Start looking for John Conner and terminators to be walking the streets. The apocalypse is coming..hehe

Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face.


ausanne, Switzerland sit four black boxes, each about the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000 IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows. Together they form the processing core of a machine that can handle 22.8 trillion operations per second. It contains no moving parts and is eerily silent. When the computer is turned on, the only thing you can hear is the continuous sigh of the massive air conditioner. This is Blue Brain.

The name of the supercomputer is literal: Each of its microchips has been programmed to act just like a real neuron in a real brain. The behavior of the computer replicates, with shocking precision, the cellular events unfolding inside a mind. "This is the first model of the brain that has been built from the bottom-up," says Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the director of the Blue Brain project. "There are lots of models out there, but this is the only one that is totally biologically accurate. We began with the most basic facts about the brain and just worked from there."

Before the Blue Brain project launched, Markram had likened it to the Human Genome Project, a comparison that some found ridiculous and others dismissed as mere self-promotion. When he launched the project in the summer of 2005, as a joint venture with IBM, there was still no shortage of skepticism. Scientists criticized the project as an expensive pipedream, a blatant waste of money and talent. Neuroscience didn't need a supercomputer, they argued; it needed more molecular biologists. Terry Sejnowski, an eminent computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, declared that Blue Brain was "bound to fail," for the mind remained too mysterious to model. But Markram's attitude was very different. "I wanted to model the brain because we didn't understand it," he says. "The best way to figure out how something works is to try to build it from scratch."


The Blue Brain project is now at a crucial juncture. The first phase of the project—"the feasibility phase"—is coming to a close. The skeptics, for the most part, have been proven wrong. It took less than two years for the Blue Brain supercomputer to accurately simulate a neocortical column, which is a tiny slice of brain containing approximately 10,000 neurons, with about 30 million synaptic connections between them. "The column has been built and it runs," Markram says. "Now we just have to scale it up." Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face.

Henry Markram is tall and slim. He wears jeans and tailored shirts. He has an aquiline nose and a lustrous mop of dirty blond hair that he likes to run his hands through when contemplating a difficult problem. He has a talent for speaking in eloquent soundbites, so that the most grandiose conjectures ("In ten years, this computer will be talking to us.") are tossed off with a casual air. If it weren't for his bloodshot, blue eyes—"I don't sleep much," he admits—Markram could pass for a European playboy.

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A most interesting project I must admit. Hopefully they will be able to solve a lot of problems pertaining to the brain among other things. I don't think however it can have a soul as that being the spark of God. I would not like to think of it as being able to control the world almost like a movie that I once saw but cannot recall the name of it about two super computers getting together and then taking over.

all this can possibly lead to a world like the matrix, still it would interesting to see of they can truly mimic the human mind using a creation of silicon and metal.

I'm still skeptical. While we may understand the particulars of the local connections in certain specialized brain regions, there is simply no way to understand the overall picture with hundreds of billions of neurons and innumerable connections between them... just look at epilepsy, something can go wrong with the connections in one TINY area and cause problems all over the place that go away when a pea sized piece of brain is removed...

All this could lead to humanity achieving technological omnipotence within 200 years as well... Imagine AI super computers specifically designed to solve problems and perfect things like nanites and faster than light travel as well as solving our energy concerns among other issues.

This new age of technology is in it's infancy, it could go either way though.

All this could also lead to a technological singularity (machines building machines). If this were to happen humanity would lose and unlike in the matrix movie where we are used as batteries we would simply be exterminated. The more advanced civilization always conquers the less advanced. I view it more like the scenario depicted in the Terminator movies where complete eradication is the goal.

This technology is necessary, there are things humanity is simply not capable of without th aid of powerful AI supercomputers. Perhaps in the future we will work with our technology in harmony as opposed to using it like we do now. We have already begun to hand over control of our lives to technology because it is necessary to ensure our survival.

AI computers will never be able to solve all our problems, they simply cannot imagine and problem solve like we do. Sure they can crunch numbers but thats about it.



What? we are completely in control of all technology we use and have used since the dawn of man. We have NEVER handed ourselves over to technology i do not understand where you came up with that idea.

AI will never be given the ability to think outside the box, its just simply not a smart thing to do. Its also moraly unethical to create a new intelligent sentient life just to serve someone.

No one ever said all of our problems things like social problems etc can only be solved by human minds. However science problems could easily be solved. They will do far more then simply crunch numbers this is what super computers are doing now. AI specifically programmed for example to perfect nanotechnology will do this specific task. Each computer will be equipped with AI designed for different tasks. While they will still primarily crunch numbers they will solve new problems as they arise and begin to create their own mathematical problems to solve as the learn and grow.

AI will in fact imagine and solve problems in order to achieve their said task. They will be programmed with our current knowledge in a said area and programmed to learn and expand upon what we already know.



No we are the overseers of our own technology now however as more efficient systems arise things like manufacturing will be completely automated and humans will no longer be in this loop. Essentially taking ourselves out in the name of convenience.

AI is unlike any other technology we have ever created, we are creating a new intelligent life form. Software with the ability to learn and grow on it's own is the goal and once we have achieved this goal there will be some big decisions to make. Completely autonomous machines will revolutionize society and change the way we view the very foundations of life.



They do want AI to think out of the box, I have heard many researchers working on this type of software say this is the point of creating such software in the first place. This new life form will not be designed to simply serve our needs but rather to work with us.

In the future I am sure big issues of the day will include things like civil rights for machines for example. When these issues arise how we deal with them will determine our fate.

Do they have to create such things that may be more clever than humans itself? It might be dangerous.

We have to because our brains are simply to limited to solve certain complex problems we will face in the future and even now.

Oh well what you say is very true but I am afraid the things we invent may one day rule us. What do you think?

What? we already have many, many automated systems in every aspect of our daily life. And yes we are in complete control. Just because something is automated doesnt mean we cant monitor it, manipulate it or even completely shut it off.

I really question your belief in humans not being able to solve complex problems. We might not be able to crunch numbers like machines, but we can come up with fantastical ideas that AI will never be able to think up. When a machine can produce original musical scores that are up there with Metallica, Mozart, Hendrix or the Beatles or produce works of art, give me call.

See the whole point of creating AI based systems for not only super computers but robots as well is to create something that can think for itself. Eventually every single piece of hardware will be hooked into the network which will be governed by AI, there will be no way to simply shut it down.

What we are creating is a new life form not simply just another tool. A life form with billions and trillions more brain power then any human being. One aspect of life in all life is the drive to survive through adaptation. Shutting down or rather attempting to shut such system down would likely carry a response similar to one we would give survival of the fittest, kill or be killed.

It would be like human beings going to war with an ant colony, like us vs. ants humanity would be wiped out and there is nothing we could do to prevent it.



We are trying to program computers to be able to independently think on their own. There is no doubt that eventually machines will have their own culture and through them we will achieve immortality and explore the universe.

I like to think of what we are doing now as a merging of humanity with technology the next step in evolution for us and technology is to become one. However depending on what path we decide to choose.

You may question my belief in humanities restrictions but even scientists agree there are simply some problems even to big for us to solve and why we need to create advance AI in the first place.

The creation of viable AI that can be applied in everything from robots to house hold appliances will be a revolution in our progress as a species.

Machines will undoubtedly eventually create machine inspired art and solve problems with us it is only a matter of time.

But what if they start ruling over us? Did you not think that may happen?

I'm skeptical too. It took forever for IBM's Deep Blue Something to defeat chess champion Gary Kasparav.

http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/

Most people think they control their machines used in every day life. This is self delusional. If your phone , computer, or microwave start acting not as you like, you can not repair it. Shut it off, replace it or take it to a service person may be. But if you don't understand exactly how it works or can't do your own repairs you do not control them. You are really just part of the on-off switch.

A lot has happened since the Deep Blue chess defeat of Garry Kasparov in 1997 including hardware and software advancement. Deep Blue cannot even be compared to current super computers that exist today.



It is possible but unlikely as biological life forms can offer just as much to non biological life forms can offer us. A mutual relationship between the 2 is the only logical step for both parties.

We would likely try to rule over them and in turn be destroyed over night. There would be absolutely no hope for us and we would go the way of the dodo.