I wonder what people would do if we created computers that could think as fast as a human brain...
Far out in the land of melt in your mouth chocolate and melt in your pants babes, a Swiss university has started their research for the "Human Brain Project." Henry Markram, the head coordinator and neuroscientist for HBP calls it "the world's most ambitious neuroscience project," with a budget of over 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion). The human brain is one of the biggest mysteries about our bodies, no one knows exactly how it works or how we get certain mental diseases and illnesses. Makram and his team plan to use super computers to model the brain, and then simulate different types of drugs and treatments on the model. Unfortunately, these "super computers" need to operate at 1000 times the speed they do now in order to be a reliable model of the brain. And the technology to achieve said speed does not exist... yet. Makram plans to begin testing prototypes as early as 2016.
Not only will we be able to finally comprehend the brains complex and multi layered functions, but we will have groundbreaking discoveries and inventions along the way. I personally believe this is the most important part. With the research collected from HBP, we can create technology that is virtually as smart and as fast as humans. Dr. Gayani DeSilva, a psychiatrist from California, talks about how the human brain model could have "unimaginable" implications for medicine, helping us learn how we adapt, heal, and develop. "The more we know about our brains, the more we can utilize our brains to its full potential, intervene when issues arise, replicate in artificial creations the power of the brain’s ability to integrate a vast amount of information that then causes other systems to perform specific actions” (DeSilva). Do you think we should be developing and researching this technology? Could this lead to jobs being lost to machines? Or could we work in parallel with the technology, thus making our lives easier and simpler? Comment below.
Jack, I think that the human brain project has tremendous potential to help so many people with neurological disorders such as M.S. and Alzheimers. The numbers of people with neurological disorders is increasing as I'm typing this right now. I would guess that Switzerland is not the only country working on a human brain project and it's just a matter of time for one nation to claim that they have succeeded in mapping out the human brain. It's not slow and steady who wins this race though because answers are needed. Millions are depending on it.
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