Where do we go from here?

I was recently listening to a Pink Floyd album “The Division Bell,” and there is this song “Keep Talking,” which kind of reminded me of how mankind has evolved over the years. Many might ignore Darwin’s theory of evolution and survival of the fittest and simply believe in divine intervention. I’m not trying to start any argument by any means. So just hold your horses.

So what is this really about. The song is the only thing that came to my mind when I read this article which talks about computers based on the human brain. So let me literally spell this out. In today’s day-n-age, the computers are relatively simple processors which can do complex math in relatively short span of time. Though, they have become relatively fast, the basic principle has been the same.  They have been designed with the following fundamental approach: “solve a problem” using “a method.” In essence, this generally works well and gives you the desired result eventually in a given amount of time (obviously, if you’re rich enough, you can afford to get a faster processor which takes less of a time than a slower one).

So what does this all mean in terms of building the next generation of processors based on the brain? Who knows! The shift in paradigm is surely going to meet with the first milestone soon enough. The brain, is too complex to construct using neuroscience and nanotechnology. We’ve simply observed the behavior of the brain in terms of how human being react, and we simply cannot state that those same parts of the brain are not responsible for other behavior, we’ve simply inferred from our studies. For example, when [accidentally] we touch a hot iron using the tip of our index finger, the brain is informed by the receptors in our hand, connected through a mesh in our nervous system, of the heat and its effect, and this is quite instant. And its a two way street, meaning that your hand is told by your brain “get your damn finger off that melting pot.” Don’t believe me? try it yourself and see [at your own detriment]. But I’d rather you don’t. This is just one example of how the brain functions. The brain also knows when to release certain endorphins to ease pain and secrete tears to moisten your eyes (or when you cry). So, to sum this all up: scientist and technologists want to build a brain-like processor which can respond to “anything.”

So the immediate problem is how to build something that has all possible algorithms built into it. We can’t, we can only approximate. And the brain isn’t something we can call accurate. Ask your brain to calculate the value of π (pi) to 20 decimal places and see how well it does and time it. Just ask yourself, what would my brain do in this case? And in this note, not all brains are created equal, otherwise there wouldn’t be any Newtons or Einsteins to solve any problems in Quantum Physics.

Surely, a processor which can learn as it goes, cannot be completely deemed as a step forward. All things, start out with a degree of fascination but I’m not convinced that we as humans are ready to see processors which can tackle human problems just as yet. Human beings have a come a long way, but we cannot simply high-five each other on this fascination idea while there are nations in this world that are currently at war with each other and have fancy nukes at their disposal. A big no-no!

On another note, we can also thing our dear Sci-Fi friend Data. An android, built by humans (of course this is all fiction), to appear human and operate as an efficient processor at the same time. If that is what we’re striving to achieve, its quite a feat and I commend this idea as a move forward. However, unless we come together as a people without hatred and malice, we will not be ready to coexist with such intelligent beings.

All in all, this is just my opinion of this technological progression, its all up to us how and where it really lead us, hence the question: Where do we go from here?

What are your thoughts?