The current accepted school of thought is that consciousness in an “epiphenomena.” What this means is that it is a product of the workings of the brain and “springs out” of the the brain’s interactions the same way that music “springs out” of the vibrations of strings.
Given this reduction of consciousness to purely physical terms, we can do away with concepts of the “soul” or the “spirit” and state that given the right hardware, consciousness will form automatically. It is true however, that if we were to try and build this hardware (and create the states of the hardware) using a blueprint that would end in a conscious entity, we would be frustrated by the complexity.
But Henry Markram – Director of the Blue Brain Project claims that we can have functioning Human Brain within 10 years! He says that his team has already had some success in trying to replicate the brains of rats, with the Neurons beginning to self organize themselves – in other words, developing a personality.
He says if he fails, it will be proof that consciousness is more than merely a “rising up” of the brain – that there is something more. Will he or won’t he succeed? Stay tuned…
The field of Artificial Intelligence has passed through many phases and has suffered many triumphs and defeats. The “AI winter” refers to periods in the history of AI where there was almost no public interest in AI research and no funding either. This was inevitably caused to due to previous high expectations that fail to deliver.
To get a feel of what it’s like, imagine this. You get carried away by the claims of a certain speech recognition software and decide to try it out. You’re told that you can speak naturally and that you merely have to dictate into a microphone and the software will type out your sentence in words. You start to get visions of handless computing without needing to type. However, when you actually try it out you’re dismayed by the flaws in the technology. You can barely get a proper sentence out and your realize that the promises are false.
This experience will lead to you being skeptical of any such AI claims in the future. Either with regard to facial recognition, handwriting recognition, or translation into foreign languages. Such were the reasons for decreased public interest resulting in periods of “AI Winters” where some researchers were even afraid to include the words artificial intelligence in their research papers.
Over a period of time, this blog will attempt to take examples of previous approaches to certain AI problems and then compare them to what we have achieved so far. This will hopefully provide readers with a picture of far we have come…and how far we have to go.
Using a computer these days is necessary for almost any sort of skilled labor. As a writer, if I find myself without my hands (say due to RSI), I’m paralyzed without being able to type. Natural language is light years away from being anything close to usable for intensive work. However, recently research has focused more on being able to control a computer using just brainwaves.
In many ways, controlling a computer using brainwaves is a more promising field of development than trying to control an actual mechanical device such as an arm. With the former, you need less research and hardware costs and once the basic principles are in place, the technique can be extended to controlling anything.
The latest research comes from Rhode Island where a group of researchers are working on a system called “Braingate” which consists of placing an implant into a subject’s brain and interpreting those signals to perform some activity. To summarize the goals neatly, it’s “Turning thought into action.” The pilot clinical trials were started on the 4th of June and are expected to be a breakthrough in neurotechnology.
Keep tuned to this blog for more as we continue to cover the latest developments as and when they happen in this exciting and ever changing field.
The words “Internet Addiction” have been bandied about for quite some time now. However, it hasn’t yet found a place in the prestigious Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) which lays down extensive criteria for various mental disorders.
But a team in Korea has found that Internet addicts have different brain responses from those who do not, laying down the physical foundations for the formal classification of Internet Addication as a mental disorder. The research was still limited to a small test group however – something that the team intends to correct. There are also some who contest the implications of the findings.
The test was performed using the infamous “World of Warcraft” series which has garnered a lot of publicity over it’s addictive properties. Whether or not psychologists wish to place the addiction on par with other addictions such as coccaine, is another matter. The problem arises when beginning to discuss whether or not Internet disorders are merely manifestations of previously existing conditions which need to be identified. This is similar to food addiction.
Researchers say that if they can consistently uncover the reward pathways in the brain relating to Internet disorder, that would be the clinching argument since such pathways are the hallmark of other more tangible addictions.
The aim of prosthetics is to minimize the impact on the life of a person who has lost a limb. Upper prosthetics like arms interact with the muscles to perform functions like gripping. However, till now there have been limitations to what sort of objects can be gripped with smaller objects slipping through the hand.
Hangar Prosthetics based in Raleigh, North Carolina has developed a device called the “i-Limb” which can “pinch” items and allow more control. Bill Limehouse demonstrates as he makes the iLimb grip a ball and shows how it wraps around an object. The iLimb has 5 pinching movements (one for each finger) and this allows more sophisticated functionality. In addition, the iLimb can be rotated manually so that the prosthetic can find the best angle to grip, or to push buttons like on an ATM.
This isn’t some science lab technology. It’s available on the market at a current cost of $18,000. According to data, not all insurance companies cover it – but some certainly do. We know for a fact that Medicare does not.
Artificial limbs are a long way from becoming like the artificial hand of Luke Skywalker, but as they grow more and more functional, who knows?
Patricia Churchland recently gave a talk in the “Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness” conference organized by MIT. She made a very interesting point that I would like to share with my readers here. The basic question is – why don’t plants have a consciousness? We know they don’t simply because they don’t have a central nervous system like a brain that would organize stimulus and respond to it.
The crux of the issue that Ms. Churchland was making, was that all sensory perception and even consciousness itself is because we can “move from point A to point B”. Without that ability to move, there is simply no use in having a consciousness. That makes sense. If you approach to cut a plant down, the plant can’t defend itself using any thought process either deliberate or instinctive. Therefore, it would be meaningless for a plant to have pain as it would not confer any sort of survival advantage.
It’s interesting to note that sensations are only given to organisms that can move lending weight to this idea. It leads us a fairly depressing conclusion though. There is no conception of beauty or art for it’s own sake. Sensory perception and all the associated sentiment that goes with it, somewhere down the line came into existence because they helped us essentially perform better at one of the four “F” – Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, and well, you know….Reproduction!
Somewhat depressing isn’t it?
If you’re interested in AI, you’ll be surprised how far they’ve come along till now. You can try them yourself with online chat bots. Don’t be too hard on them though – they’re good. But not that good. My favorite place to find online chat bots is http://testing.turinghub.com/. It features some of the best bots out there. I have a personal liking for Landru – the namesake from the “Star Trek” episode – Return of the Archons.
You’ll find that each chat bot has it’s own personality. For example, the one called Alice is well – bitchy almost! You’ll need to experiment with them to find out which one is your style. Just ensure you keep the conversation linear. If you talk about something and then come back to it later, the bots don’t seem to remember it and therefore reveal themselves as not human. But otherwise, they amaze you with their understanding of what you’re talking about.
In fact, in the aforementioned site, it asks if you think you were chatting with the computer or one of the site’s adminsitrators – something called the “Turing Test”. Turring suggested that the proof of real AI would be when a human was unable to identify whether he was talking to a robot or not. In recent test, chat bots were able to fool humans 30% of the time. That’s pretty good. Stay tuned. They’re getting better. And when they do, we’ll be right here to tell you abou tit.
There are a wide variety of opinions as to what exactly neurotechnologies are. Some say that they are a set of techniques that are intended to serve as “push ups” for the brain, while others claim that the term should be reserved for direct brain manipulation.
Perhaps the best description of neurotechnologies is the one where it refers to specific tools that are used for the purpose of observing the functions of the brain as well as manipulating brain states. This could be as broad as deep brain stimulation, or the firing of individual neurons.
Neurotechnologies can be invasive or non invasive. For example, trans cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques utilize oscillating magnetic fields to induce currents in the brain without any actual invasion of the organ.
These technologies can be used for a variety of purposes that can be therapeutic or research based in nature. Since this is still an emerging field, there are a number of developments that are taking place in our understanding of the brain, as well as the techniques used to observe and manipulate it.
Neurotechnologies have also been subject to some controversy over their ethical aspects with some claiming that it amounts to deception and manipulation of those very elements that make us human. But this is unlikely to prevent further research into a very promising field.