On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Aug 15, 5:42 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > We're already simulating peices of brain tissue on the order of fruit fly > > brains (10,000 neurons). Computers double in power/price every year, so > 6 > > years later we could simulate mouse brains, another 6 we can simulate cat > > brains, and in another 6 we can simulate human brains. (By 2030) > > If you have a chance to listen and compare the following: > > http://www.retrobits.net/atari/downloads/samg.mp3 Done in 1982 with a > program 6k in size. Six. thousand. bytes. on the Atari BASIC operating > system that was 8k ROM. > > http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html > (for side by side comparison paste: > > Try this one, it is among the best I have found: http://www.ivona.com/online/editor.php > Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this > continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the > proposition that all men are created equal. > > into the text box and choose English (US) - Ryan for the voice. > > So in 29 years of computing progress, on software that is orders of > magnitude more complex and resource-heavy, we can definitely hear a > strong improvement, however, at this rate, in another 30 years, we are > still not going to have anything that sounds convincingly like natural > speech. I think you will be surprised by the progress of the next 30 years. > This is just mapping vocal chord vibrations to digital logic - > a miniscule achievement compared to mapping even the simplest > neurotransmitter interactions. Computers double in power/price, but > they also probably halve in efficiency/memory. It takes longer now to > boot up and shut down the computer, longer to convert a string of text > into voice. > Lines of code (code complexity) has been found to grow even more quickly than Moore's law. (At least in the example of Microsoft Word that I read about at one point) > > Like CGI, despite massive increases in computing power, it still only > superficially resembles what it's simulating. IMO, there has been > little or no ground even in simulating the appearance of genuine > feeling, let alone in producing something which itself feels. > > That is the property of exponential processes and progress, looking back the curve seems flat, look to see where it is going and you'll see an overwhelming spike. Have you seen the recent documentary "Transcendent Man"? You seem to accept that computing power is doubling every year. The fruit fly has 10^5 neurons, a mouse 10^7, a cat 10^9, and a human 10^11. It's only a matter of time (and not that much) before a $10 thumb drive will have enough memory to store a complete mapping of all the neurons in your brain. People won't need to freeze themselves to be immortal at that point. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
