Via Bookforum's Omnivore blog: Some believe the age of robot domination may have already arrived (Dominic Basulto), and Kevin Kelley believes we should just step aside and let the robots run things.
Do you remember Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation? In a couple of episodes, his rights as a sentient being were central to the plot - has the time come that we need to have those discussions?
Finally, in a separate article from io9, George Dvorsky reports on the $1.6 billion Human Brain Project - the researchers will be using "a progressively scaled-up multi-layered simulation" running on a supercomputer to theoretically (my word and emphasis) "re-create the human brain." Good luck with that.
How will humans and robots coexist?
JAN 30 2013
1:00PM
- Surya Deva City (Hong Kong): Can Robots Have Human Rights Obligations? A Futuristic Exploration.
- Josh Blackman (South Texas): Robot, Esq.
- John Niman on rise of the military robot.
- Has the robot uprising already happened? Dominic Basulto wonders.
- Martin Ford on why robots are worse for the economy than you think.
- Ben Richmond on what the Czech play that coined the term “robot” tells us about today's robonomics.
- The FDA approves first robot for hospital use.
- How will humans and robots coexist? Robots will be everywhere in 2030, but not necessarily as humanoid domestic help.
- Dick Pelletier on sentient machines, the next step in human evolution.
- From Wired, better than human: Kevin Kelly on why we should let the robots take over; and Helene Mialet on Stephen Hawking, Vader and being more machine than human.
- Behavioural acceptance of existing superhumans: V.R. Manoj on the path to equal acceptance of the differently abled.
This story is related, of course, and it comes from io9.
New $1.6 billion supercomputer project will attempt to simulate the human brain
In what is the largest and most significant effort to re-create the human brain to date, an international group of researchers has secured $1.6 billion to fund the incredibly ambitious Human Brain Project. For the next ten years, scientists from various disciplines will seek to understand and map the network of over a hundred billion neuronal connections that illicit emotions, volitional thought, and even consciousness itself. And to do so, the researchers will be using a progressively scaled-up multilayered simulation running on a supercomputer.
And indeed, the project organizers are not thinking small. The entire team will consist of over 200 individual researchers in 80 different institutions across the globe. They're even comparing it the Large Hadron Colllider in terms of scope and ambition, describing the Human Brain Project as "Cern for the brain." The project, which will be based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is an initiative of the European Commission.
According to scientists working on the project, HBP will build new platforms for "neuromorphic computing" and "neurorobotics," allowing researchers to develop new computing systems and robots based on the architecture and circuitry of the brain. The researchers will attempt to reconstruct the human brain piece-by-piece, and gradually bring these cognitive components into an overarching supercomputer.
"The support of the HBP is a critical step taken by the EC to make possible major advances in our understanding of how the brain works," said Swedish Nobel Laureate Torsten Wiesel in a recent statement. "HBP will be a driving force to develop new and still more powerful computers to handle the massive accumulation of new information about the brain, while the neuroscientists are ready to use these new tools in their laboratories." He added that the research may also give rise to fundamentally new computer architectures modeled after the brain.
"This cooperation should lead to new concepts and a deeper understanding of the brain, the most complex and intricate creation on earth," he said.
The researchers are also hoping that the insights gained will help in the treatment of neurological disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Moreover, due to the nature of the research, no animals will be required for experimentation.
- Sources: Human Brain Project, Globe & Mail, Yahoo! News.
- Image: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
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