Using AI to develop a fuller model of the human brain | Hacker News Reader

Using AI to develop a fuller model of the human brain

magazine.ucsf.edu

87 pointsgeox36 comments

This is one of my favorite YT channels working on a similar research without all the fluff: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemKirsanov

Also have a look at Michael Levin's work : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+levin

Thanks for the @ArtemKirsanov channel. I'm really enjoying his video on "How I make science animations" [1]. That's some cool Python & After Effects. I've always wanted to know how to go about it, especially since I have enough experience with Python and some experience with Sketch/Figma.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaa13eehgzo&ab_channel=Artem...

3Blue1Brown also has a good video on mathematical animations, in case it’s relevant for you: https://youtu.be/rbu7Zu5X1zI?si=KTAfolRBm1NsZOE9

We're gonna be taking the machines word for it sooner than we want to.

Either that or we will have to severely retard progress to human pace.

This is total snake oil.

Using AI to blankety blank

Or PR happy talk.

Found two PubPeer posts, did someone else find more?

https://pubpeer.com/publications/829F2657E307C1D8E5623363476...

https://pubpeer.com/publications/C85230FD7895218EAAA34F6C675...

( to some level - not only every neuron in the brain has unique DNA and ancestorship:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-surpri... - Scientists Surprised to Find No Two Neurons Are Genetically Alike

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aab1785 - Somatic mutation in single human neurons tracks developmental and transcriptional history

- but what if there could be other levels - if somehow connected - like e.g. (2025) of traveling [between cells] mitochondria fling DNA into our brain cells :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42808418

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3810443/ - Structural and biomechanical basis of mitochondrial movement in eukaryotic cells

https://www.earth.com/news/mitochondria-fling-dna-into-our-b... - Mitochondria fling DNA into our brain cells, making us age faster

worth to look into - like.. are that maybe not junk but real messages than can modify the brain inner working in.. different ways ?? (..and more reasons (than maybe.. stress?? ) for them to.. - or why they travel (those.. symbionts - ..of energy?? ) ? - is it smart ? - or just alien ? ) ;)

To be more clear.. That every neuron has different DNA (ID) makes the neurogenesis very costly.. - but for what is that ? - could thanks that relations between neurons like parent or distance be recognized in same way as by comparing just parts of IDs of nodes indexed with some XML/tree indexing scheme ? - could thanks that the whole branches of the brain be.. DNA addressed also ? - isn't there some code (DNA) being moved between cells by.. traveling mitochondria (symbionts??), for some reasons - sometimes then to be integrated into other cell nucleus ? - then.. why ? - and what more ?? Does that code have meaning or any of it in any way matter or connect ("intelligence" thanks from the mother inherited my cells power or its crew ? ;) - or maybe just.. lets don't mind it ?

Where should I look for a more technical description of exactly what they are doing?

check http://neuroscience-landscape.com/

this is list of software, hardware, and other material on neuroscience

UCSF is big part of BRAIN Initiative lead by Allen Institute, many of the tools and their work is collected in Open Neuroscience Foundation

i think eddie chang's paper on voice synthesizing is published, i forget if it was nature or neuron. it's prob on pubmed but i'm too lazy/sleepy to pull it. doris tsao and a number of collaborators have a few nice papers out w ML applications to single unit/LFP recordings

They can now capture the activity of hundreds of neurons! That’s simultaneously amazing and so, so far from being able to create the digital twin they claim.

Amazing, there are estimated 86 billion neurons in the human brain, so they are just short of 85 billion and change.

But I think there is more to it, how many are used for speech vs vision, how much is used for motor control. If the idea is to build a speech neuron activity to some sort of ml data representation it's probably way less than 85b.

When they say "in 20-50 years" it is implied that it might not exist ever. See nuclear fusion or AGI.

Ethical considerations are briefly discussed at the end of the article -- too briefly, in my opinion.

We're alive for an infinitesimal blink of an eye before an eternity of annihilation. Brain science is still in the stone age. We should be flooring it with the research. Absolutely flooring it.

Death is a blessing that may not always exist

If endgame entities have control over the entire light cone, they can bend backwards and pluck you out of space and time and put you into an eternal hell simulator.

I wouldn't worry about what could or couldn't be.

One would think the endgame entities have better things to do.

One might think the same of many intelligent and wealthy humans but a number of them are nonetheless cruel, capricious, and uncaring. Why should 'endgame entities' be any different?

I don't think I would call them endgame entities.

Endgame by definition means they're bored out of their minds.

You'd think the endgame includes a solution to boredom.

That's what they're seeking. Question is, is the game structured to allow them to find it, or is it asymptotically approaching total boredom fast enough that all the endgame entities are doomed to get bored with the search for solution to boredom.

I agree neuroscience still in the stone age. Flooring the research I don’t think will do much to change it. It’s like flooring plasma physics research during the renaissance. We need different patterns of thinking, imo. Two examples come to mind: (1) our interest to boil down neural dynamics via quantization (what else would it look like, you may wonder. and exactly my point!) and (2) studying the brain in artificial environments. it’s like look at fish behavior while they’re in a tube in space

We need to stop thinking of human bodies as anything more than machines, and we need to start growing them in labs.

Conscious humans are obviously special. But if we grew non-thinking bodies and used them for research, we could vastly accelerate medical science, research and development, and treatments. We could accomplish this with gene knockouts.

It's too "icky" for people, so it hasn't been done.

Then make yourself a lab rat.

That's what this whole gradient ascent game is. You're playing too.

Do you mean in the sense of experiment on themselves, make themselves into a lab rat?

Or more literally, that they should make for themselves a lab rat, in the way The Thought Emporium is? https://youtu.be/Z_ZGq8Tah0k?si=UI18mJ4k5Xn4OtfD

ugh, ROLLS EYES

if I could embed a video on HN I would, such bullshit.

This person probably saw the nonsensical amounts of money that was being thrown at shitty AI vcs and thought “I can put on a performance like that”

Nothing's stopping you from linking to whatever you think might have a valid counterpoint, bud. But okay...

Counterpoint to what? The article is nothing but vague speculation and personal opinions.

The self-congratulatory tone and constant shilling of the author’s career (they are a nobody who hasn’t done anything meaningful despite the pedigree) makes me nauseous. The headshots and such make me think this is a ploy for easy (dumb) VC money.

The association with UCSF is touted but based on my experience, it’s nothing to brag about!

Don't all university press magazine things have this kind of imagery? Seems very common and not really telling you anything at all.

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