[MURG] x prize write up

[Eric Zilli]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:37:15 -0500, Joseph J. Strout <joe at strout.net> wrote:
> True, but an unattainable goal won't generate headlines either.
> "Scientists Still Can't Travel Faster Than Light," "Absolute Zero
> Still As Cold As It Gets," etc.  :)
> 

Hehe... I like the absolute zero one. :)
And don't forget ol' Alcubierre when talking about faster than light
travel... I remain hopeful a version of his warp drive will work.

But unlike those that you mention, we like to believe mind uploading
is possible--and it would make a good headline (if you can find a way
to concisely describe it).

> Proposing full mind uploading at this point is going to either have
> no effect, or a negative one (e.g., give birth to the meme that mind
> uploading proponents are kooks).
> 

Well, we all know that at least *some* mind uploading proponents are kooks... :)
But I suppose from where we stand in 2004, mind uploading would
qualify as one of those sufficiently advanced technologies that seem
like magic.

I imagine you're saying this by analogy with, for instance,
nanotechnology which was initially greeted quite coldly and has only
recently taken off. I think the delay between introduction of an idea
and acceptance of it will always occur though: had Drexler waited 15
years to publish his work, my guess is there still would have been a
good decade or so before people started to really take the idea
seriously. If that's so, introducing mind uploading as early as
possible would be for the best, as the period of unacceptance would
end that much faster.

> By the time we can do this with rats, we'll be probably only 5-10
> years away from doing it with humans.  But that's probably 50-75
> years in the future.  We need to start much, much smaller (by orders
> of magnitude).
> 

I agree with the rat->human timescale, but I really hope it isn't
50-75 years in the future.
The technology behind SpaceShipOne had been around for a while: all
the basic theories and materials were at hand. With mind uploading
we're starting at a much less sophisticated level (one of the concerns
for X Prizes listed on the page is the difference between the level of
current technology and that required to complete the contest, to
paraphrase). The lack of technology needed does partly break down the
analogy to the space competition that I'd been relying on to a good
extent.
Perhaps the best solution is to propose multiple mind uploading prizes
(as suggested by Shane). One could be the uploading of a small
creature (e.g. C. Elegans) and another could be for uploading a human.
Or do you think there's still too large a gap between the two?

> Because when you look at everything that's necessary to make it
> happen, and assuming even optimistic advancements in technology, it's
> just not going to happen.  If we're lucky, we'll have partial uploads
> of insects at that point.  But we may well not be that lucky.  I was
> first reading up on neuroscience, AI, etc. in 1984 (20 years ago) and
> let's be honest: things haven't changed all that much in that time.
> 
> Now of course, that's only partially true: in some ways things have
> changed tremendously.  Neuroscience is a booming field, and we know
> way more about how the brain works than we did then.  But are we all
> that much closer to uploading?  No.  Another 20 years may well go by
> with about the same amount of progress.
> 

I think it's slightly less bleak than that. I agree that, with respect
to what we need for uploading, there's been rather little progress in
the past 20 years. But if we extend our field of view to other
disciplines, we see more of the growth we want to see. For instance,
physics and electrical engineering have come a long way and we'll need
their discoveries. Computers are also increasing in speed at a rapid
pace as, you know, and this allows for discoveries to come at a
proportional rate. Neuroscience may be the slowest growing piece of
the puzzle, but we can't ignore the rapid progress in other areas that
will aid both uploading and neuroscience itself.


> A concerted, well-funded effort could certainly make good progress in
> 20 years -- have full uploads of fruit flies, perhaps -- but I don't
> believe that any such large well-funded effort is possible.
> Uploading research is going to be mainly a side-effect of research
> funded for other purposes for quite a while.
> 

Without such prizes, yes, but the aim of the prizes is to make this
sort of secondary research into primary research, and it should also
stimulate the slow growth of neuroscience you described above.

Mind uploading should also be a candidate for funding by groups like
the NIH, or other neuroscience supporting groups--not because it's
related to neuroscience, but because it'd be extraordinarily useful to
it.

Presently techniques for recording ensembles of neurons are growing as
we discover that recording from single neurons don't provide
information on the network dynamics that we need. If one could get
ahold of an uploaded rat (it only has to be done once, then the
program can be given out for others to use), you'd have information
about every neuron at any point in time. The amount of knowledge we
could get from such a system is hard to imagine. Given that, I'd be
surprised if serious researchers don't start aiming at the general
idea in the next ~5 years.

I think that's all to say that I agree with you, but I'm more optimistic. :)

-- 
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