[HN Gopher] Using AI to develop a fuller model of the human brain
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Using AI to develop a fuller model of the human brain
        
       Author : geox
       Score  : 84 points
       Date   : 2025-01-25 20:36 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (magazine.ucsf.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (magazine.ucsf.edu)
        
       | allears wrote:
       | Ethical considerations are briefly discussed at the end of the
       | article -- too briefly, in my opinion.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | We're alive for an infinitesimal blink of an eye before an
         | eternity of annihilation. Brain science is still in the stone
         | age. We should be flooring it with the research. Absolutely
         | flooring it.
        
           | HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
           | Death is a blessing that may not always exist
        
             | echelon wrote:
             | If endgame entities have control over the entire light
             | cone, they can bend backwards and pluck you out of space
             | and time and put you into an eternal hell simulator.
             | 
             | I wouldn't worry about what could or couldn't be.
        
               | saagarjha wrote:
               | One would think the endgame entities have better things
               | to do.
        
               | ninalanyon wrote:
               | One might think the same of many intelligent and wealthy
               | humans but a number of them are nonetheless cruel,
               | capricious, and uncaring. Why should 'endgame entities'
               | be any different?
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Endgame by definition means they're bored out of their
               | minds.
        
           | hall0ween wrote:
           | I agree neuroscience still in the stone age. Flooring the
           | research I don't think will do much to change it. It's like
           | flooring plasma physics research during the renaissance. We
           | need different patterns of thinking, imo. Two examples come
           | to mind: (1) our interest to boil down neural dynamics via
           | quantization (what else would it look like, you may wonder.
           | and exactly my point!) and (2) studying the brain in
           | artificial environments. it's like look at fish behavior
           | while they're in a tube in space
        
             | echelon wrote:
             | We need to stop thinking of human bodies as anything more
             | than machines, and we need to start growing them in labs.
             | 
             | Conscious humans are obviously special. But if we grew non-
             | thinking bodies and used them for research, we could vastly
             | accelerate medical science, research and development, and
             | treatments. We could accomplish this with gene knockouts.
             | 
             | It's too "icky" for people, so it hasn't been done.
        
               | Mr_Blacky wrote:
               | Then make yourself a lab rat.
        
               | echelon wrote:
               | That's what this whole gradient ascent game is. You're
               | playing too.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | Do you mean in the sense of experiment on themselves,
               | make themselves into a lab rat?
               | 
               | Or more literally, that they should make for themselves a
               | lab rat, in the way The Thought Emporium is?
               | https://youtu.be/Z_ZGq8Tah0k?si=UI18mJ4k5Xn4OtfD
        
       | cess11 wrote:
       | Found two PubPeer posts, did someone else find more?
       | 
       | https://pubpeer.com/publications/829F2657E307C1D8E5623363476...
       | 
       | https://pubpeer.com/publications/C85230FD7895218EAAA34F6C675...
        
       | dr_dshiv wrote:
       | They can now capture the activity of hundreds of neurons! That's
       | simultaneously amazing and so, so far from being able to create
       | the digital twin they claim.
        
         | solidr53 wrote:
         | Amazing, there are estimated 86 billion neurons in the human
         | brain, so they are just short of 85 billion and change.
         | 
         | But I think there is more to it, how many are used for speech
         | vs vision, how much is used for motor control. If the idea is
         | to build a speech neuron activity to some sort of ml data
         | representation it's probably way less than 85b.
        
       | listic wrote:
       | Where should I look for a more technical description of exactly
       | what they are doing?
        
         | nikolayasdf123 wrote:
         | check http://neuroscience-landscape.com/
         | 
         | this is list of software, hardware, and other material on
         | neuroscience
         | 
         | UCSF is big part of BRAIN Initiative lead by Allen Institute,
         | many of the tools and their work is collected in Open
         | Neuroscience Foundation
        
         | caycep wrote:
         | i think eddie chang's paper on voice synthesizing is published,
         | i forget if it was nature or neuron. it's prob on pubmed but
         | i'm too lazy/sleepy to pull it. doris tsao and a number of
         | collaborators have a few nice papers out w ML applications to
         | single unit/LFP recordings
        
       | suddenlybananas wrote:
       | This is total snake oil.
        
         | hall0ween wrote:
         | Using AI to blankety blank
        
         | robwwilliams wrote:
         | Or PR happy talk.
        
       | yapyap wrote:
       | ugh, _ROLLS EYES_
       | 
       | if I could embed a video on HN I would, such bullshit.
       | 
       | This person probably saw the nonsensical amounts of money that
       | was being thrown at shitty AI vcs and thought "I can put on a
       | performance like that"
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | Nothing's stopping you from linking to whatever you think might
         | have a valid counterpoint, bud. But okay...
        
           | xcv123 wrote:
           | Counterpoint to what? The article is nothing but vague
           | speculation and personal opinions.
        
       | iamleppert wrote:
       | The self-congratulatory tone and constant shilling of the
       | author's career (they are a nobody who hasn't done anything
       | meaningful despite the pedigree) makes me nauseous. The headshots
       | and such make me think this is a ploy for easy (dumb) VC money.
       | 
       | The association with UCSF is touted but based on my experience,
       | it's nothing to brag about!
        
         | cma wrote:
         | Don't all university press magazine things have this kind of
         | imagery? Seems very common and not really telling you anything
         | at all.
        
       | jsemrau wrote:
       | This is one of my favorite YT channels working on a similar
       | research without all the fluff:
       | https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemKirsanov
       | 
       | Also have a look at Michael Levin's work :
       | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+levin
        
         | mettamage wrote:
         | Thanks for the @ArtemKirsanov channel. I'm really enjoying his
         | video on "How I make science animations" [1]. That's some cool
         | Python & After Effects. I've always wanted to know how to go
         | about it, especially since I have enough experience with Python
         | and some experience with Sketch/Figma.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaa13eehgzo&ab_channel=Artem...
        
           | Daneel_ wrote:
           | 3Blue1Brown also has a good video on mathematical animations,
           | in case it's relevant for you:
           | https://youtu.be/rbu7Zu5X1zI?si=KTAfolRBm1NsZOE9
        
       | elif wrote:
       | We're gonna be taking the machines word for it sooner than we
       | want to.
       | 
       | Either that or we will have to severely retard progress to human
       | pace.
        
       | eden-u4 wrote:
       | When they say "in 20-50 years" it is implied that it might not
       | exist ever. See nuclear fusion or AGI.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-01-26 23:02 UTC)