#brain emulation

Living Forever: The Future of Consciousness Uploading

Using simulators intended to simulate attacks on a physical brain (not direct-to-soul mind control) is an easy way to have brain emulating artificial intelligence available without many extra steps, if you already possess such simulators. Simply simulate a brain (probably your brain) as though it were under attack, but with no attacks occurring, and then provide it input data by simulating it were you sitting at a workstation with unlimited data access, with the speed ratio maximized, for any simulated length of time you desire.

Horizon: Rebuilt Ch. 12

Economist Robin Hanson’s new book “The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth” imagines a not-too-distant future when robots are commonplace in our life. And the smartest of these will be “ems,” or brain emulations.  These will be super-detailed scans of actual human brains that run as models on computers. And once we figure out how to pull that off cheaply, ems will take over most human jobs.  The advantage ems will have is that they’ll be running 1,000 times faster than an actual human brain. You’ll also be able to copy them. Wouldn’t you rather scan and duplicate the brain of a Stephen Hawking and have that em do most everything?   The moment when ems will take over is similar to the singularity famously proposed by the futurist Ray Kurzweil. But Hanson thinks a brain em will come in the next 100 years, sooner than self-aware AI because they will be recreations of brains rather than harder-to-create brain consciousnesses. Brain ems can come as a culmination of the technology we already employ, like brain scans and models. One day we’ll just know everything there is to know about brains and will be able to get computers to mimic them. Emulations will perform most of their tasks in virtual reality, and for physical jobs like factory work they will have some specialized “bodies”. Ems will be functioning creatures that will develop and live in the same world as humans but will eventually develop their own civilization. Once ems will be doing most of our jobs, humans will have to create a new civilization for themselves. Hanson imagines ems will be congregating in a few megacities full of technology, while the humans will live essentially retired in suburbs. The ems will be running all the businesses and government. The rest of the people will generally not work, especially if they managed to make good investments or have government or corporate insurance. Some will financially benefit from being the originals whose brain scans were used to create ems. Interestingly, the descendants of the original human or “copies” will together be called a “clan”. There will, of course, be many left behind.

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