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Will We Really Be Able To Model The Entire Human Brain Within 10 Years? (video for smile :)
A video has been doing the rounds on Twitter, in which a neuroscience lab manager gives the shocking inside story on how the €1 Billion Human Brain Project really received its funding:
Alright, alright. The man in the video is really a man from Andalucía in Spain telling a story about how he lost paella pans in the sea. The subtitles in the satirical video are amusing and more than a little on the harsh side, but they represent the genuine discontent that has arisen within the neuroscience community around one of the field’s flagship projects. What is the reality behind the bold claim that an accurate simulation of the human brain will be realized within 10 years?
The grand claim was originally made to the public in a bold TED talk by the Human Brain Project’s champion Henry Markram in 2009. Discontent reached a crisis point last summer when 513 neuroscientists signed a letter refusing to participate in the Human Brain Project until the project had undergone a fundamental rethink; a further 298 neuroscientists signed on as supporters. The neuroscientists argued that the goals and methods of the project were too narrow and too unrealistic, leading to a high chance the project would fail, and putting funding to other areas of the field at risk.
Edvard Moser, who won a Nobel Prize last year for his brain research and who is a signatory on the letter, explains the problem in an article in Nautilus magazine: “As I understand it, tons of data will be put into a supercomputer and this will somehow lead to a global understanding of how the brain works. ... To simulate the brain, or a part of the brain, one has to start with some hypothesis about how it works.”
Christof Koch puts the scale of the problem into context:
“The dirty secret is that we don’t even understand the nematode C. Elegans, which only has 302 neurons [in contrast with the nearly 100 billion in the human brain]. We don’t have a complete model of this tiny organism.” - Christof Koch, chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science
An independent committee set up to investigate the criticisms published a report in March in agreement with much of the criticism. The report came to the conclusion that the goal of simulating the entire human brain was premature and that the project should refocus on developing methods and technologies, while not excluding cognitive and systems neuroscientists and not abandoning animal models, as had been previously planned. The developments will bring the project much closer in line with the U.S. BRAIN Initiative.
If it was ever in doubt that the entire human brain would not be simulated in the foreseeable future, let alone in the next 10 years, this now appears to be all but certain, but neuroscience as a field may be stronger for it.
Source: http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/will-we-really-be-able-to-model-the-human-brain-within-10-years
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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