[MURG] x prize write up

[Eric Zilli]

Responses inline:


On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:30:07 -0500, Joseph J. Strout <joe at strout.net> wrote:
> Ah, but introduce *how*?  Drexler introduced it by writing a
> nontechnical speculative book (Engines of Creation).  It generated a
> lot of popular buzz and a collective cold shoulder from the
> scientific community.  He then, much later, wrote a highly technical
> book (Nanosystems).  This produced much less popular reaction, but a
> much warmer reception from scientists.  One could argue that it is
> Nanosystems that is largely responsible for nanotech finally becoming
> the acceptable buzzword that it is today.  (I'm not convinced that
> Engines of Creation had any real benefit.)
> 

Yeah, I've never actually even seen Engines of Creation, but I do have
a copy of Nanosystems--a good demonstration of your point.

> It would be ideal if the same thing could be done with uploading:
> someone with good neuroscience credentials might write a highly
> technical book about uploading: theoretical arguments about why it
> must be possible and plausible, detailed proposals about how it might
> be accomplished.
> 
> (I started such a book when I was in grad school, but alas, it was
> too much work to finish properly while keeping up with my research.
> And since then, I have changed careers, and am no longer the right
> person to write such a book anyway.)
> 

Yeah, I've thought about writing such a book, and I remember reading a
long technical assessment of the problem, but I forget who wrote it
and I know it's quite out of date now. The time problem is indeed a
big one, but it seems the list has a few neuroscientists on it. If we
desperately wanted such a book a number of us could team up on it.
That's probably too big a project though.

> In an environment lacking such a detailed, technical, and coherent
> argument, we are going to have a hard time getting anyone to take us
> seriously.  (Though the recent NBIC report is highly encouraging.)
> 

Indeed. I'd like to point out that I posted that same report last year
at some point, maybe you missed it. :)

> So, what's needed is a machine that can automate the
> ultramicrotoming, as well as the microscopy.  This requires
> specialized MEMS -- not nanotech, thank goodness, but not the sort of
> thing you can order in your lab supply catalog either.  It requires
> serious invention, and the early models will probably not be much
> faster than human hands (if even that).
> 

I'm not up on my microscopy, but you make a good case.
Who'd have thought something as simple as coming up with a good X
Prize proposal would be so complicated?

> Combine this general tendency for near-term progress to be slower
> than you would expect, with the fact that virtually nobody is making
> any concerted effort towards uploading technology, and you see why I
> have made my cryonics arrangements (even though I'm only 31).  Nobody
> is working on those MEMS machines which can slice and ferret away and
> image frozen neural tissue.  There isn't a demand for it, nor is
> there an easy way to explain to funding agencies or investors why it
> is worth what it would cost to develop.
> 

Unfortunately, you're probably right. I guess my optimism is based on
the idea that most/all of the technology needed for uploading would be
created for reasons not directly inspired by uploading. So there is a
vaguely concerted effort, in that sense.

> 
> Prize money can't fund primary research.  You have to pay grad
> students and lab techs; you have to pay for equipment and reagents
> and the building and electricity.  No researcher would put any
> serious time into work that isn't being funded directly with cold,
> hard cash -- not the possibility of cash at some point in the future
> if nobody else beats them to it first.
> 

You are correct. I expected the funding for the resources to come from
individuals/corporations who would benefit from it, like how Paul
Allen funded SpaceShipOne.

> The way this could be made into primary research would be through a
> granting organization.  I don't know think you could yet convince any
> to make such grants, though.  And I don't think we have the resources
> at the moment to start a new one.
> 

I agree with this too. One thing we could do is offer a prize of 1
cent for a successful upload--an amount MURG could easily raise (given
that not all of the MURG members are grad students). Then we'd just
hope that prize is incentive enough to get people interested. Such a
ridiculously small prize might catch peoples' eyes. :)

> What prize money can do is add a little extra interest to work
> researchers are already doing, or get them to spend a little bit of
> extra time on a side project directed towards the prize.  That can
> certainly be better than nothing.
> 

I point back to SpaceShipOne again. The X Prize demonstrated that
prize money can do more than the two things you mention, though,
indeed, most prizes probably do have such effects as you describe.

> 
> Heh -- that's like an 18th-century person saying, if we could build a
> craft that goes to the moon, it would teach us revolutionary things
> about how our horses relate to their carts.  In other words, by the
> time we are able to upload a rat, we'll be long past studying the
> things you study with electrode arrays.  (Indeed, without those
> studies, I doubt you could solve the emulation problems that
> uploading will require.)
> 

I think it's more like saying if we could find a craft that could go
to the moon, we could study it to see how it works. I've held the
opinion that we don't need to actually understand how the brain works
above the neuronal level for successful emulation. Your timeline
places emulation rather far in the future, so I can see why you would
think that we'll know all about the brain before we upload it. I've
been expecting uploading to occur sooner, and since I don't think
knowledge of how the brain actually works is necessary for a
successful upload, I imagined an upload would provide a lot of
information about the network dynamics.

> OK.  Let's reconvene this discussion in 5 years and see.  :)  It's
> now been, what, 10 years since I first launched the Mind Uploading
> Home Page, so I don't mind sticking around for another 5!
> 

Deal! :)

-- 
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