[MURG] mind uploading x prize?

[Eric Zilli]

Good point about defining success.

If we wanted to make it complicated, we could set some criteria for
determining that, for instance, a rat has been successfully uploaded,
to list two:
* if the rat had an easily identifiable personality, one could check
that the upload acts in the same way
* if the rat was trained on tasks X and Y, but not W or Z, the upload
should perform well on tasks X and Y, but poorly on W and Z
* if the effect of drug X is Y (a list of reproducible effects on the
rat in tasks or in general), the effect of simulating drug X on the
upload should also be Y

Thus a successful team would be the first to demonstrate going from
live rat to an upload that meets the above criteria (or others like
it).
A problem is that unlike with SpaceShipOne, there's no discrete,
public event that can be held to demonstrate a success. The uploading
would probably happen behind closed doors and we would only see the
uploadee as the result. In this situation could the awarders of the
prize be confident that the goal has actually been met and not faked
in some way?

We could also go for a simpler goal: uploading and simulating C.
Elegans. This goal is reachable even with today's technology, but it
may not be big enough to have an effect. The technology actually
needed to dismantle and scan a brain (or nondestructively scan it, if
you're into that) wouldn't be needed here. This goal would only
require the ability to simulate an organism, not to actually upload
it. Behavioral criteria as described above would be less decisive here
as the organism is almost too simple to determine if the upload
actually reproduces the specific worm that was uploaded.
Also, this goal has already been attempted by at least two groups
(MURG and Kitano, Hamahashi, and Luke (1998)
(http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/seanl/papers/pce-alife.pdf)) so it isn't
as novel and big as I'd like to see an X Prize be.

Just further thoughts.

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 10:49:52 -0400, Sam Gorton <sgorton at grey-havens.net> wrote:
> 
> I think that's a really good idea - it does fit in well with the
> X-Prize theme.
> 
> The difficulty I see is in defining "success" precisely enough that
> there's no argument in who the first winner is.
> 
> This would also be an opportunity to talk to potential corporate
> sponsors and ask them to put up money for a mind-uploading X-prize.
> 
> --
> Sam Gorton
> sgorton at grey-havens.net
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> MURG at minduploading.org
> http://minduploading.org/mailman/listinfo/murg
> 


-- 
Eric Zilli
Hasselmo Lab - Computational Neurophysiology
Center for Memory and Brain
Boston University
2 Cummington St.
Boston MA, 02215
digfarenough at gmail.com -- www.digfarenough.com