Page 36 - Monocle Quarterly Journal Vol 3 Issue 2 Spring

MONOCLE QUARTERLY JOURNAL | DEEP LEARNING
project – which may serve as a launchpad for a wider investigation into consciousness – is OpenWorm. The goal of the OpenWorm project was to build the first ever comprehensive, computational model of a living organism, digitally replicating each cell and every neuron, to become the world’s most detailed, virtual lifeform. The particular organism in question is Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a microscopic nematode, or roundworm, comprised of less than a thousand cells. Something of a hermaphroditic superstar in the scientific community – with research on C. elegans going back over 40 years – it is biologically perhaps the best understood creature in existence. To date, it is the only organism with every one of its 959 cells and 302 neurons completely mapped out in what is known as a connectome – a wiring diagram of sorts, detailing the connections and interactions of the neural system.
Despite its simple biology, C. elegans is a relatively complex creature compared to its microscopic worm counterparts. Unlike many its size, this roundworm is constantly reacting to stimuli, solving problems such as finding food, locating a mate, and even avoiding deadly predators like the Pristionchus pacificus, a fellow nematode that preys on the slightly smaller 1mm-long C. elegans. It is this combination of physical simplicity and sufficiently complex behaviour that make it the perfect subject for a project such as OpenWorm, as a first step in understanding the ephemeral relationships and interactions between individual neurons and how
They had created a virtual lifeform and the digitally replicated worm began to interact with its environment as if it were
these biochemical reactions ultimately affect behaviour. Once every neural interaction was captured in code, as a virtual brain of sorts, the next natural step for the OpenWorm project was to give the digitally replicated C. elegans a body. And once the software containing the encoded neural interactions was linked to some motors and sensors attached to a Lego body with wheels, without prompting, the robot came to life – it began to move on its own in ways that the scientists described as characteristic of a nematode. They had created a virtual lifeform, and the digitally replicated worm began to interact with its environment as if it were a real, organic
organism.
What the scientists at OpenWorm aimed to prove –
although only on a miniscule level – is that it is possible to model and replicate organic lifeforms in a digital format. And if it is true that the chemical pathways between neurons can be mapped, understood and exactly replicated, then there is conceptually nothing stopping the eventual recreation of a functioning human brain – either digitally or physically – given the fullness of time and the advancement of technology.
a real, organic organism.
2.2 MEASURING HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
The term “artificial intelligence” was coined in 1956 by computer scientist John McCarthy, who used it to refer to the idea of defining all aspects of human intelligence in such detail that a computer could be programmed to simulate each aspect, and thus give the appearance of intelligence. But human intelligence is an inscrutable
thing that cannot easily be defined, let alone replicated. Intelligence is largely accepted to be a context- dependent construct that evolves over time and varies in different cultures, making it notoriously hard to define and measure. Western theorists have generally agreed that there are multiple areas of capability that make up
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