Building a brain from scratch
Microsoft co-founder launches quest to create artificial intelligence
SEATTLE — Paul Allen has been waiting for the emergence of intelligent machines for a very long time. As a young boy, Allen spent much of his time in the library reading science-fiction novels in which robots manage our homes, perform surgery and fly around saving lives like superheroes. In his imagination, these beings would live among us, serving as our advisers, companions and friends.
Now 62 and worth an estimated $ 17.7 billion US, the Microsoft co-founder is using his wealth to back two separate philanthropic research efforts at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence that he hopes will hasten that future.
The first project is to build an artificial brain from scratch that can pass a high-school science test. It sounds simple enough, but trying to teach a machine not only to respond but also to reason is one of the hardest software-engineering endeavours attempted.
The second project aims to understand intelligence by coming at it from the opposite direction — by starting with nature and deconstructing and analyzing the pieces. It’s an attempt to reverse-engineer the human brain by slicing it up — literally — modelling it and running simulations.
“Imagine being able to take a clean sheet of paper and replicate all the amazing things the human brain does,” Allen said in an interview.
He persuaded University of Washington AI researcher Oren Etzioni to lead the brain-building team and Caltech neuroscientist Christof Koch to lead the brain-deconstruction team. Whether they create something reflected in nature or invent something entirely novel, the mission is the same: conquering the final frontier of the human body — the brain.
“We are starting with biology. But first you have to figure out how you represent that knowledge in a software database,” Allen said. “I wish I could say our understanding of the brain could inform that, but we’re probably a decade away from that. Our understanding of the brain is so elemental at this point that we don’t know how language works in the brain.”
At its most basic level, artificial intelligence is an area of computer science in which coders design programs to enable machines to act intelligently, in the ways that humans do. Today’s AI programs can adjust the temperature in your home or your driving route to work based on your patterns and traffic conditions or who has the best odds of winning tonight’s soccer match.
In medicine, artificial intelligence algorithms are already being used to do things such as predicting manic episodes in those suffering mental disease; pinpointing dangerous hot spots of asthma on maps; and guessing which cancer treatments might give you a better chance at living longer based on your genetic makeup and medical history.
But when it comes to general knowledge, scientists have struggled to create a technology that can do as well as a four-year-old human on a standard IQ test. Although today’s computers are great at storing knowledge, retrieving it and finding patterns, they are often still stumped by a simple question: “Why?”
The most exciting — and disconcerting — developments in the field may be in predictive analytics, which aims to make an informed guess about the future. Although it’s currently mostly being used in retail to figure out who is more likely to buy, say, a certain sweater, there are also test programs that attempt to figure out who might be more likely to get a certain disease or even commit a crime.
Google, which acquired AI company DeepMind in 2014 for an estimated $400 million US, has been secretive about its plans in the field, but the company has said its goal is to “solve intelligence.” One of its first real-world applications could be to help self-driving cars become better aware of their environments.
All of this may one day be possible. But is it a good idea?
In May 2014, cosmologist Stephen Hawking caused a stir when he warned that intelligent computers could be the downfall of humanity and “potentially our worst mistake in history.” Elon Musk — the billionaire philanthropist who helped found SpaceX, Tesla Motors and PayPal — in October 2014 lamented that a program whose function is to get rid of email spam may determine “the best way of getting rid of spam is getting rid of humans.” He wasn’t joking. Allen and Etzioni say that they also have thought a lot about how AI might change the world and that they respectfully disagree with the doomsayers.
“There are people who say, ‘I don’t care about the ethics of it all. I’m a technologist.’ We are the opposite of that. We think about the impact of this kind of technology on society all the time,” said Etzioni, who is chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, “and what we see is a very positive impact.”
Koch is more hesitant. “Runaway machine intelligence is something we need to think about more,” said the president and chief science officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “We need to figure out what are the imagined dangers and what are the real ones and how to minimize them.”
Allen’s vision is creating an AI machine that would be like a smart assistant, rather than an independent being, “answering questions and clarifying things for you and so forth.”
“I don’t think we’re building a god by any means,” Etzioni said. “We’re building something on science. The computer is an assistant — not someone you ask, ‘Solve cancer and get back to me.’
“I think it’s going to be something very sophisticated with vast amounts of information, but I still think of it very much as a tool.”
Imagine being able to take a clean sheet of paper and replicate all the amazing things the human brain does... But first you have to figure out how you represent that knowledge in a software database. PAUL ALLEN MICROSOFT CO-FOUNDER