Blue Brain – a tool or a crutch for humanity ?

What if human beings could better their brain, built across millennia through evolution? Gourav looks at the possibility of just such a technology and its implications.

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We all think, act, react, ponder, decide, and memorize with the help of our brains. It is a very intriguing, interesting, and exciting part of our human body and contributes drastically to our human ecosystem.

It is also still a mystery as to how our brain, one of the most complex systems found in nature, functions.

Imagine an artificial copy of our human brain that can do the same without our help. If such a machine is created, then the boundaries between a human and a machine would grow thinner bringing to the fore its advantages and disadvantages.

The Brain and Mind Institute of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland did exactly that when they thought up a project called Blue Brain Project aimed at creating an artificial brain. This project was founded by Henry Markram in 2005.

What is Blue Brain Project?

The Blue Brain Project is bleeding-edge technology research that aims to reverse engineer a typical human brain into a computer simulation. Blue Brain can think, act, respond, make quick decisions, and keep anything and everything in its memory.

It means that a computer can act as a human brain taking artificial intelligence sky high. The simulations are carried out on IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer, hence the term Blue Brain.

Why do we need this?

Today, we function based on our brain’s capability to respond to different situations. Some people make intelligent decisions and take actions as they have an inborn quality of intelligence. But this intelligence dies when we die. Imagine if such intelligence can be preserved to help the future generation.

A virtual or an artificial brain that can provide the required solution for the stated problem. Our brain tends to forget trivial things that mean more like birthdays, names of people, etc.

Such a brain can help us by storing this information and aiding whenever necessary. Imagine uploading ourselves onto a computer and living inside it.

How can this be made possible?

The information about the brain needs to be uploaded into the supercomputer to perform like a brain. So, retrieval or studying of this information is paramount. This can be made possible by using small robots called nanobots.

These bots can travel between our spine and brain to collect important data. These data contain necessary information such as the structure of the human brain, its current state, etc.

A human brain takes inputs from the sensor throughout the body, and it interprets these inputs to store in the memory or to respond to the desired output.

The artificial brain does a similar job by taking inputs from a sensory chip and it interprets these inputs by associating the input with the value stored in one of its registers which corresponds to different states of the brain.

The Blue Brain Project – Software Development Kit helps the users to utilize the data from the nanobots to visualize and inspect models and simulations. The SDK is a C++ library that is wrapped around Java and Python.

The Einstein Connection

When people think of genius, the list most assuredly includes Albert Einstein. For years, different scientific researchers have been trying to find the mystery behind his genius brain. Imagine if Einstein’s brain could be recreated with the help of the Blue Brain Project. Many intriguing inventions and discoveries could be made. Such intelligence would shape many generations to come. 

The Blue Brain Project has many merits such as non-volatile memory that can store anything and everything permanently, and the capability to make intelligent decisions without the presence of a person. This research can help in curing a lot of psychological problems.

If such technology comes to people, they would be dependent on these systems. This can open the door wide open for hack threats which can pose a real danger to people. People might be fearful of using such technology and it can culminate into large resistance.

The Author’s Views

Intelligence is a quality that has always been associated with humans. Now artificially many intelligent systems and tools are available that aim to better people’s lives.

If Blue Brain technology reaches humans, everyone’s life will be enriched.

But people might get too dependent on this technology which will culminate in catastrophic problems for the human psyche. However, if used properly this technology can add new layers to human life than being a replacement.