X-Message-Number: 25566
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 13:49:47 +0100
From: Henri Kluytmans <>
Subject: MNT and AI

(Lots of mixtures of partial understandings and outright 
misunderstandings by Thomas Donaldson.  :) )

In reply to my posts Thomas Donaldson wrote :

>If I understand you correctly, you're claiming that we can use our
>partial simulations of insect brains to reach a system which acts like
>a human brain much faster than starting from scratch. This confuses the
>results of a simulation with an understanding of what really happens.

Uhh ???  Of course not.

I said, that with advanced MNT (including molecular disassemblers) 
we could scan the brain of an insect with molecular resolution.
We should also be able to deduce the exact detailed functional model 
for biological neurons by that time. We would then be able to run 
simulated "insect brains" in artificial neural networks. And with 
advanced MNT we could produce a computing system with enough cheap 
computing power to be able to use evolutionary methods to evolve 
those "uploaded brains" into more intelligent ones.

I'm talking about maybe 30 years in the future. Of course I'm 
also assuming that within 30 years we will have the right genetic 
algorithms that will succeed in evolving those brains.

That last assumption is the only more vague assumption I made.
But the fact that nature proved that evolutionary methods worked 
at least once to create intelligent brains, make this last 
assumption at least a little plausible.

----

>Again, you say that your created AI will be able to (think? act?) 
>millions of times faster than we do. 

Computers made by advanced MNT would be able to make logic 
circuits able to switch in the gigaherz range. (Or, let's say 
at least a 100 Mhz, to make a safe guess.) If we guess the 
switching speed of a neuron at about 1/1000 of second. 
Then if we would make an artificial brain, made of artificial 
neurons, which a based upon logic circuits with a switching 
speed of 1 nanosecond, the artificial brain would run a 
million times faster.

>neuron. Second, and most important, an AI that spins its wheels
>millions of times faster gets nowhere unless it gets data just
>as rapidly, and also can act just as rapidly --- neither oneof

Of course, interaction with the natural environment would 
be very boring for such fast brains. Their favorite environment
to interact in/with will probably be a virtual world.

>Hkl

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