<p>Humans may be able to upload their brains to computers by as early as 2045, some futurists believe.<br /><br /></p>.<p>This notion formed the basis for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held in New York, last week.<br /><br />The conference, which is the brainchild of Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov, featured Ray Kurzweil - an inventor, futurist and now director of engineering at Google - who predicted that by 2045, technology will have surpassed human brainpower to create a kind of superintelligence — an event known as the singularity.<br />Other scientists have said that robots will overtake humans by 2100, 'LiveScience' reported.<br /><br />According to Moore's law, computing power doubles approximately every two years. Several technologies are undergoing similar exponential advances, from genetic sequencing to 3D printing, Kurzweil told conference attendees.<br /><br />By 2045, "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," Kurzweil said.<br /><br />Substantial achievements have already been made in the field of brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs (also called brain-machine interfaces).<br /><br />Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz, electrical engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, are working to develop state-of-the-art motor BCIs.<br /><br />These devices consist of pill-size electrode arrays that record neural signals from the brain's motor areas, which are then decoded by a computer and used to control a computer cursor or prosthetic limb (such as a robotic arm).<br /><br />Theodore Berger, a neural engineer at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is taking BCIs to a new level by developing a memory prosthesis. Berger aims to replace part of the brain's hippocampus, the region that converts short-term memories into long-term ones, with a BCI.<br /><br />The device records the electrical activity that encodes a simple short-term memory (such as pushing a button) and converts it to a digital signal. That signal is passed into a computer where it is mathematically transformed and then fed back into the brain, where it gets sealed in as a long-term memory.<br /><br />Martine Rothblatt - a lawyer, author and entrepreneur, and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics Corp introduced the concept of "mindclones" - digital versions of humans that can live forever - in the conference.<br /><br />She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on 'mindware', a kind of software for consciousness.</p>
<p>Humans may be able to upload their brains to computers by as early as 2045, some futurists believe.<br /><br /></p>.<p>This notion formed the basis for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held in New York, last week.<br /><br />The conference, which is the brainchild of Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov, featured Ray Kurzweil - an inventor, futurist and now director of engineering at Google - who predicted that by 2045, technology will have surpassed human brainpower to create a kind of superintelligence — an event known as the singularity.<br />Other scientists have said that robots will overtake humans by 2100, 'LiveScience' reported.<br /><br />According to Moore's law, computing power doubles approximately every two years. Several technologies are undergoing similar exponential advances, from genetic sequencing to 3D printing, Kurzweil told conference attendees.<br /><br />By 2045, "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," Kurzweil said.<br /><br />Substantial achievements have already been made in the field of brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs (also called brain-machine interfaces).<br /><br />Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz, electrical engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, are working to develop state-of-the-art motor BCIs.<br /><br />These devices consist of pill-size electrode arrays that record neural signals from the brain's motor areas, which are then decoded by a computer and used to control a computer cursor or prosthetic limb (such as a robotic arm).<br /><br />Theodore Berger, a neural engineer at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is taking BCIs to a new level by developing a memory prosthesis. Berger aims to replace part of the brain's hippocampus, the region that converts short-term memories into long-term ones, with a BCI.<br /><br />The device records the electrical activity that encodes a simple short-term memory (such as pushing a button) and converts it to a digital signal. That signal is passed into a computer where it is mathematically transformed and then fed back into the brain, where it gets sealed in as a long-term memory.<br /><br />Martine Rothblatt - a lawyer, author and entrepreneur, and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics Corp introduced the concept of "mindclones" - digital versions of humans that can live forever - in the conference.<br /><br />She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on 'mindware', a kind of software for consciousness.</p>