But thanks to recent research, it is at least no longer an unimaginable thing. And who do we have to thank for this? Artificial intelligence of course!
As always, I talk more about the impact and implications of this in my video (see below), but for the purpose of the blog, let's look at how we'll be able to achieve this feat using current technological advances.
The first key to making an artificial brain, is to understand better how the brain actually works, and that is still a mystery, really. The average human brain has 100 billion neurons and each neuron has roughly 1000 connections to other neurons called synapses. That means 100 trillion synapses firing in some mysterious pattern that, according to expert scientists should explain how we even have a consciousness, on top of our ability to remember, act, have emotions and all that.
Now, neurons are cells and synapses are very small structures, not to mention the thin axons that worm around like tentacles to reach out towards the next neuron of interest.
In the image above, we can see one neuron (purple) reaching out with an axon towards another neuron (green) and connecting to it using several synapses.
Now imagine taking pictures of tiny areas of the brain filled with these in tightly packed formation and mapping the synaptic connections in order to ultimately map how everything is connected together, to create the human neural map so others can study how exactly things fire and work.
This is needed because we can't really understand how the brain works without that info, just like we can't really reverse engineer a computer without understanding how the microchips and transistors are all connected.
The current problem is we are able to take pictures of tiny areas of the brain quite effectively (thank goodness!) but we need hordes of unfortunate science interns to actually manually count the synapses and map them out. Right now, using the best electron microscope available for this, which does the job 50 times faster than the usual electron microscope. Still, because the interns have to map things out manually so far, a mouse brain would still require a few years to map. Since the human brain has 25,000 more neurons and connections than a mouse's, using this method, it would take us, well several thousand years to fully map a single human brain.
Now let's thank artificial intelligence in the form of neural network and deep learning because the team at the Max Plank Institute of Neurobiology have tested its use to replace the minions and the results are quite promising. The neural network they have devised is able to recognize the synapses and patterns of the images captured the new electron microscope with such accuracy that no human supervision is required and of course, it learns and gets better, is orders of magnitude faster than any human, doesn't sleep etc.... you get the picture.
So using these techniques and others, mapping of the human brain is in fact within reach likely within the next 20 years by my personal estimate.
Now there are other elements needed in making a human brain, like memory and the actual processing of information as well. The human brain can process multiple pieces of information simultaneously using the same neurons and works like an analog system, not digital. In other words synapses work by degrees of positive, like a gradient, and each neuron connects with other neurons with more than one synapse usually, allowing for multiple streams of information to go through between these brain cells. In comparison, our current computer technology, can only process one piece of information at a time and only in absolutes (1 or 0) through the transistors and using about 100,000 more energy than the biological synapses. Very inefficient.
Well, we're in luck, some laboratories are working on artificial synapses that are analog just like our organic synapses and just like our synapses can learn and adapt to how information passes through, thus consuming much less energy than the current transistors. These new experimental artificial synapses, are only 10,000 less energy efficient than their biological counterparts.
So instead of relaying only a 1 or a 0 as piece of information, these synapses pass any value in between depending on the intensity of the impulse provided and the more information passes through it, the stronger the signal, because the synapse becomes more energy efficient. This gives it memory of sorts and can create behavior changes in the output, just like our brains develop habits when we keep doing the same thing or thinking the same way repetitively.
So, these synapses are the building blocks for a learning artificial brain.
Add to this research our ability to conceive much more efficient ways to keep information and we're getting much closer to unlocking and replicating the wonders of our own abilities to think and even our own awareness of the universe.
A good example of this is DNA memory, a technology in development that would allow us to store millions of times more information in the same space as our current hard drive technology and even replicate itself to tackle multiple memory tasks at once.
Another good example, is atomic memory, another field of research that would allow us to hold several states instead of only the 1 and 0, within a single atom.
Either of these researched techniques will become cheaper and more easily understood over the years and would allow us to record all the information flowing through the Internet today on our own personal computers if we really wanted to. Amazing stuff.
We're on the cusp of becoming the creators of many machines that are just as capable as we are to do many things, as I mentioned in many blogs and videos. Be ready and look for opportunities to dive into those fields. They will only grow in importance over the years as more and more research goes into applications for use by the general population.
Enjoy!
