Later Terminator: We’re Nowhere Near Artificial Brains

I can feel it in the air, so thick I can taste it. Can you? It’s the we’re-going-to-build-an-artificial-brain-at-any-moment feeling. It’s exuded into the atmosphere from news media plumes (“IBM Aims to Build Artificial Human Brain Within 10 Years”) and science-fiction movie fountains…and also from science research itself, including projects like Blue Brain and IBM’s SyNAPSE. For example, here’s a recent press release about the latter:

Today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) researchers unveiled a new generation of experimental computer chips designed to emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition.

Now, I’m as romantic as the next scientist (as evidence, see my earlier post on science monk Carl Sagan), but even I carry around a jug of cold water for cases like this. Here are four flavors of chilled water to help clear the palate.

The Worm in the Pass

In the story about the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, 300 soldiers prevent a million-man army from making their way through a narrow mountain pass. In neuroscience it is the 300 neurons of the roundworm C. elegans that stand in the way of our understanding the huge collections of neurons found in our or any mammal’s brain.

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