> Models of the human brain would likely be indistinguishable in every way, shape, and form from the real thing.
Eventually, but the more I learn, the more I think that's going to be an ethical nightmare to even test.
First brain to get the We Are Bob treatment is going to get almost every neurotransmitter slightly wrong, and be tripping as if they're suddenly alternating between ketamine/cocaine, LSD/antipsychotics, and every other pair of opposite impact substances you can think of.
I keep hearing doctors saying things like "we don't really know how general anaesthetic works" and "we don't know why sleep and dreams are biologically necessary, only what happens if you miss them" for example, and those feel like important things to understand when building models for simulation.
The neuron models used in the open worm project… function…
That is to say that the complete organism model can learn to swim, which about all the organism is supposed to be able to do.
I see what you’re saying though, that human-level function will likely be much more difficult to fine-tune.
The ethics of it all are a philosophical wormhole. Ultimately, its “consciousness” would be an image of a real person. I don’t think we would have to worry about it too much. Saying it was truly conscious would be like saying that a video of a person was conscious.
> Saying it was truly conscious would be like saying that a video of a person was conscious.
I hope we believe what's true, regardless of what that happens to be — we get bad futures either way, if we think sims are conscious when they're not, or if we think they're not when they are.
Thanks for the We Are Legion / We Are Bob reference - that one wasn't on my radar.
My point of reference for the sort of horror that mind-uploading and simulation might result in is this fantastic short story:
https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
As pointed out by other comments, this paper is about an adult fly, so we're not there yet, but still...
Eventually, but the more I learn, the more I think that's going to be an ethical nightmare to even test.
First brain to get the We Are Bob treatment is going to get almost every neurotransmitter slightly wrong, and be tripping as if they're suddenly alternating between ketamine/cocaine, LSD/antipsychotics, and every other pair of opposite impact substances you can think of.
I keep hearing doctors saying things like "we don't really know how general anaesthetic works" and "we don't know why sleep and dreams are biologically necessary, only what happens if you miss them" for example, and those feel like important things to understand when building models for simulation.