RE: I have a hypothesis on how computers could gain sentience
March 26, 2017 at 8:08 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2017 at 8:41 am by I_am_not_mafia.)
(March 19, 2017 at 4:25 pm)Mr Greene Wrote:(March 19, 2017 at 6:10 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I'm neither a computer guy or a neuroscientist, but I tend to agree with the contention that once a machine 'brain' achieves the same number of synapses - for want of a better word - as a human brain, self-awareness is all but inevitable. Since the number of synapses in a typical human brain might be as high as 1000 trillion, I don't think we have to worry about a Skynet scenario any time soon.
Boru
The bulk of which are concerned with maintaining homeostasis.
Which is all about maintaining a stable state. This is all that self organisation is in the end and intelligence is a self organising process.
You cannot write off all the neurons devoted to sensory processing, motor coordination and homoeostasis as being irrelevant to intelligence because the function of intelligence is to adapt to a changing environment. How the intelligence is embodied in an environment is fundamental to how intelligently the agent can interact within it.
(March 21, 2017 at 5:50 am)ma5t3r0fpupp3t5 Wrote: On the most fundamental level, a CPU and human brain essentially function in the same way: electrical signals. A CPU's transistor is analogous to a neuron in the brain. The earliest evolved brains were essentially a cluster of nerve cells which then grew in number and size over millions of years, and as this happened sentience and then eventually consciousness gradually emerged.
Our CPUs have been doubling in transistor count every two years for decades now, although this has slowed down in recent years and may eventually stop at 5-nanometre nodes (although Intel has stated that CPUs may reach 100 billion transistors in 2026, equivalent to the number of neurons in the brain[1]). It's certainly possible that CPUs could eventually "think for themselves" and begin making decisions without human input, although whether or not that qualifies as sentience is unknown, as is the case with "primitive" life.
[1] http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/126289-i...in-a-brain
We might even have enough processing power now with all the computers on the internet, but sentience or sapience won't arise just by adding more servers dishing out porn and cat pictures. Same with computers. Just adding more transistors won't give you intelligence if you don't use them for that purpose.