[MURG] Followup on ad.com

[Randal A. Koene]

Hi everyone,

It gives me a cozy feeling to see such lively chatter on MURG once again.
By the way, Thomas, although I haven't identified each, I believe we have
quite a few neuroscientists and persons knowledgable in the neurosciences
on MURG (at least 7, probably more). Years ago I tried to collect some
personal information about long-time membres of MURG for the
minduploading.org website. As with all such projects, the information is
probably out of date, since updates rely on my receiving notes from the
individuals themselves.

Anyhow, the true reason for this post is the response I received from the
CEO/President of ad.com. I'm forwarding his reply below.

Cheers,
       Randal

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 22:54:43 -0700
From: Marcos Guillen <---- at ad.com>
To: Randal A. Koene <randalk at ----------->
Subject: Re: Scientific inquiry

Hi Randal,

I'm sorry it took me so long to answer you. This has been a really busy week
for us.

Thanks a lot for your interest. We are not neuroscientist; I'm a serial
entrepreneur with a computers sciences background, and our team is mostly
composed of computers engineers and mathematicians.
As an entrepreneur I think is this right time to start a AI oriented,
privately owned research group, with long time commercial goals. As
engineers, we think that computer hardware is now inexpensive enough to try
this approach to the Strong AI problem, brute force brain modeling.

As you said, no others have accomplished our goal yet, but then again only 3
years ago the faster computer in the world, owned by the US government,  had
a peak speed of  3207 Gflops, 25% less than our first CCortex prototype.


>Dear Mr.Guillen,
>
>My name is Randal Koene. I am responsible for a mailing list MURG and
>website minduploading.org devoted to the idea that the human brain can
>be transferred to another substrate (e.g. a powerful computer).
>
>I would like to congratulate you on the interesting and ambitious goals of
>your company. Naturally, the group that I converse with is very interested
>in the details and progress of your endeavour.
>
>As the mission statement and technology pages of your website state
>goals in the field of A.I. that no others have accomplished to my
>knowledge, I was hoping that you might point me to some background
>information, especially concerning the simulation of the hippocampus and
>other brain regions. Perhaps you or your associates have contributed
>published papers to a scientific journal in the field? I am interested in
>any further information!
>
>Thank you for your time.
>
>Sincerely,
>          Randal Koene
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>RANDAL A. KOENE
>Computational Neurophysiology Laboratory, Boston University
>minduploading.org, rak.minduploading.org, www.bu.edu/people/hasselmo
>randalk at -------, (617)-358------
>_______________________________________________________________________
>
>

Best Regards,

Marcos Guillen
President and CEO
AD.COM - Artificial Development
Phone:  650 943 2447
Mobile: 650 283 5618
Fax: 415 861 3397