It may sound like the plot
from the latest science fiction blockbuster, but uploading your brain onto a
computer to achieve immortality could soon become a reality.
In a new interview,
Professor Brian Cox said that the technique, known as 'technological
singularity' could be available sooner than you think.
Professor Cox said that he
found 'no reason at all' why human intelligence couldn't be simulated by
computers - although he did not express a timeline for this to happen.
Professor Cox spoke about
the merging of humans with machines during an interview with The Sun Online.
He said that he found 'no
reason at all why you cannot simulate human intelligence', adding that
according to quantum physics – an area that he specialises in – true artificial
intelligence is definitely possible.
Technological singularity is
a technique that experts believe could be used in the future to convert
someone's mind into digital data and 'upload' it into an immensely powerful
computer.
This would allow you to live
in a world of unbounded virtual experiences and effectively achieve
immortality.
Professor Cox said: 'I don't
think people's minds are different from computers because that would imply
there's something non-physical about them.'
Professor Cox isn't alone in
his ambitions.
Last year, Ray Kurzweil,
director of engineering at Google, predicted that in just over 30 years, humans
will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally
immortal.
Mr Kurzweil also claimed
that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts
and this could happen as early as 2100.
He said: 'Based on
conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally
simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a
billion-fold.'
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and
SpaceX has also had his say on technological singularity, claiming that the
chance that we are not living in a computer simulation was only 'one in
billions'.
But not everyone is so
convinced by the idea.
In a recent article
for The Conversation, Professor Richard Jones,
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield
outlined some 'serious problems' with the idea.
He said: 'To replicate the
mind digitally we would have to map each of these connections, something that
is far beyond our current capabilities.
'Even if we could create
such a "wiring diagram" for a living brain, that wouldn't be enough
to understand how it operates.
'For that we'd need to
quantify exactly how the neurons interact at each of the junctions, and that's
a matter of molecular-level detail.
'We don't even know how many
molecules are in the brain, let alone how many are vital for its functions, but
whatever the answer it's too many to replicate with a computer.
'No conceivable increase in
computer power will allow us to simulate the brain at the level of individual
molecules.
'So brain emulation would
only be possible if we could abstract its digital, logical operations from the
messy molecular level detail.'