The Computing Power of the Human Brain

And you're nothing like Fresco. He's someone whose opinion I respect.

That's a mean thing for you to say... but I am sure no one here will hold that against Fresco.

Despite everything that's happened between Co0bbler and myself, I still think his heart's in the right place. He's just not very good at dealing with criticism. I can't say that about Max. He's essentially dishonest, and the way he talks about women disgusts me.

Lol.

I apologize for feeding the troll. I will stop responding to him.

The rest of my posts on this thread will be on topic.

Artificial intelligence is taking human jobs. As the technology develops, more and more jobs that were done by humans are now being done by software. In every project that I have worked on in AI, the goal was to reduce costs by minimizing the number of human beings that are part of the process (human beings are expensive and unpredictable compared to software processes).

I worked on a project to replace human medical transcriptionists with speech recognition and natural language software. The software was very successful because we could show the data... the software could do the transcriptions faster, and be more accurate leading to a economic benefit (we saved hospitals a lot of money). We did keep a smaller group of humans to check on the software and to help to train it.

There are many jobs that are clearly better done by machines. This does not mean that the machines are becoming human.

There are many tasks that are clearly better done by humans. I believe that this will remain the case as long as we are using today's technology.

The computer is not a brain... it doesn't work anything like a brain. If we ever create self-aware technology, it is my opinion that it won't be with today's CPU (no matter how much power and memory we can put into it).

Fresco did not say I was wrong, he said I was both right and wrong... but your inability to comprehend two states of acknowledgment is more evidence of your monochromatic thinking.

So really Izzy, you are wrong...

And since Fresco does not have the blueprints of the human brain and body and cannot truly say for sure how far down the rabbit hole the brain is quantized. He is merely stating and educated "opinion"...

Also, I have been employed in the field of computers since several years before Microsoft Windows was made available. Before then I work many years in audio electronics... I am a sound engineer. Once again you assume things about me without any regard to whether if your assumptions are factual or correct.

I have worked on multi-million dollar computer projects before and I have been at the forefront of many technologies that are common now in ever single device today. Billions of devices.

Once again you like to assume things about people that are incorrect, while you rail on them about how wrong and insusceptible to change they are...

Your own programming language could use a rewrite...

Just to clarify, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' when it comes to modelling. The 'mistake' is to assume that a computer models all we call 'brain functioning', or 'cognition'. It does not, which several AI workers have discovered after much futile expense. Of course a computer models some cognitive tasks...but that is hardly surprising since that is what computers were designed to do !
The neurological problem involved with such modelling is to some extent a 'pictures in clouds' issue. Given a neural network, if we look at it one way, it may seem to resemble basic (computational) logic circuits, and yet another way, it could resemble a complex 'state transition machine' (such as those employed in generative linguistics),and those are only two possible theoretical 'structures' we can project.

I agree Fresco...

Computers work generally with an absolute, yes or no, true or false structure and the part where they fall short is the "maybe" category.

The maybe category of a computer does not even surpass the basic skills of a 5 year old child.

The mind creates things that are beyond any rational explanation.

It creates the most realistic and life-like images...

Even our fastest render farms today cannot create realistic computer graphic human faces. Close, but they still lack a living soul like element. Their eyes seem blank and distant and their teeth lack a level of realism and texture.

But the images our mind creates are realistic, they live and breathe, they talk and are often people we have never even met before.

One time I had a dream about this secret book and I was turning the pages and inside were diagrams, schematics and equations about the universe, I did not myself comprehend them but it was my mind that created them.

One time I had a dream of a man singing the most beautiful Norwegian song to me. The only problem is I don't even know how to speak Norwegian even a little, though, I am a classically trained singer.

There are plausible explanations for this but they are merely conjecture.
The unconscious mind may learn at an exponentially greater rate than the conscious mind.

No one knows the true extent and potential of the human mind.

When I write my songs sometime (not always) I feel like they are just being dictated to me by some sort of "muse"... Or maybe it is just another part of my brain, conscious and relaying these words from much greater thought processor.

I had a dream last night that I looked in the mirror and I had washboard abs!

Now that is the computing power of the human brain! lol

I think I mostly agree with you Cobbler. The only disagreement I have is your use of the term "computing power" when what you really mean is "brain power".

It is my opinion that the abilities of the human brain for things like innovation, imagination and emotion will never be replicated by a digital computer. It is simply impossible to replicate a brain with digital computers.... even with infinite computing power. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that computers can do things that the human mind can't do.

Maybe we agree about that.

I do agree that computers surpass many of the functions of the human brain.

Computer chips were etched by robots that were designed by humans. Are not these chips still functions of our intellect and brain capacity? Are they not direct extensions of our brains?

Were it not for our brains they would most certainly not even exist. It all seems surreal and like a dream but computers are real and (at least for now) highly dependent on humans to design and program them.

Does not the artist become their own art?

I know I am being metaphysical but yes, we are inexplicably linked to our creations and they are cast in our own image.

They surpass us because we made them that way.

Sure. But that is no different than any other technology.

The printing press surpassed the ability of humans to copy books in the 1400s. The steam engine surpassed the ability of humans to do pumping, mining and locomotion circa 1700. The automobile surpassed the ability of human to trasport themselves in the 1880s.

Looms, steam shovels, airplanes, blenders all surpass the ability of humans in at least one way.

We have been inventing machines to do jobs that used to be human beings for centuries. The computer is no different.

Thanks Izzy, you are off my ignore list again. Let's try harder not to step on each other's toes. You are welcome to private message me if you see a gaping flaw in my knowledge of a certain issue.

I am well aware that they exist, and believe it or not, open to new understanding and willing to correct when I perceive that I am indeed wrong.

I have expressed many erroneous things over the years here on this forum and Abuzz before that. I have changed a lot.

I am exceedingly grateful to learn when I am a wrong if it is pointed out to me in a considerate and respectful (sometimes humorous) way.

I think your heart is in the right place too and we may simply agree to disagree on various things. That is okay, time will bear one or the other of us out or maybe some matters have no truly right answer. They are just too opaque to have a clear and defined resolution.

My misspelling of Cobbler was a typo, it wasn't meant as an insult.

I'm sorry if I've been a bit confrontational, I can be too blunt at times.

Let's try and work together again Izzy.

All of these inventions have one common thread, it was the human mind that dreamed them up.

Along those lines, some humans are working without much rest to invent new technologies to solve vital problems in our world.

Six Years After Fukushima, Robots Finally
Find Reactors’ Melted Uranium Fuel
The Japanese government and companies used radiation-hardened
machines to search for the fuel that escaped the plant’s ruined reactors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/science/japan-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-fuel.html

Sometimes it seems humanity is hanging by a single thread.