Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA24310 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 03:46:43 +0100 Subject: FWD: brain-like computers Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 22:44:16 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20000511024421.AAA12463@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.218]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
This is just one of those interesting little concurrences of subjects
that life is so full of....
- Wade
---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
< http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html >
subtopic: "extermination of the human race"
Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now of Kyoto
in Japan, fears that his experiments may ultimately lead to the
extermination of the human race. What do you think?
At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Professor
de Garis switched on a machine with which he will build the world's first
neural circuits for a true artificial brain. In the next 12 months the
cellular automata machine (CAM) in his laboratory will create a device
composed of 75million silicon neurons, similar in capability to those in
a human brain. The neuron networks are built up so that their connections
are random, as they are in the human brain. Most of them fail in
production and are discarded by a system based on Darwin's theory of
evolution. Even so, the circuits are built, tested, accepted or rejected
at blinding speed, many thousands every minute. When it is finished some
time in 2001, this artificial brain or "artilect" will go into a
four-legged robot called Robokitty.
By then work will have begun on the next generation of the artificial
brain which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007 and
would have more than 10 billion neurons. This would bring it to about the
level of a village idiot but within reach of the 23billion organic
neurons contained in the cortex of a human male (19 billion in a female).
Then comes the third generation, which Professor de Garis expects to be
finished about 2011 - a fearsome creation of 1000 billion neurons, vastly
larger than that of a human.
"By then," says this unconventional Australian, "I expect we'll be in a
debate about whether we should proceed any further. Long-term I am very
worried about the political impact of brain building. Since I am helping
to pioneer this brain-building field, I feel a strong moral obligation to
stimulate discussion on this enormous question. Do we allow the
artificial intellects to take over or not?"
Futurologists, such as the American computer engineer and author Ray
Kurzweil, agree with him. While they themselves are riding and driving
the technological revolution, they also see its scary side. A massively
powerful artificial brain could easily develop contempt for its
comparatively puny human makers, says Professor de Garis, who predicts
that such a question could be this century's burning issue. On one side
will be those afraid of the consequences of the science. On the other
those who see it as part of human destiny and who say that if artilects
are created by humans, then humans can set the boundaries for the
artificial intelligence.
Professor de Garis is not so sure about humans retaining control,
particularly when it comes to a silicon brain 40 times smarter than your
average man. These, he says, should be coming out of the CAM machines by
the second half of this century. Some see parallels with the debate
raised by the cloning of Dolly the sheep. The CAM machine with which
Professor deGaris is working was built by Genobyte, a US company based in
Boulder, Colorado. It produces microscopic modules on silicon chips each
of about 1000 artificial neurons. Such electrical connections in our
human brains control our movements, our senses and, perhaps most
ominously when it is seen in an artificial environment, our emotions and
our imaginations.
In his profile on his personal website, the professor says: "My dream in
life is to build artificial brains with billions of artificial neurons,
and see brain-like computers become a trillion-dollar industry within 20
years."
----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 11 2000 - 03:47:05 BST