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Technology Stocks : Investing in Exponential Growth
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From: Paul H. Christiansen5/30/2017 11:08:02 AM
   of 1084
 
Don’t get too excited about Facebook and Musk’s brain-interface ideas

For all of the focus on the brain, particularly over the past 50 years, we still know surprisingly little about it. An apt analogy for the brain may be that neurons work very similarly to ant colonies. In an ant colony, every ant has a specific task: go out, find food, take a bite, leave a trail for other ants to find it. The result is one of nature’s most complex social societies and most adaptive superorganisms. From the outside, though, we don’t fully understand the full variety of roles that individual ants play in order to keep the superorganism going.

We face this same issue when trying to crack the Brain Code. Neurons, despite their quantity, only make up a very small percentage of cells in the brain. What vastly outnumbers neurons in a ratio of about 9:1 are special cells called glial cells. Scientist know very little about what glial cells actually do. We have ideas and theories but no definitive formula. Before we start building devices to plug into the brain, we must understand the full function of glial cells.

There are those who equate the brain to a computer, but that is a false analogy. Brains and intelligence did not evolve to solve algorithmic problems in an abstract virtual reality. The brain evolved with the singular goal to successfully guide an entire organism through an everchanging environment. Treating the brain as an algorithmic problem is one of the largest conceptual hurdles in moving AI forward. Only when we free ourselves from this misconception will a breakthrough in brain interfaces and AI be possible.

venturebeat.com

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