Breakthrough?, This may be the fundamental breakthrough that leads to AI Options

[Rick]

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semicon...y-leads-the-way

[GodConsciousness]

Sounds interesting, but true AI is quite a bit more complicated IMO. Even if one could design a circuit that mimics a neuron's activity, there are still so many other issues that must be integrated to achieve full-blown AI.

There is a lot of hype circulating in AI and perhaps one day we will have fully conscious robots, but the software, hardware, and overall integration is no small feat. Isolated breakthroughs are important. Yet, its bringing everything together that will be the most difficult part. Integration of all AI systems will be imperative.

[Rick]

That memrister seems like a fairly simple device. In retrospect, it's a bit obvious, isn't it? It's like an abacus bead analog. Push the bead to the right, it stays to the right until pushed to the left, when it stays to the left. So our brain is like a giant abacus!

[GodConsciousness]

Perhaps in a sense our brain is a giant abacus but the desire to simplify the workings of the brain is an ongoing temptation of both science and philosophy. In all likelihood, the brain will turn out to be much more sophisticated and complex than our wildest dreams. Millions of years of evolution was not a waste of time. Nature is exceptionally efficient. The human brain is truly one of Nature's crowning achievements. We are not likely to copy her quite so easily.

[Rick]

Maybe not an exact copy but there may be some low hanging fruit available, comparable to the advance that Von Neumann computers represent.

[GodConsciousness]

There is no doubt in my mind that we have made exceptional scientific and technological development especially in the last couple hundred years. We have been shrouded in a vast dark ages of the brain for millennia. Only until fairly recently has our neuroscience developed to a point where we are not just profferring theories in the dark. We are moving beyond the imaginings of dreams. Nature and the Universe are turning out to be much more sophisticated.