IBM attempts to build a computer that simulates the human brain, but do they really understand what that entails?
Humans, cats, and machines – one of these things is not like the other. At least, that’s how it seems, but advanced computer science might be changing that.
International Business Machines, or IBM, which has recently been named the second most valuable tech company in the world, claims to have simulated 4.5 percent of the human brain with the Blue Gene super computer. This announcement follows the Blue Gene’s alleged 2009 complete simulation of a cat brain.
The Blue Gene contains 147,456 processors each with one gigabyte of memory. IBM says that they need to add 732,544 more to fully simulate the human brain, which should be completed by 2019. For comparison, each processor is about as powerful as one that can be found in an average household computer.
The human brain has, by one estimate, 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. With these numbers in mind, how is it possible to compare the number of processors and the computing power of a computer to that of a human brain?
PERFORMANCE QUALITY
Boston University Professor Eric L. Schwartz said that the brain is not understood well enough in the scientific community to make a complete simulation. The brain is not a computer, he said, and each neuron is not a processor.
“You can simulate something if you fully understand it,” said Schwartz. “But we don’t know how [the brain] works even remotely.”
We understand so little about the brain that there is no scientific way to claim any percentage to be simulated, Schwartz said, nothing that the 4.5 percent calculation means nothing.
Schwartz said these IBM scientists are claiming to have simulated part of the human brain because of their potential financial gain.
MONEY MATTERS
The U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, created a project deemed Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics, otherwise known as SyNAPSE. The program has a multi-million dollar budget and is intended to fund projects that simulate a cat’s brain through computer technology. IBM was awarded nearly $5 million dollars through SyNAPSE.
Schwartz said these false claims of simulation are partly motivated by the desire to sell supercomputers.
FALLING VICTIM TO FALLACY
Schwartz said that this phenomenon could be explained because of what he calls “the fallacy of the first step,” such as when supercomputer Watson was a contestant on “Jeopardy” that IBM released earlier this year.
The computer was adept at playing “Jeopardy” and interpreting natural language, but it did not exhibit any other human skills. The fundamental problem with brain simulation still exists – how can a robot mirror organic brain response?
BRAIN’S HISTORICAL BATTLE WITH TECHNOLOGY
In his paper “Brain Metaphor and Brain Theory,” physicist and University of Cambridge professor John Daugman noted that this dilemma has presented itself throughout history. “The life cycle of the dominant metaphor in a scientific theory demarcates the life cycle of the current scientific paradigm itself,” he wrote.
This means that the brain is inevitably compared to modern technology. In Freud’s time, hydraulics was at the forefront of technological innovation, so he compared them to the brain. When telephone switchboards were new and exciting, they were also compared to the brain.
Schwartz noted that none of these comparisons are completely inaccurate but they are also nowhere near a perfect metaphor for the brain. In the meantime, neuroscience continues to move forward and “has made impressive progress at the low level,” according to Schwartz.
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