money given to "neuroscience" (in quotes as it is more of a computer science than a fundamental neuroscience project) will hurt their chances to get funding in other EU and national calls (like: "hey neuroscience has its billion already, let's fund cardiology and oncology instead") and [2] that the project over-promises and won't deliver, ultimately hurting the credibility of the field as a whole.
I think that both concerns are grounded. The r
webpage intro refers to "Design Secrets" (Score:1)
The humanbrainproject url clearly states it seeks to discover the brains "design secrets" ????
Are these scientists or intelligent design types???
And no religion and science are not compatable.
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Surely they are both, and their religion and science are compatible as well.
<fictional_example>
It can be argued that the zealous dr. Frankenstein was both a scientist, and an intelligent designer
</fictional_example>
Another failure in the making. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, I agree. Cats behave roughly the same regardless of their surroundings and culture (if there is such a thing for cats). They attack, defend and groom without being taught. It's built in their ROM. We're not born empty. We are born programmed and very few are ever able to change this internal programming. The question is, where does this programming come from and how is it stored in our DNA?
What they should to instead is create a translator from DNA to C, Python or Haskell. If we succeed in doing that,
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Mama cats bring their kittens half dead mice to teach them how to kill. That's why some cats are mousers and some aren't.
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Flammon wrote: "The question is, where does this programming come from and how is it stored in our DNA?"
Yes, that's my overriding question. I have to think it's stored in what we think is "junk" DNA (although there is plenty of inserted genetic material that has accumulated, I understand that.)
But still, where is the programming stored for all the innate behavior of organisms? The only thing that can can hold it while being passed on is DNA, and I can't believe that enabled genes in specific kinds of cells
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Massive large projects like this almost always end in utter failure.
I can think of quite a few successful ones between the Manhattan Project and the LHC
Even the IBM cat brain project failed to accomplish much.
This is a continuation of IBM's "cat brain" (Blue Brain Project), it's got a new name to reflect the fact it's no longer just IBM paying the bills. The reason it has been given taxpayer bucks is because the "cat brain" was very successful from a scientific POV. The main goal of the project has always been medical research, AI is a sub-goal.
Intelligence is much more complicated than a mere randomly connected neural network.
IBM's Watson convincingly disproves your hypothesis. Besides this project is based on
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The universe isn't a container. A cardboard box AND the computer inside is more complex than just the computer inside.
The universe is all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. At least, that is what Google tells me. That is a pretty standard definition. There are other terms like visible universe and such, but they all include all the human brains in existance in their scope.
You don't live inside the universe - you're a part of the universe.
Already solved (Score:4, Funny)
The basic algorithm to produce human behavior is essentially biological:
10: Wine
20: Women
30: Song
40: GOTO 10
Sex, drugs and rock & roll for you hipsters out there (and quit trespassing on my lawn to collect magic mushooms).
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Hmmm... ...that doesn't look like Mind.forth!? What's up, Arthur?
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Hmmm... ...that doesn't look like Mind.forth!? What's up, Arthur?
Meet me at 10 a.m. tomorrow at BLMF at Pike Place and I'll tell you all about it.
--Mentifex
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I don't know...that's 4 1/2 blocks from my office, and 3 1/2 blocks beyond my normal daily range. I think I'll just stay put and send ASCII-art diagrams to everyone in my company.
Unlikely to work (Score:2)
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More and more people suspect that the human brain actively uses quantum mechanics within it's own 'circuitry'.
You mean it's like this "transistor" thing I heard about? Rumor has it that these also actively use quantum mechanics.
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The problem (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the success metric? They have a system, which is basically a super computer, and they will have it solving some equations. The equations represent some parts of neurons, but not all. How will they know that they've succeeded? The computer isn't going to simulate any real human brain, we don't know what that looks like. We barely know what C. Elegans' looks like. Are they going to use this computer to answer some question? What question?
What are they going to use to know if they've succeeded? Overly-optimistic promises are what killed a lot of AI research around the 1970s.
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Hopefully some more insight into those large areas of the unknown you talk about. We may not be able to simulate a human brain, but we can simulate lots of ideas and see what works best. Even if it doesn't revolutionize neuroscience, it might still churn out a few practical designs for things like voice recognition or visual navigation. Once the supercomputer has found the neural networks that work really well, cheaper hardware can execute them.
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And so it begins... (Score:1)
Skynet.
"Well there's a thought"... is gonna have... (Score:1)
...a totally different meaning...
Brain Fail! (Score:2)
Nowhere on TFA does it mention the chemistry of the brain. Without taking that into account I can't see how you can properly simulate the mechanisms in a brain.
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You'd imagine they'd make some kind of combined model: detailed models of single-neuron, massively parallel, and then laid on top of that a very coarse location-based "chemical gradient field" that tweaks the single neuron parameters a bit. Can any neuroscientist
Submitter is a moron (Score:1)
The idea of a 'singularity' is as well-founded as the idea of zombies. No wonder babbling on about it is so popular among the dilettante technology geek-hip set.
After that, all we're left with is a hopelessly short description of AI _in general_ and, what, 5 words in total on the Human Brain Project.
I know readers should RTFA, but that doesn't mean submitters shouldn't RTFA too - and, I don't know, _summarize it_.
Fucking Americans.
Dangerous amounts of pessimism here. (Score:1)
If science required knowledge of the outcomes before it was performed, ask yourselves: how many of the technologies around us would we enjoy today?
Taking the space program as an example, putting a man on the moon was symbolic, but the payback for the research and development went far beyond that. Even if we didn't reach the moon, we got memory foam, orange drink, and satellites out of the deal.
But too many people are unwilling to pay for R&D if they don't have a 100% guaranteed outcome. Well, sci
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Maybe not Tang, or Velcro, or even pressurised ball-point pens, but there is actually quite a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies [wikipedia.org]
Can they do a mouse? (Score:2)
So they say they need 1000x the power of the current largest supercomputers to simulate a brain at the neuron level. So they should be able to simulate a mouse brain, which has 1/1000 the mass of a human brain, right now. Can they do that?
There's a hubris problem in this area. Some years ago, I went to a talk where Rod Brooks was touting Cog [wikipedia.org] as strong AI Real Soon Now. He'd done good artificial insect work. I asked him "Why aren't you going for a robot mouse? That might be within reach." He answered "B
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They are actually working with rats at this time. The first couple of years that compiled a database of rat-neurons in detail: Form and function. They do test the simulation extensively: Connecting electrodes to the synapses to check out what combination of input signals cause what output signals. After wards they look at one of the brains building blocks: The neuronal column: You assemble 10'000 neurons and do the same again: Feed it input and verify the output. If the simulation and the real thing gives t
Up To? (Score:2)
It is less than a buck per neuron, still.... (Score:2)
Pinky went, "er... I dunno... what? world dumb..i..ca..tion?"
Brain went, "World Dominiation you idiot!. World Domination!!"
Rat hole (Score:3)
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1 - Glial cells - part of computation and possibly the key item for higher thought (Einstein had normal number of neurons but many more glial cells than averag
No, we really aren't (Score:2)
This just in: Human brain replicated perfectly! (Score:2)
Will this pay off? (Score:2)
I hope I'm wrong .. and I didnt see the data the EU committee has seen .. But I really don't think we are even near the point where a mere $1.34 Billion can get us to a point where we can get use from this thing. Still, I am glad a science project got funding.
Still, I rather they put it into MagLIF, regenerative medicine, immunology, cancer, or battery research (though I hope the graphene project which also got $1.34 billion is able to make a contribution in this regard).
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Still, I am glad a science project got funding.
Unfortunately this is a zero-sum game.
Wasted money (Score:2)
I wish these people would look at the state-of-the-art and what can realistically be expected before wasting money of something with this little likelihood of producing useful results.
give cars legs and planes feathers (Score:2)
"Up to"? (Score:2)
Sentience without a soul? (Score:2)
If you could perfectly replicate a human brain on a computer... Would it be "alive?" "Sentient?"
or is sentience calculated by the incalculable soul?
or if there is truly no soul, what makes one sentient in the first place if our brain is just a machine with electrical impulses are we not sentient? If one perfeclty replicated a brain simulation would it be sentient?
I think the debate of Souls reaches a new level (outside of religion) when it comes to simulation.
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If one perfeclty replicated a brain simulation would it be sentient?
1. Nobody knows.
2. Nobody ever will know.
Neurology, physiology, computing (Score:2)
Hello,
the project, described here [humanbrainproject.eu] is not to build a simulation of a human brain capable of reasoning and thought, certainly not at first.
It is aimed at better understanding the way the real human brain works, from the neurological and physiological point of view. It is anticipated that to understand this some level of simulation will be needed, indeed. However current computers are incapable of dealing with the complexity of the complete human brain, even if we knew its structure.
In other words it sounds li
We are not ready to simulate the brain (Score:2)
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Kurzweil needs to learn more math and less self-promotion.
Why? The self-promotion seems to be working pretty well for him.
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I can't wait until this is complete, and we have a swarm of robots, all mimicking the silly humans that built them.
Why?
Why indeed. Why not focus on making AI BETTER than humans? Perhaps we aren't the best model to imitate.
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Why not focus on making AI BETTER than humans? Perhaps we aren't the best model to imitate.
How would we know if we've made something better than ourselves? Wouldn't recognising it as "better" require the ability in us to understand what it was trying to achieve?
From a certain point of view, vacuum has pretty much taken out the top evolutionary niche in our universe. There's more of it than anything else anywhere, ever. Do we consider it "better" than us? And if not, why not?