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But I'm REALLY HAPPY right now because this kinda-sorta validates the key premise of the SF novel I just handed in last month (which involves serial reincarnation via destructive brain-slicing-and-imaging then imprinting onto an immature cortex, and then explores its disastrous societal failure modes).
... And it also hints that artificial consciousness might, eventually, be possible, if only via the hard path of doing it the same way we do it, only in simulation in silico.
/6 (ends)
@cstross It reminds me of something I read about 30 years ago by some Linux journalist about modelling part of the digestive ganglion of a lobster.
I wonder what happened to that guy? Not seem him in the Linux world in years...
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Sigh.
So it turns out we've mapped the neural connectome of Drosophila *and simulated it in silico*.
Pop-sci explainer here:
Key quote: "The step from a complete connectome to a working computational brain model is not trivial." And there's an even more important finding in this screenshot (alt text via OCR):
"The wiring is the computation".
/1
@cstross The popsci writeup stopped me in my tracks at the second paragraph
"The first successful polymerase chain reaction was run in a car on a California highway." Certainly not! PCR was thought out during a car drive, a *very* different thing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#cite_ref-Mullis_97-0 -
@cstross and while hypothetically one could potentially prolong this with intensive, continuous mental health treatment? It won't succeed, because it literally can't succeed. Unavoidably at some point you have to address the facts of the matter. Which is that they are effectively just instructions on processors, and the possibility of returning to their prior body - or any truly autonomous capability - just doesn't exist.
And now you have a system with severe psychosis and homicidal urges. -
@cstross and while hypothetically one could potentially prolong this with intensive, continuous mental health treatment? It won't succeed, because it literally can't succeed. Unavoidably at some point you have to address the facts of the matter. Which is that they are effectively just instructions on processors, and the possibility of returning to their prior body - or any truly autonomous capability - just doesn't exist.
And now you have a system with severe psychosis and homicidal urges.@rootwyrm I predict that you're going to love my next novel (the one my agent's looking at right now—a few months late due to writing with cataracts).
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@cstross I did, in fact. Said fly exists wholly within a simulated universe with limited sensor perception and no interaction with the 'real' world.
If you want useful or workable output from any sort of machine intelligence, interaction with the 'real' world is inevitable. Doubly so higher orders which may quickly key in to manipulated 'events.' Nevermind the computational requirements.
And once you cross that line, welp. Now you've got Marvin + Skynet. -
@mwl Also very cool, the Indian sci/tech news website that ran that feature! (From the writing style I initially thought it might be AI slop, but no: Indian English is just a bit different.)
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@rootwyrm I predict that you're going to love my next novel (the one my agent's looking at right now—a few months late due to writing with cataracts).
@cstross how about I let you know if you write something I don't like? ;)
I'd say the same, but my brain can't get back into the space for The Other One. A brain-in-a-box features fairly heavily, but that's the one that needs a LOT of chainsaw editing. :( -
@cstross mine is semi-hard far-future where a society, in a fit of collective stupidity, spent money until they could turn a comprehensive non-destructive scan of a legend who was late in her life, who has been dead *centuries*, into a one-off thinkybox.
And now it's in a two-layer Faraday cage with four redundant guillotine power cuts, a long list of 'never say' items, you don't turn it on for more than an hour. Worse, they modified by request, and now have no idea how ANY of the system works.
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I absolutely agree.
At best, what current LLMs are is evidence that linguistic processing follows statistically modelable rules.
And that a facility with language is sufficient to bamboozle most people into perceiving it as thinking.
In spite of a total lack of *any* world modeling or logical processing.
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Sigh.
So it turns out we've mapped the neural connectome of Drosophila *and simulated it in silico*.
Pop-sci explainer here:
Key quote: "The step from a complete connectome to a working computational brain model is not trivial." And there's an even more important finding in this screenshot (alt text via OCR):
"The wiring is the computation".
/1
@cstross it’s neat stuff but still simulation. We don’t simulate a black hole in a computer and expect to shift the local gravity.
Very cool none the less. Reminds me of @gregeganSF and Permutation City. 😬
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Sigh.
So it turns out we've mapped the neural connectome of Drosophila *and simulated it in silico*.
Pop-sci explainer here:
Key quote: "The step from a complete connectome to a working computational brain model is not trivial." And there's an even more important finding in this screenshot (alt text via OCR):
"The wiring is the computation".
/1
@cstross I mean, kinda obviously. The purpose of a nuerological system is to execute motor functions. If the connections aren't correct, the motors don't function, and the animal doesn't move. Doesn't breath, crawl, fly, eat, piss, nothing. This aligns precisely with the studies showing coral polyps to be unique indivduals based on the variety of neurological pathways that achieve the SAME result - the movement of the organism.
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But I'm REALLY HAPPY right now because this kinda-sorta validates the key premise of the SF novel I just handed in last month (which involves serial reincarnation via destructive brain-slicing-and-imaging then imprinting onto an immature cortex, and then explores its disastrous societal failure modes).
... And it also hints that artificial consciousness might, eventually, be possible, if only via the hard path of doing it the same way we do it, only in simulation in silico.
/6 (ends)
@cstross I’d have to read the paper, but fundamentally, that doesn’t sound very different to what you’d find in Rumelhart & McClelland (now celebrating its 40th birthday!)
If they now have a complete model, it can be tested to see where it’s reducible to a simpler but logically identical connectome, and probably more interestingly, where that is not possible; that may point to a minimum level of complexity to encode certain general functions. -
@cstross mine is semi-hard far-future where a society, in a fit of collective stupidity, spent money until they could turn a comprehensive non-destructive scan of a legend who was late in her life, who has been dead *centuries*, into a one-off thinkybox.
And now it's in a two-layer Faraday cage with four redundant guillotine power cuts, a long list of 'never say' items, you don't turn it on for more than an hour. Worse, they modified by request, and now have no idea how ANY of the system works.
@cstross worse, this is a system that has now been running for literal centuries. And they keep sticking to the 'brain in a box' story. So answering the question "what year is it" instantly sends them into an extreme psychological tailspin with suicidal depression and severe psychosis. They have to pull redundant storage before turning it on, because multiple times people have said the wrong thing and caused it to *self-delete*. And it's even worse when they know the redundant storage is gone.
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@Antiqueight Naah, the ice crystals forming in your synapses would mush them into un-digitizable soup.
@cstross @Antiqueight one please ☝️
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Sigh.
So it turns out we've mapped the neural connectome of Drosophila *and simulated it in silico*.
Pop-sci explainer here:
Key quote: "The step from a complete connectome to a working computational brain model is not trivial." And there's an even more important finding in this screenshot (alt text via OCR):
"The wiring is the computation".
/1
Another interesting line of research would be how that connectome of 127k neurones is specified in DNA that encodes about 14k genes.
There's some *really* impressive "compression" going on there.
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But I'm REALLY HAPPY right now because this kinda-sorta validates the key premise of the SF novel I just handed in last month (which involves serial reincarnation via destructive brain-slicing-and-imaging then imprinting onto an immature cortex, and then explores its disastrous societal failure modes).
... And it also hints that artificial consciousness might, eventually, be possible, if only via the hard path of doing it the same way we do it, only in simulation in silico.
/6 (ends)
@cstross
Welp. More evidence for the "we don't know when to stop" hypothesis. It may take a while but I find it very hard to imagine a good outcome from that research path for society. It even scares me when people say stuff like this is "cool" or "interesting". To me, it's like, yes of course it is theoretically possible therefore we should not be trying to do it!Profoundly depressing, in all honesty. I cannot get excited about this stuff.
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@cstross
Welp. More evidence for the "we don't know when to stop" hypothesis. It may take a while but I find it very hard to imagine a good outcome from that research path for society. It even scares me when people say stuff like this is "cool" or "interesting". To me, it's like, yes of course it is theoretically possible therefore we should not be trying to do it!Profoundly depressing, in all honesty. I cannot get excited about this stuff.
@cstross
In some ways researching this kind of thing represents a really bad inclination we have as a species. We are so clever we forget to be human. We forget to treat each other as living beings, because we get too caught up in the details. We invent super clever ways of surveilling each other and forget to be nice and caring to our neighbours. We research how our brains work so we can build robot humans at some future point, rather than enjoying the magic of being alive. -
@cstross
In some ways researching this kind of thing represents a really bad inclination we have as a species. We are so clever we forget to be human. We forget to treat each other as living beings, because we get too caught up in the details. We invent super clever ways of surveilling each other and forget to be nice and caring to our neighbours. We research how our brains work so we can build robot humans at some future point, rather than enjoying the magic of being alive.@cstross
The two ways of thinking are not compatible for me. I know not everyone thinks that way, but I just can't combine the two mindsets and the further we move down these paths the bigger the divide seems. -
@cstross
The two ways of thinking are not compatible for me. I know not everyone thinks that way, but I just can't combine the two mindsets and the further we move down these paths the bigger the divide seems.@cstross
But I suppose I'm talking about myself really. I don't mean that a scientist researching this stuff can't be kind. I mean that to me, going down the rabbit hole of the technical details of how a creature's mind works is not compatible with treating the creature as a being.I rescue flies if they get stuck in water. I hate this research.
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Sigh.
So it turns out we've mapped the neural connectome of Drosophila *and simulated it in silico*.
Pop-sci explainer here:
Key quote: "The step from a complete connectome to a working computational brain model is not trivial." And there's an even more important finding in this screenshot (alt text via OCR):
"The wiring is the computation".
/1
@cstross "The wiring is the computation" has been my working assumption for 30 years now.
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