Reasons to be Impossible

From the BBC: Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip:

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information.

As Searle noted in his Chinese room essay, the only route to Artificial intelligence is to build a physical brain. Well, it looks like what MIT have done. here's the ominous bit:

Such systems could be much faster than computers which take hours or even days to simulate a brain circuit. The chip could ultimately prove to be even faster than the biological process.

That is, super human intelligence may be around the corner, and with it, the singularity. Rapture those nerds. Come what may, this could very well lead to massive break throughs in computing and our knowledge of human intelligence and neuroscience.

Labels: 130.1, Artificial intelligence, Chinese room, John Searle, Philosophy, Singularity