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Have you ever wished you could make a copy of your brain? Keep it around in case something happens to the original? Some researchers say this technology is complex, but possible. Here’s one of them – Anders Sandberg. He is with the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University in England. A shorter version will air on the 148th episode of Spark, but right now, here’s the uncut conversation with Anders on whole brain emulation.
You can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 14:56]
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I've been an attentive listener to this topic for over 30 years, when I first asked Walter at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver to load me up with all the books about AI's becoming sentient. My conclusion – You can clone a brain, but you can't make it think. I think sentience is still going to be an emergent behaviour from a sufficiently rich connection network interacting with a rich sensorium, but even flipping baby robots at this point don't seem complex enough to achieve self-awareness. They'll need some basic drives: safety, energy gathering, avoidance of injury, and curiosity. We know how to program the first three – but curiousity and learning-from-experience are still shall we say, pre-infantile.
http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2011/03…
BTW, John Varley's story Retrograde Summer deals nicely with the idea of obsessing about the gap between your last backup and your newly restored life from your backup.
is it possible to make a transcript of this? I cannot listen while I am on the go :/
thanks, Spark