Winner of the Wolf Prize for his contribution to our understanding of the universe, Penrose takes on the question of whether artificial intelligence will ever ...

Computers have far to go to match human strengths, and our estimates will depend on analogy and extrapolation. Fortunately, these are grounded in the first bit of the journey, now behind us. Thirty years of computer vision reveals that 1 MIPS can extract simple features from real-time imagery--tracking a white line or a white spot on a mottled background. 10 MIPS can follow complex gray-scale patches--as smart bombs, cruise missiles and early self-driving vans attest. 100 MIPS can follow moderately unpredictable (...) features like roads--as recent long NAVLAB trips demonstrate. 1,000 MIPS will be adequate for coarse-grained three-dimensional spatial awareness--illustrated by several mid-resolution stereoscopic vision programs, including my own. 10,000 MIPS can find three-dimensional objects in clutter--suggested by several "bin-picking" and high-resolution stereo-vision demonstrations, which accomplish the task in an hour or so at 10 MIPS. The data fades there--research careers are too short, and computer memories too small, for significantly more elaborate experiments. (shrink)

This book represents the views of one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century on the analogies between computing machines and the living human brain.

Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hormones, and other molecules. The neglect of neurochemistry in cognitive science would be appropriate if the computational properties of brains relevant to explaining mental functioning were in fact electrical rather than chemical. But there is considerable evidence that chemical complexity really does matter to brain computation, including the role of proteins in intracellular computation, the operations of synapses and neurotransmitters, and the effects of neuromodulators such as hormones. (...) Neurochemical computation has implications for understanding emotions, cognition, and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

The ultimate goal of nanomedicine is to perform nanorobotic therapeutic procedures on specified individual cells comprising the human body. This paper reports the first theoretical scaling analysis and mission design for a cell repair nanorobot. One conceptually simple form of basic cell repair is chromosome replacement therapy ; in which the entire chromatin content of the nucleus in a living cell is extracted and promptly replaced with a new set of prefabricated chromosomes which have been artificially manufactured as defect-free copies (...) of the originals. The chromallocyte is a hypothetical mobile cell-repair nanorobot capable of limited vascular surface travel into the capillary bed of the targeted tissue or organ; followed by extravasation; histonatation; cytopenetration; and complete chromatin replacement in the nucleus of one target cell; and ending with a return to the bloodstream and subsequent extraction of the device from the body; completing the CRT mission. A single lozenge-shaped 69 micron3 chromallocyte measures 4.18 microns and 3.28 microns along cross-sectional diameters and 5.05 microns in length; typically consuming 50-200 pW in normal operation and a maximum of 1000 pW in brief bursts during outmessaging; the most energy-intensive task. Treatment of an entire large human organ such as a liver; involving CRT on all 250 billion multinucleate hepatic tissue cells; might require the localized infusion of a ~1 terabot ~69 cm3 chromallocyte dose in a 1-liter 7% saline suspension during a ~7 hour course of therapy. Chromallocytes would be the ideal delivery vector for gene therapy. (shrink)

The vasculoid is a single; complex; multisegmented nanotechnological medical robotic system capable of duplicating all essential thermal and biochemical transport functions of the blood; including circulation of respiratory gases; glucose; hormones; cytokines; waste products; and cellular components. This nanorobotic system; a very aggressive and physiologically intrusive macroscale nanomedical device comprised of ~500 trillion stored or active individual nanorobots; weighs ~2 kg and consumes from 30-200 watts of power in the basic human model; depending on activity level. The vasculoid system conforms (...) to the shape of existing blood vessels and serves as a complete replacement for natural blood. This paper presents a preliminary theoretical scaling analysis including transport capacity; thermal conduction; control and biocompatibility considerations; along with a hypothetical installation scenario and a description of some useful optional equipment. A discussion of repair procedures and various applications of the personal vasculoid appliance is deferred to subsequent papers. (shrink)

Neuronanorobotics is the application of medical nanorobots to the human brain. This paper proposes three specific classes of neuronanorobots; named endoneurobots; gliabots and synaptobots; which together can non-destructively map and monitor the structural changes occurring on the 86 x 109 neurons and the 2.42 x 1014 synapses in the human brain; while also recording the synaptic-processed 4.31 x 1015 spikes/sec carrying electrical functional information processed in the neuronal and synaptic network.