Preface. This book conveys a sense of wonderment and awe about our brains work and how we become who we are. I think if you read the excerpts below you will understand why Artificial Intelligence will probably never come close to general intelligence and being as smart as human beings — able to learn, have emotions and consequently motivation and curiosity. Heck, I doubt AI will even become as intelligent as ants after reading “Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration” by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson.
Our brains have 86 billion neurons with 200 trillion connections that constantly grow, die, or change as we live our lives and learn from our experiences. Computer neural networks will never be that complex or able to change themselves flexibly — they are hard-wired, not LIVE wired. Which means AI is not an existential threat unless some idiot gives AI software written by humans has complete authority over deciding whether to launch nuclear weapons after Congress votes to take that choice away from the President. Now there’s an existential threat…
Here are some of the main ideas:
“…Our brain machinery isn’t fully preprogrammed, but instead shapes itself by interacting with the world. As we grow, we constantly rewrite our brain’s circuitry to tackle challenges, leverage opportunities, and understand the social structures around us. Our species has successfully taken over every corner of the globe because we represent the highest expression of a trick that Mother Nature discovered: don’t entirely pre-script the brain; instead, just set it up with the basic building blocks and get it into the world.
If you had a magical video camera with which to zoom in to the living, microscopic cosmos inside the skull, you would witness the neurons’ tentacle-like extensions grasping around, feeling, bumping against one another, searching for the right connections to form or forgo, like citizens of a country establishing friendships, marriages, neighborhoods, political parties, vendettas, and social networks. The elaborate pattern of connections in the brain—the circuitry—is full of life: connections between neurons ceaselessly blossom, die, and reconfigure. You are a different person than you were at this time last year, because the gargantuan tapestry of your brain has woven itself into something new.
