jeremy-o t1_jdljmke wrote on March 25, 2023 at 7:59 AM

We are definitely just biological computing machines! That wasn't really at question, if you consider the science. What is at question is how soon we can replicate that. Some would say we're close. I think we're a lot further than we assume, purely based on the complexity of the human brain's neural network vs. e.g. our best AI models.

Considering the "soul" or spirit irrelevant isn't really futurism. It's more like, existentialism or even nihilism, so we're talking 19th/20thC philosophy.

GodzlIIa t1_jdln03x wrote on March 25, 2023 at 8:50 AM

Yep we are just biological computing machines. We aren't even that impressive or big or smart ones, but we are EXTREMELY complicated ones. Progress in understanding how the brain works is going to be a slow journey.

solinvictus21 t1_jdlvwlp wrote on March 25, 2023 at 10:58 AM

Our best AI models are already simulating trillions of synapses. The human brain has ~200 trillion. How much longer do you really think it’s going to be?

SirFredman t1_jdm2vsz wrote on March 25, 2023 at 12:19 PM

Well, consider the amount of synapses used for running a meat machine which aren’t needed by an AI model. I think the amount of neurons and synapses needed is less than we think…

ninjadude93 t1_jdmsd9l wrote on March 25, 2023 at 3:47 PM

The issue is figuring out if scale is all you need to replicate a human mind. I definitely don't think scale is all you need and its going to take a long time to truly replicate the human mind

Subject_Meat5314 t1_jdnls2i wrote on March 25, 2023 at 7:15 PM

Agreed. Scale of the hardware (wetware?) is necessary but not sufficient. Next we have to write the software. The last effort took 100’s of millions of years. We have a working model and better management now though, so hopefully we can make quicker progress.

ninjadude93 t1_jdocwnn wrote on March 25, 2023 at 10:37 PM

Theres probably some level of scale necessary to start to see emergent properties but the point I tend to disagree on is people saying just throwing a NN at more and more data will suddenly give us AGI past a certain threshold. The human brain isn't just a bunch of neurons theres specialized regions all working together and I think this orchestration plus scale is what will take us to AGI