Will the technology to upload a human mind into a computer become a reality?
Dobromir Lahnev, an associate professor of psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology, discussed the technology of 'mind uploading,' which creates a copy of a person's brain on a computer.
Can you upload a human mind into a computer? A neuroscientist ponders what's possible
Mind uploading is theoretically possible, according to Larnef. Research in this field is only just beginning to understand the brain, but Larnef said, 'Science has a track record of turning theoretical possibilities into reality. Just because a concept seems unimaginably difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. Think about how science has put mankind on the moon, sequenced the human genome, and eradicated smallpox -- all of these things that were once thought impossible.'
As a neuroscientist who studies perception, Larnef is confident that mind uploading will one day become a reality, but he thinks we're still a long way off.
For starters, the human brain is believed to be the most complex object in the known universe, and recreating it in its entirety would be extremely difficult.
The uploaded brain also needs the same inputs - in other words, it needs to have access to the outside world - and this requires replicating the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and countless other functions, such as moving the body, blinking the eyes, detecting heart rate, setting circadian rhythms, and so on.
Without these, the uploaded person would feel like they were locked in a dark, soundless room; depriving a person of their senses is called sensory deprivation and is considered a form of torture.
In fact, people who, for one reason or another, have difficulty detecting bodily cues like thirst, hunger, pain, or itch are more likely to suffer from mental health problems.
Therefore, for mind uploading to work, the simulation of a person's senses and their digital environment must be incredibly accurate, and even the slightest distortion could have serious psychological effects.
And the computational power to run such perfect simulations doesn't yet exist, nor does the scientific knowledge to do so.
Another challenge to successful mind uploading is scanning and mapping the complete 3D structure of the human brain. This requires highly advanced MRI machines or equivalent technology that can view the brain in advanced detail. However, modern science is only in the very early stages of mapping entire fly brains and small parts of mouse brains.
'We may have a complete map of the human brain in a few decades,' said Raneff. 'But even if we captured all of the 86 billion neurons, each smaller than a pinhead, and their trillions of connections, it still wouldn't be enough. Simply uploading this information to a computer won't get us very far, because each neuron is constantly adjusting its function, and we need to model those adjustments as well.'
Understanding how the brain computes things could help develop mind uploading, because once we understand how the brain works, we don't need to simulate all of its biological properties, just the essential parts of it. This is similar to how it is easier to build a new car once you understand how it works, than to replicate it completely without knowing its internal structure.
But this approach requires understanding how the brain produces thoughts - how ensembles of thousands or even millions of neurons work together to perform the calculations that fuel the human mind - and it's hard to even put into words how far modern science is from achieving this.
Another option would be to replace each of the 86 billion neurons with an artificial one at a time, which would be easier than mind uploading all at once, but scientists have yet to replace even a single neuron with an artificial one.
Despite the challenges, there is some good news: First, technological advances are accelerating exponentially, and we can expect to see even greater advances in computing power and artificial intelligence in the future.
Mind uploading research is also well funded, with many billionaires willing to pay large sums for the chance at eternal life.
Regarding when mind uploading might become a reality, Raneff said, 'The most optimistic predictions put it in 2045, just 20 years from now, but some put it at the end of this century, but I think both of these predictions are probably too optimistic. I'd be surprised if mind uploading became a reality within the next 100 years, but it could happen within the next 200 years. That means that some of the children of people living today may be the first people to be able to live forever in a simulation.'
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