Perfect…

Just found this news item on the BBC website whilst looking for some research into artificially mapping the brain. It was literally released today so it’s brilliantly convenient for my project! In the story my projects follow the young girl is treated using a new technique which maps her brain then recreates on a computer. This way  treatments can be trained on the artificial brain to test there effectiveness before and without harming the patient. It’s is this artificial brain that then goes on to become the A.I in the next 2 pieces.

This is how I kind of theorised it and just today this news report came describing how a scientist – Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, is on his way to achieving this type of artificial brain for the very purpose I have outlined in my story. It’s encouraging for me as I always wanted this to feel real and down to earth, despite the scope involved, and this sort of technology beginning to exist adds weight to the idea’s. Henry adds – “It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years” so far they created a rats brain with 10,000 neurons. Also intriguing is they way he describes powering this sort of software -“You need one laptop to do all the calculations for one neuron,” he said. “So you need ten thousand laptops.” Although they used to a super computer to get around this I have worked on the basis of using latent computing power of the worlds computers as they are connected to the Internet –  A technique being used right now. This also enable the artificial intelligence to spread, expand and learn.

This is the link to the full article –

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8164060.stm