The Brain Is Far More Complex Than Believed

We have been bombarded with predictions that human-level artificial intelligence will be developed "within ten years." These predictions inevitably come from persons with a computer science, engineering, or artificial intelligence background. Such  prognosticators understand algorithms and / or electrical circuits, but do they understand how consciousness is created? Do they comprehend the basis for the only human-level intelligence that exists: the human brain? Clearly not.

This respected Harvard team of neuroscientists has its hands full studying a nematode nerve network of 4 measly neurons! They are hoping to expand their study to include more than 4 neurons soon.

Meanwhile, there is the problem of "The Other Brain", the glial network.

Glia communicate by broadcasting chemical messages. Moreover, glia can sense information flowing through neural circuits and alter the communications between neurons at synapses! Glia, we now know, have receptors for detecting the flow of ions generated by neurons firing electrical impulses and for sensing the neurotransmitters neurons release at synapses. Glia intercept these signals and act upon them to increase or decrease the transmission of information across synapses and speed or slow the transmission of electrical information through axons.


These recent discoveries open an entirely new dimension into brain function. Glia are involved in all aspects of nervous system health and disease. They can control neuronal communication, development of the fetal brain, generation of new neurons in the adult brain, participate in epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia, and they provide a new mechanism of learning that operates beyond synapses. _RDouglasFields

Henry Markram's Blue Brain project is the one supercomputer project that seems to be taking into account much (but not all) of the brain's complexity.   But Markram's project is not trying to create human-level AI.  It is trying to create a simulated brain that can be used to better understand brain function and diseases of the brain.   Markram is a neuroscientist, so his goals are focused more on the realities of the brain than on the goal of "human-level AI."

The best of the "brain simulations" by AI workers is the simulation by Dharmendra Modha's IBM team. It barely simulated one of the most basic functions of the visual cortex, at average speeds less than 1 / 100th that of a mammalian brain. It required over $1 million a year to power its processors, and much more to cool the supercomputer. For something with the same number of neurons as a cat brain, Modha's simulation was a hugely inefficient use of energy -- compared to a cat.

There are some interesting new hardware tools coming along, such as Chua's memristors, meminductors, and memcapacitors. Alice Parker's BioRC project at USC may hold some future promise.

The point is not that a human-level AI would have to emulate the human brain in great detail. That would be a rather pointless extravagance, when crafty abstraction can save space, time, energy, and effort. But new hardware and software tools are needed, obviously. One cannot build a slow-functioning silicon retard occupying a skyscraper-sized building requiring a nuclear reactor to power and mega-tons of refrigeration to cool, and call it a human-level brain.

Anyone wanting to build a human-level machine intelligence will need to understand much of what consciousness entails, and how the human brain achieves it.

It is possible that an insect-level machine brain of appropriate size and energy-consumption might be developed within 5 to 10 years. A rodent-level machine brain of appropriate dimensions might be developed within 10 to 20 years, if we are lucky. A human-level brain may not take more than 5 years to achieve after the rodent-level brain, but shrinking it to the size and energy-efficiency of a human brain may take longer.

Humans are stupid. But they are also the most powerful general-purpose intelligence known to us. Machine intelligence of human-level or better would generate significant changes to human societies. Modern conventional human governments do not want to lose control of this particular revolution. If they do, it might be the last mistake they ever make.