Artificial brains and mind uploading

[gamesquest1]

im sure google would love to own your entire brain and have a lil clause about owning all idea's/thoughts created by your brain, but if this was possible, imagine the actual real implications, fuck lie detectors, we will download your brain and see if you committed the crime, how about over the counter download your husbandss brain and see if they have perved on your sister.....or even your brother :o, unfortunately imho a large bulk of the human mind is and always will be essentially lies/deceptive thoughts/feelings that if allowed to be basically deconstructed into a computer for corporate entities/governments to peruse at their leisure it would really not be good for society as a whole

its the NSA's wet dream, basically a brainscanner at the airport instead of xrays, and while sure in some respect imagine being able to prevent terrorists attacks, you can be sure 90% of its use would be nothing more than abuse of the technology and peoples rights to their own mind

 

[mashers]

@FAST6191
WRT new senses, I was really referring to something other than extensions of sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, proprioception et al. The sensations you described (feeling magnetic fields, seeing UV/IR etc) seem more to me like extensions of existing senses. I am thinking more along the lines of a sense that we can't even conceive of because our bodies lack any organs to detect them (or our brains lack the ability to process them). Put another way, a sense that we perceive through something other than our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, joints, tendons, cochlear vestibules... We cannot even imagine what that might be as we have never experienced it. Even extreme examples like LSD hallucinations are based on existing senses (seeing, hearing, feeling things that aren't there). If we exist digitally and unshackled from a physical body, what more could we experience that is not currently possible? We could literally defy the laws of physics and do anything, be anything, experience anything.

As for entrapment by the senses defining us as humans, I do agree with this actually. I strongly believe that even complex cognitive processes like language are elaborately connected pieces of sensory memory. If you look at psycholinguistic models, for example, they posit that language is represented by semantic stores (information about what things are like - as perceived by our senses) connected to other stores of their phonological, orthographic and motor representations. In each case, the store is of sensory information. It's all basically just memories of things we've experienced with our senses. Just imagine what new levels of thought and knowledge could be achieved if we were able to perceive information in a different way.

"Resources I could see, skills is that of anybody with a functioning mind."
I don't agree. Some people can conceive of things that others cannot because of cognitive differences and even different experiences. For example, somebody with a learning difficulty may be unable to conceptualise the idea of a new sensory experience so may be unable to create it in their digital form; somebody with severe autism may have no access to language and therefore be no more able to communicate linguistically than they were in bio form. Those people have no less a functioning mind, but they may not have the ability to conceive the same personal alterations that somebody with a higher cognitive or communicative capability could. Of course we could infer that those people would be improved by altering their intellectual and social ability or bestowing language upon them, but this opens an ethical can of worms.

@gamesquest1
Another interesting point. The ability to inspect somebody's mind at will would be dangerous indeed (again, I refer to the MK Ultra project here). Though it would arguably make things safer, it is ethically highly dubious. It would also open up a whole new type of crime - illegally hacking into somebody else's mind and extracting memories. As for replacing x-rays at airports with mind scans? Airports? Where we're going, we don't need airports

 

[FAST6191]

On the non existing senses then yeah. The differences in the observance of the passage of time would probably be the main one for me. Though shortly behind would be what happens if proprioception is not necessarily a thing any more http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=6393

im sure google would love to own your entire brain and have a lil clause about owning all idea's/thoughts created by your brain, but if this was possible, imagine the actual real implications, fuck lie detectors, we will download your brain and see if you committed the crime,

One of the mind manipulation things earlier actually crosses over into lying pretty well. If you can delude yourself (or do self hypnosis if you want to think of it that way) into thinking it is true. By similar token I have many names I go by, they are all real to me so if people ask for a real name I can truthfully tell them it is. Similarly if I told you I went to town yesterday and you then said FAST6191 was in town yesterday if someone asked you would have lied and maybe never known about it. Similarly if you don't understand the concept you can become a true believer -- sales people might well believe their company's product is the best despite not being able to justify it*.

*linkedin did something similar a few years ago and you could mark down your friends there as being good at what they do, this despite the fact your friend might have no earthly way of assessing your competence in general and almost certainly not your specific field (see also meeting of the scientists/do engineers go to parties. You might also meet a related concept in trades if the term master comes up -- you accuse someone of being a master machinist, carpenter, builder, mechanic... and are not one yourself and feel the temperature drop in the room.

That said the implications for items created by a downloaded brain/AI gets interesting.

 

[gamesquest1]

while some types of crime may be thwarted, it does open a whole new world of crime, just like the internet brought about new types of crime, could/would merely thinking of something be tantamount to a crime, at which point having your mind downloaded at one point could effectively have it used to run predictions based on your brain scan to fish all your personal/private info effectively giving the reader the keys to your entire life, every password, every political opinion, in the wrong hands, lets just say imagine if the north Korean government got hold of the technology how badly that would effect their citizens lives, while western countries may try to be more subversive with the technology some countries would use it to totally wipe out any opposition to their regimes.

On the non existing senses then yeah. The differences in the observance of the passage of time would probably be the main one for me. Though shortly behind would be what happens if proprioception is not necessarily a thing any more http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=6393



One of the mind manipulation things earlier actually crosses over into lying pretty well. If you can delude yourself (or do self hypnosis if you want to think of it that way) into thinking it is true. By similar token I have many names I go by, they are all real to me so if people ask for a real name I can truthfully tell them it is. Similarly if I told you I went to town yesterday and you then said FAST6191 was in town yesterday if someone asked you would have lied and maybe never known about it. Similarly if you don't understand the concept you can become a true believer -- sales people might well believe their company's product is the best despite not being able to justify it*.

*linkedin did something similar a few years ago and you could mark down your friends there as being good at what they do, this despite the fact your friend might have no earthly way of assessing your competence in general and almost certainly not your specific field (see also meeting of the scientists/do engineers go to parties. You might also meet a related concept in trades if the term master comes up -- you accuse someone of being a master machinist, carpenter, builder, mechanic... and are not one yourself and feel the temperature drop in the room.

That said the implications for items created by a downloaded brain/AI gets interesting.

yeah it would depend on how the technology works, if it had the ability to fully search/access a brain rather than rely on the output of the consciousness it could bypass any sort of self memory suppression/manipulation in the same way as psychologists can unlock suppressed/"forgotten" memories

of course i would imagine such technology would be developed gradually, and while there are some situations where the technology could be used for good* the room for abuse and potential money/power making abilities would be way too huge for powerful entities to not get their claws into it

 

[FAST6191]

On every password then some of the better password recovery attacks already do that. Coming off the back of something like http://gbatemp.net/threads/online-identity.379375/ you might know someone's favourite book, film, song, pet names. Such things a a great basis for a dictionary attack or directing brute force. Similarly run a strings search on someone's hard drive and a lot of things pop out.

Back on the crimes thing you might also get compartmented things or cells approach. You see something like it in so called clean room reverse engineering, here someone would pull something apart and write a report and under no conditions be allowed to touch the product designed as a result. It is also actually used in a few projects done from the ground up -- a friend some time ago mentioned he had to build a widget to take and process data at a certain rate, never you mind what that data is, and others in the same company were tasked similarly. It is an expensive and inefficient way of doing things but some things do seem to want that approach.

 

[mashers]

"what happens if proprioception is not necessarily a thing any more"
Interesting idea. But remember that sensory input is being simulated, so proprioception can still be experienced. It might be that we would need to be weaned off of it.


On the subject of honesty and crimes, the questions which has occurred to me just now is what would be the point of crime in this environment? In a purely digital form you could be anything, create anything or have anything. Theft would cease to be a concern as I could imagine into 'existence' whatever I wanted. Assault? Well, physical assault would not be possible as we don't have bodies any more, and other forms of assault such as on the minds of others would need a motivation - see my previous point about theft (no more mugging if you don't need to steal). Murder could potentially be rendered impossible by the way the system works (though a hack to delete somebody would essentially represent murder). Acts which could be considered amoral such as lying, deception, cheating on partners etc. could still be possible, but again I have to wonder what the motivation would be for these actions in a world where literally anything is possible for anybody with no restrictions whatsoever.


Another thing which has just occurred to me is procreation. What would represent propagation of human life? Do we still have biological humans out their making babies to be uploaded in the future? Or do we develop algorithms which take the digital minds of two people and generate a new consciousness in a child-like state? Either would be possible, and I suspect we would end up with a combination of the two. The possibilities for designer 'babies' are both terrifying and meaningless; the procreation algorithm could be tweaked to generate a mind with specific characteristics or skills, which is ethically dubious, but if that person could edit their mind later to change who they are then I have to wonder how meaningful that initial state really is.

 

[Yil]

Maybe we should find a way to enhance human instead of transferring our mind into machines.

 

[mashers]

Maybe we should find a way to enhance human instead of transferring our mind into machines.

Human enhancement can only go so far as we are limited by biology. Unless you meant cybernetic enhancement?

 

[Yil]

Human enhancement can only go so far as we are limited by biology. Unless you meant cybernetic enhancement?

There are beings out there not composed of cells, or even more fundamental substances or particles.
Some even to be classified as living information (it requires no physical body capable of electrical or other form of processing unit<though in this case it does not have to be physical either>, to self-process). However those are far beyond our scope or comprehension.

 

[mashers]

There are beings out there not composed of cells, or even more fundamental substances or particles.
Some even to be classified as living information (it requires no physical body capable of electrical or other form of processing unit<though in this case it does not have to be physical either>, to self-process). However those are far beyond our scope or comprehension.

This is off topic. We are discussing the transfer of biological, human minds to digital form. Non-corporeal entities are not relevant to this discussion.

 

[Yil]

Human enhancement can only go so far as we are limited by biology. Unless you meant cybernetic enhancement?

Further, computers cannot hold infinite information, reality can.

 

[BurningDesire]

Further, computers cannot hold infinite information, reality can.

Well if the universe is infinite in terms of space folding into itself, then why couldn't we create a pocket of space that also is infinite? A black hole has infinite mass doesn't it? Anyone willing to coin a name for a Black Hole hard drive?

 

[Bedel]

Another aspect I have just been thinking about is modification of the uploaded mind. Once a mind has been digitised, could we apply 'patches' to it? This could remove traumatic memories, delete depression, enhance cognition, or implant skills. If this were possible, should we do it? Things like this are already a contentious issue. Ask somebody with autism if there should be a cure for autism and brace yourself for the ferocity of the response; with regard to memories, some would argue that memories of trauma shape our identity and to erase them would alter our personalities; and who gets to decide what stays and what goes? We don't want to end up with a situation like the film 'Equilibrium' where certain (or all?) emotions are considered distasteful or dangerous and are therefore edited out. But then, aren't there situations where certain things should be removed? Murderous intent? Paedophilia? Racism? Extremism? But who decides what stays and what goes? Or, could the mind be broken down into modules which can be enabled or disabled?

Well think about it. First of all, if you delete all of the "bad" things the human brain have, why would you need your 4th point in the main post?
I'll try to explain my self. If you said you wanted to have the option to die whenever you can, it's because you know some time you'll need it, either way because you will get tired of it, or because you'll end hating your life as it is.
This said, I don't think we really can do this now. the brain is similar to a processor in a computer, but the main diference is we have more conections. Maybe processors have more gross power than a brain, but not as much conections as we have at this moment. This means a proccessor is much more "intelligent" than a human, but it cannot fell anything.

I don't know if I exaplined myself as I should. I'm spanish after all and not as good with eanglish as I'd like. I wish I get you to understand what I'm trying to say.

 

[mashers]

Well if the universe is infinite in terms of space folding into itself, then why couldn't we create a pocket of space that also is infinite? A black hole has infinite mass doesn't it? Anyone willing to coin a name for a Black Hole hard drive?

No, black holes have finite mass. If its mass were infinite then so would be its gravitational pull, so it would draw in the entire universe. When it collapses into a singularity, it theoretically becomes infinitely dense (because it's volume becomes zero).

Well think about it. First of all, if you delete all of the "bad" things the human brain have, why would you need your 4th point in the main post?

And who decides what is a 'bad' thing to have in a human brain?

This said, I don't think we really can do this now. the brain is similar to a processor in a computer, but the main diference is we have more conections. Maybe processors have more gross power than a brain, but not as much conections as we have at this moment. This means a proccessor is much more "intelligent" than a human, but it cannot fell anything.

I understand your point. Theorists who support the view of mind uploading would say that processors cannot feel anything because they are not yet sufficiently complex to replicate a human brain.

Anyway, what does it mean to feel something like an emotion? A physical sensation in your body? A set of thoughts in your mind? The triggering of a memory? The commencement of a set of thought processes? Could all of those things not all be reproduced in an artificial brain? And if so, could that brain not be considered to be experiencing emotions?

 

[Bedel]

And who decides what is a 'bad' thing to have in a human brain?

I fell the same way you do. Also, it could convert us in something that's not human. Diferent, ofc, but not human.

I understand your point. Theorists who support the view of mind uploading would say that processors cannot feel anything because they are not yet sufficiently complex to replicate a human brain.

Anyway, what does it mean to feel something like an emotion? A physical sensation in your body? A set of thoughts in your mind? The triggering of a memory? The commencement of a set of thought processes? Could all of those things not all be reproduced in an artificial brain? And if so, could that brain not be considered to be experiencing emotions?

I think you have a point. Also, We don't even know that well how our brains does work. I mean our brains randomly show us memories, wich make us fell something. I don't really know if a computer could work the same way, to emulate (in the end it is an emulator, or not?) our brain...

 

[Yil]

This is off topic. We are discussing the transfer of biological, human minds to digital form. Non-corporeal entities are not relevant to this discussion.

Humans did not go through billions of years of evolution from the most fundamental of organic substances only to stop at this point and try to transfer their mind into things still not as intelligent as our selves.
I would say the mathematical discovered which was utilized in math would help us better as we go deeper into physics, but ultimately back to math again. That is the world is more informational than it appears.

Well if the universe is infinite in terms of space folding into itself, then why couldn't we create a pocket of space that also is infinite? A black hole has infinite mass doesn't it? Anyone willing to coin a name for a Black Hole hard drive?

Not impossible, but too dangerous at this point. We need to figure out about physics first. Further, black holes has neither infinite mass nor infinite density which is slightly below the density of neutrons, which are very big and complex structure if you go deeper.

 

[Cyan]

I haven't read all the first page yet.
I wanted to post what I'm thinking, or I might forget it.

With the ability to copy yourself in different "clone" and then the ability to edit (add languages, skills, etc.), how would you know the changes you did are good ?
You are not the one conscious about the change, you did it to another clone, but not to you. The one with the changes would be aware of how he was before and how he became, but can he really pass his feeling and perception to the modder to know if the changes are the expected one or not?
Editing something without knowing if it's doing the expected effect is useless.
Experiencing the changes, even temporarily, and returning to the previous state to tweak and re-edit and re-test until what you want is what you get would be needed.


there are lot of thought and subjects about the first page which could be discussed too, but I'm more confused now and don't know what to tell or where to start.
Maybe some video games (you gave movies, why not video games) :
ReMember : consciousness is not transferred, but memory can be stored and reinjected into another brain, allowing it to be be experienced by other people, like visiting a country, knowing love, pain, etc.
Detroid : not released yet. I wonder what it will be.

TV series:
- Humans
- Extant
both are talking about artificial intelligence and developing its own experience. being aware of its own life.

 

[FAST6191]

I haven't read all the first page yet.
I wanted to post what I'm thinking, or I might forget it.

With the ability to copy yourself in different "clone" and then the ability to edit (add languages, skills, etc.), how would you know the changes you did are good ?
You are not the one conscious about the change, you did it to another clone, but not to you. The one with the changes would be aware of how he was before and how he became, but can he really pass his feeling and perception to the modder to know if the changes are the expected one or not?
Editing something without knowing if it's doing the expected effect is useless.
Experiencing the changes, even temporarily, and returning to the previous state to tweak and re-edit and re-test until what you want is what you get would be needed.

Same way I test a normal computer program -- give it a test and see if it spits out the results it should. Gets a bit harder in matters of language and some of the softer aspects of sciences but not impossibly.
Or if you prefer if I am hacking a ROM I can sit there and do static analysis all day long, infer things and whatever else but occasionally it is so much easier to try it, run it in an emulator and see.
You might wish to return. On the other hand iterative design is a thing so I could instead clone (or clone a subset*), alter, test, get positive results and then mothball the earlier one. Obviously you would probably want a more robust testing paradigm in case of longer term fallout but conceptually it would not be a lot different to some of the safer styles of coding and testing done today.

*part of said improvements would probably be to make a type of API so you can do such experiments easily enough. That would make new abilities more of a plugin than having to try to merge things into a larger, more important, program.

 

[mashers]

I fell the same way you do. Also, it could convert us in something that's not human. Diferent, ofc, but not human.

Depends what you mean by human. If your definition of 'human' is a Homo sapiens then no, we would no longer be human. But if by 'human' you mean a conscious entity with cognitive and language skills then we would still be human. Perhaps we would become a new type of human. I refer again to Existence by David Brin

I think you have a point. Also, We don't even know that well how our brains does work. I mean our brains randomly show us memories, wich make us fell something. I don't really know if a computer could work the same way, to emulate (in the end it is an emulator, or not?) our brain...

I agree. I don't know whether even a sufficiently complex artificial brain would be capable of emotion. There's just no way of knowing. To refer to my previous point about consciousness, we would never know if an artificial brain was experiencing emotion. It might tell us it is, but we don't actually know.

With the ability to copy yourself in different "clone" and then the ability to edit (add languages, skills, etc.), how would you know the changes you did are good ?
You are not the one conscious about the change, you did it to another clone, but not to you.

Well, we're talking about a sentient digital life-form which is capable of either self-modifying, or 'ordering' modifications to be carried out on its behalf. So the life-form can self-report whether the changes were successful and/or desirable.

The one with the changes would be aware of how he was before and how he became, but can he really pass his feeling and perception to the modder to know if the changes are the expected one or not?

The same way we do now. It would communicate in some way about its current experience.[/QUOTE]

 

[TecXero]

As long as it emulates everything an organic brain can do, I don't see a problem. You'd have to make sure to emulate everything a human brain experiences, including those chemical reactions that cause us to feel and sometimes make foolish choices.