[KKKKkkkk1]

You know how every generation conceives of the brain as a machine that's analogous to the latest technology of that generation? Like in the 19th century, the brain was a steam engine, and then in the 20th it was a computer? Well, apparently now the brain is a smartphone.

[titzer]

The difference is that this time around we have massively augmented our data processing capabilities and improved our ability to investigate brain function at multiple scales. We can now formulate falsifiable theories and test them. Science was still pretty immature in the 19th century in that it wasn't always possible to crisply state theories in ways that give rise to testable predictions.

Is the brain solely a computer? I don't know. But it certainly contains information processing aspects that we should study and understand, and as we understand them with these tools, we may find other frameworks to apply at different (perhaps higher) levels.

[tomrod]

> We can now formulate falsifiable theories and test them. Science was still pretty immature in the 19th century in that it wasn't always possible to crisply state theories in ways that give rise to testable predictions.

Doesn't that still hold true today with string theory and social sciences?

[danharaj]

String theory is more analogous to quantum field theory than it is to the standard model. The standard model is a model of quantum field theory. Likewise, a theory of everything could potentially be a model of string theory. Particular models of string theory are ruled out by the same experiments that rule out particular models of quantum field theory. The ultimate goal is to find a model of some theory that reduces to the standard model in the low energy limit and includes gravity.

Now, it's potentially the case that string theory makes predictions for a given model that can't be practically tested. That's definitely an issue. Another issue is that we haven't yet pared down the possibilities in string theory to a parameter space that can be reasonably searched experimentally.

[yellowstuff]

Social sciences do generate testable predictions, but they often run poor studies that fail to falsify untrue predictions. 538 recently had a good explanation.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/

[titzer]

AFAIK string theory hasn't made any testable predictions beyond the standard model, but the standard model itself does have testable predictions that have so far all held up. So string theory is just as falsifiable as the standard model.

I don't know about the social sciences. That's painting with a pretty broad brush, IMHO.

[tomrod]

True, and I was bit tongue-in-cheek as a social scientist myself. Replicability of many studies is a long-standing issue.

[uvatbc]

I'd like to extrapolate this further: We won't have true AI until mankind explains the human brain as a "form of AI"

[nfc]

or We won't have true AI until AI explains the human brain as a "form of AI"

[visarga]

We won't have true AI until AI stands on its own. Just as a bootstrapped compiler can compile itself, an AI should be capable to reinvent itself without outside help.

Until then, it's just a child-AI, dependent on human brains to be designed and optimized.

[kakarot]

But humans aren't even capable of that, and we are intelligent. It still takes a lifetime of learning and experience to create a functional human being, and many never get it right.

[anonymfus]

Yes, but until AI is better than humans at everything it will not be perceived as intelligent, because true intelligence will be redefined as one of the things AI still is not capable.

[visarga]

One person can't create himself, but people can "compile" other people into existence and teach them, all without the help of technology.

[geon]

That's a pretty arbitrary definition.

And how long time do you give it? The human race haven't solved that problem in some 20k+ years. If we build an AI today, would you wait that long to decide if it is "true"?

[leereeves]

If humans create an AI, but that AI can't create an AI, then humans are still smarter than that AI.

But someone else being smarter doesn't mean the AI isn't intelligent.

[ThomPete]

We don't even have true consciousness so why should we have true AI. Thats not how things work IMO.

[krashnburn200]

AI has alway struck me as an absurd nomenclature.

Inteligence is inteligence regardless of origin.

Might as well call us AI Accidental Inteligence.

I kinda like Engineered Inteligence.

[goldenkek]

You mean like a virus?

[visarga]

Self replication and self preservation are the essence of life and evolution. There is no primary purpose to a biological system other than self preservation and replication.

[goldenkek]

Dont forget that a computer program exists in the physical world. It is not unlikely for AI that understands self, to also want to preserve self.

[fragsworth]

I'm not sure how this relates to the article?

[orware]

I believe the comment is referring to how the newer ARM CPUs in smartphones utilize small battery efficient cores for basic stuff and can ramp up to more power hungry cores for the heavy stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_big.LITTLE

[GavinMcG]

It's offering the smartphone as an analogy for the behavior described in the article.

[treenyc]

It is a human illness wanting to explain something to just stratify our rational thinking. In reality whenever there is a paradigm shift, the previous explanation becomes obsolete. So stop trying to explain things and go out an do it and experience for yourself.

[jschwartzi]

I don't understand. Are you suggesting that our drive to reason about things and to construct mental models is an illness?

[posterboy]

with all the blood pumping ther is certainly a hydraulic aspect

[stephengillie]

The brain is a network of routers.

[talideon]

The brain is a series of tubes.

[Senji]

I just the other day got … a thought that was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Brain commercially ... They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Brain.

The brain is not just something you dump things on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your thought in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.