IBM Cat Brain Nonsense in the Zeitgeist
I found another ridiculous article on IBM's so-called "cat brain" at TechWorldNews, titled "IBM Researchers Go Way Beyond AI With Cat-Like Cognitive Computing". I run into these articles all the time doing AI-related searches, so even though they were published a year ago, their deception remains strongly in effect. The fact that so many people actually believe what IBM implies shows how fundamentally confused 99% of the population (including geeks) is about AI in general. Here's a quote from the article:
IBM researchers have developed a cognitive computer simulation that mimics the way a cat brain processes thought, and they expect to be able to mimic human thought processes within a decade. "A cognitive computer could quickly and accurately put together the disparate pieces of any complex data puzzle and help people make good decisions rapidly," said Daniel Kantor, medical director of Neurologique.
Mimics the way a cat brain processes thought. They actually wrote that. So people believe in a computer that processes cat thought existing in 2009, but don't expect a computer that mimics human thought for hundreds of years or ever? People really do believe this (I probably did at one point long ago), because they were brought up on bizarre Judeo-Christian ideas which involve elevating human thought to a supernatural status which cannot be replicated in a computer. It's entirely unscientific, but even many so-called "secular humanists" believe in mystical human exceptionalism. "We're nowhere close to understanding the brain", they claim, despite thousands of detailed textbooks and hundreds of thousands of articles on the brain and mind.
It's true that we're nowhere near to understanding all the microcircuitry of the brain, but we have to distinguish between functionally relevant cognitive complexity and incidental cognitive complexity. Most of the complexity in a bird is incidental to the bird, not fundamentally necessary for flight. It may be possible to create AGI without understanding much about the human brain at all.
January 11th, 2011 - 15:22
“…because they were brought up on bizarre Judeo-Christian ideas which involve elevating human thought to a supernatural status which cannot be replicated in a computer…”
Had to get your christian dig in, I guess that boosts popularity with those you associate with…
“It’s entirely unscientific, but even many so-called “secular humanists†believe in mystical human exceptionalism. “We’re nowhere close to understanding the brainâ€, they claim, despite thousands of detailed textbooks and hundreds of thousands of articles on the brain and mind.”
Therefore we must be very close to completely understanding the brain? Or maybe there have been numerous theories and ideas about how the brain works and it is still unclear when we will figure it all out. (A comment like this from someone like you who has probably never read a single neuroscience text in his life and wouldn’t understand it if he did is just sad. I am ashamed for you.)
Amount of literature has no bearing on the level of understanding just the level of interest and sometimes the complexity of the topic. (Example: there are how many thousands of physics texts and yet we can’t unify QM and GR in a theory of gravity.)
“It’s true that we’re nowhere near to understanding all the microcircuitry of the brain, but we have to distinguish between functionally relevant cognitive complexity and incidental cognitive complexity.”
True (with caveats).
“Most of the complexity in a bird is incidental to the bird, not fundamentally necessary for flight.”
Have you seen what goes into making an airplane or do you think they have airplane seeds that they plant in the ground and poof out pops and airplane. A bird and an airplane are both complex but in different ways. This is an abysmal example of your point.
“It may be possible to create AGI without understanding much about the human brain at all.”
Yes and it may be possible to make a cow fly by sprinkling magic fairy dust that is found on the other side of the rainbow on the cow and reciting the words: “I am Michael, I am smart, if I stop saying it nobody would believe it…” This is a totally useless comment to make.
January 13th, 2011 - 19:41
Sounds like it’s more BugGub that has not read any neuroscience texts rather than Michael.
Amount of literature doesn’t by itself have any bearing on the level of understanding, but the quality of it coupled with the amount does. Do you know what they write about BugGub?
Again, if you read some of this literature no doubt you would agree with Michael that the understanding of the brain has had rapid progress over the last century, and especially the last few decades.
February 9th, 2011 - 02:31
I don’t see any information here, just an opinion. Not even an opinion on one topic, but three topics. You don’t think that brains can be simulated by computers (you may be right, but that’s just speculation), you don’t think very much of Judeo-Christian ideas (which is fine, neither do I), and you misunderstand the term secular humanism, attributing it to “mystical human exceptionalism”.
Get off your ass and advance science if you’re such a brilliant thinker. I am sick of finding blogs mixed in with the google search results…
If you think this is journalistic writing, it’s pathetic.