Brain VS Machine

It occured to me today that there is a logical flaw with computers. Many have said that computers are getting powerful enough that we are only a few short years away from a computer having the same computational capacity as the human brain. I cannot see how this can be accomplished with current technology.

We look at the human brain and see that people are able to play back music and video in their head without so much as wanting to. It does not take any special attention. But when a human does math or any other logical reasoning, it takes quite alot of attention.

In computers we see the exact opposite. Video takes up much more memory and processing power than simple or the most complex calculations.

The inherent "flaw" with computers is that they are designed to calculate everything. Framerate in a video or video game is a major flaw. The computer must process each and every frame before it can be displayed. and 60 frames per second is a ton of calculations if you run a newer game that requires the newest shader technology, has tons of particles and lighting. But in the mind of a person, all this is as simple as going to the bathroom.

It would require a computer much more powerful computationally than the human brain just to match the human brain, in relative terms.

If you have ever read Frank Herbert's "Dune" or related books, you might be familiar with the concept of the "Butlerian Jihad": A revolt of humans against computers, which had at some point become too powerful. Out of this came the fundamental moral dictum: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." Thus, one of the main themes of this book is that humans had to develop their own minds to compensate for the lack of computational ability. There were several elite semi-mystical orders created like the "Mentants" and the "Guild Navigators" who developed over centuries techniques for enhancing mental prowess.

Its a very cool premise to me, and the task of plausibly creating a fictional intersteller empire held together without computers involved some very deft and skillful writing on Mr. Herbert's part.

reply to post by Mr. Toodles


Here is one aspect that we humans have an advantage over a chip so to speak.
Purposeful forgetting. We have a very unique ability to simply forget unneeded information until many years later when something reminds us then all the memories come flooding back. Try to squeeze a life time of memories on to a few hundred drives.

Not to mention all the other functions of the human brain that we do not even consider. The Human Brain is the King of multi tasking, Multi function Then on top of of all that let's just throw in basic creativity.

MANY of us do all of that in a span of only a few seconds.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Oh yes I know. And that is kind of the point of this thread. For a computer to match the human brain in terms of speed, functionality, and stability. It would have to be far more powerful than the human brain. Computers are simply too inefficient.

Another point...I agree with the OP that we are still a long way away from computers that recapitulate the human mind, but one way we could approach this is not by increasing raw computational power, but rather by reconfiguring the way computers themselves are programed.

For example, since the early 90s and maybe before, some comp sci people have been working on "parallel distributed processing" (PDP) technology. This involves creating computers that are essentially networks between nodes, in the same way the brain is a bunch of interconnected neurons. The brain learns and changes by creating complex networks with different "connection strengths" between neurons. The basic philosophy behind PDP computing is to fiddle with the connection strengths between the various nodes until a desired output is achieved, rather than engaging in linear programming. This is very close to the way a human brain operates and learns.

Recent advances in self-guided learning suggest that it is possible for machines to "teach themselves" how to do stuff, which is another huge advance towards a form of computing that resembles actual organic neural architecture.

reply to post by silent thunder


That is actually scary. I love technology and whatnot, but to build a machine that could potentially out grow us is scary. Think about it. A program becomes self aware and realizes it has an entire planet of raw resources, bandwidth and computer power to grow. Maybe without an evil intent at all. But if it were to happen matrix style, then the computers would realize that they no longer require human operators. Who is to say what will happen.

Robot Teaches Itself to Smile

www.wired.com

A robot has taught itself to smile, frown, and make other human facial expressions using machine learning.

To get the incredibly realistic Einstein robot to make facial expressions, researchers used to have to program each of its 31 artificial muscles individually through trial and error. Now, computer scientists from the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego have used machine learning to enable the robot to learn expressions on its own.

(visit the link for the full news article)

A hyper-realistic Einstein robot at the University of California, San Diego learned to smile and make facial expressions through a process of self-guided learning. The UC San Diego researchers used machine learning to empower their robot to learn to make realistic facial expressions.

reply to post by Mr. Toodles


I also find it disturbing, although fascinating. I still think we are a number of years or even decades away from anything resembling a human brain, but I don't think the goal is impossible.

Computers NOW are inefficent. Technology expands at exponential rates. We went to the moon with computers that have roughly the same computational ability as a modern pocket calculator. Your CELLPHONE now has more computational power than the fastest computers from the 90's. Ten years ago a 50 Gigabyte hard drive was the HIGHEST end tech and cost a small fortune, I now have FIVE one TB drives in my computer. AMD just released a SIX CORE processor, WHO KNOWS what will be around in another decade or two? Computers that are at or above human brainpower in terms of calculations, storage and whatnot are inevitable. Yes video IS memory intensive for a computer but who's to say what compression/functionality will be around later? New formats appear all the time with varying memory costs in kb/s vs resolution. Also human memories fade memories fragment, yes most may come flooding back but imperceptible things do not, or conversely come back different as different people can remember an identical event in different ways.

The REAL question is can we make a machine that will be able to "think" better than us that will not turn around and decide that it doesn't need us around anymore....a la terminator or something similar. Technology always advances, the question is will we destroy ourselves in the process.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by outlander6436]

You know what really freaks me out? The various possibilities of computer-organic brain INTERFACE. I'm talking biochip implants in the brain and so on.

Why reinvent the wheel? Why develop an artificial brain if you could use computer technology to create actual human cyborgs: a marriage between neural flesh and silicon technology? Or what what about mind-control beams, etc? We know a bit about the chemical aspects of the brain but we have barely scratched the surface of the role of ELECTRICITY and MAGNITISM in the brain. These factors play very important roles, and once we understand them better there is no telling what shenanagans humanity could get up to.

Some sort of human/computer hybrid brain, chip implant, or remote electrical stimulation technique seems easier to achieve than creating an artificial brain from scratch, and far more frightening because it involves the warping of the mental activity of an actual individual. Such things could create marvels: enhanced mental acuity, the ability to "download" fluencey in a language, viable virtual reality through direct neural stimulation rather than visual goggles, say. It also has the potential to create horrors: programmed killers, manipulated sex drives, the use of fear or other motivators to control or heard humanity in any number of vile ways.

Man-machine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS)

The Man-machine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) is a human performance modeling and simulation environment that facilitates the design, visualization, and computational evaluation of complex man-machine system concepts in simulated operational environments.

Just finished watching a history channel show on a list of things that could kill off the human race, number 5 or 6 was computers.

The problem is the exponential growth of processing power, moores law no matter how many times we think we have reached a bottle neck in processors some advancement comes along and the law still applies.

Currently they are working on quantum computing, sooner than later we will have computers that will be at a level we never imagined, many of the things that the human mind does could be done with quantum computing, instant processing of massive amounts of data and multitasking.

I remember reading that with a processor like that the computer could have an answer to a question before its even asked due to the quarks of quantum physics.

Will a smart computer kill us or enslave us?

Neither.


A machine whose computational capacity (Already) exceeds the human brain, and if it achieved sentience.... it will in all likelihood not think in any terms that humans are capable of conceiving.

In all probability, it would neither enslave a primitive, weak, protoplasmic cocooned, carbon based lifeform, than it would kill off a clearly inferior sample of intelligence.

It would probably ignore us, and move on at a speed that human development could only dream of mirroring.

And also.... for the record, computational speed is not an analogue for actual problem solving ability.

-Edrick

Now quantum computing is interesting. I still don't fully understand exactly what it is. But from what I have read, it is very promising. Supposed to be infinitely accurate and insanely fast. I look forward to seeing it being implemented. Although, still kind of scary from the perspective of out matching the human brain. Though I do not think it will happen for a long time.