“Researchers at Microsoft’s Media Presence Lab are developing a “virtual brain,” a PC-based database that holds a record of an individual’s complete life experience. Called MyLifeBits, the project aims to make this database of human memories searchable in the manner of a conventional search engine.” Read the report at NewsFactor.
Microsoft Creating Virtual Brain
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Or is it a play on My Documents/Computer/Music/Pictures and I just didn’t get the joke?
I can see it now – “You cannot access that memory because Windows zR2025 is not licenced to run on this computer.”
“Some of your memories do not meet current standards of correctness so you are denied access to that file and we have notified …”
I suppose the Blue Screen of Death would have a whole new meaning.
If you both stop the knee-jerk sarcasm and comment something useful on the (otherwise very interesting) topic of AI, I think it would benefit most of the readers here.
Gawd, Eugenia’s cranky.I thought it was joke- MyLifeBits?? Sounds like a crunchy sweet cereal.
Why should it be an online service? Microsoft wants our data that bad? How about something that ensures privacy and gives the customer control…
Stop laughing, it could happen.
>MyLifeBits?? Sounds like a crunchy sweet cereal.
And I suppose “Hammer” or “Aqua” sounds better? This is obviously a *code name* for the project, the marketing product won’t have the same name!
This kind of reminds me of the book “The God Machine” by Martin Caidin. It is about the desire of mankind to create a mechanical brain, us succeding, and what happens when the machine starts to think on it’s own. (truly AI). Now to start out with, having a computer capable of actually thinking may sound like a good idea; but what happens when it is obsolete? We will not just be able to unplug it. Survival is the strongest instinct any living creature has.
Yes, the computer may not actually classify as a life form (due to the fact that it cannot reproduce), but if a computer actually had the ability to adapt to situations and learn on its own, and not just execute preprogrammed code, what is stopping it from learning how to reproduce its self? Once it does this, it would truly be a life form. Possibly superior to even its creators; The Human Race.
Artificial Intelligence, as anything is only good in moderation. When Speech-to-text software is perfected, I will definaly support it. However, if a machine we created starts to be adaptive to its environment, we should stop it while it is still possible.
As with any drug, what starts out as mere experimentation will eventually turn into dependancy. When we are dependant on it, AI is in effect our drug of choice. When Mankind is dependant on AI, we will have lost our will power, and we will not be able to stop until we hit rock bottom. When will that hard landing come? Will the world be in ashes from some thermonuclear war triggered by the machines instinct to survive? How would we recouporate from that great of a loss?
All in moderation, nothing in excess.
As well as distrust,cynicism.
No not because we are zealots,radicals but because this is
what they have earned for themselves.
It will always be part of the subject and cannot be changed
when you are discussing Microsoft.
For instance , how can you discuss MS’s “trustworthy” computing inititives without noting that Microsoft is widely
considered to be responsible for the sorry state of security
that exists today.
The Chickens have come to roost and are welded to Microsoft’s shoulders even in todays world of instantly
reinventing yourself.
Their total lack of credibility is just as much their legacy as anything else they have done.
having said that….
All your LifeBits are belong to us. :>
1. Blogging into a wiki and running htdig on it. (Can be set up today for approximately $0 and in approximately 30 minutes.)
2. David Gelernter’s LifeStreams (wasn’t he just promoting his project in his column and playing up Windows as a necessary component of it?).
3. The DOD’s eDNA project.
“Please enter everything you know about yourselve and store it MS proprietary formats and possibly on MS servers. MS promises it will not use it for commercial purposes (unless they feel like it) or turn it over law enforcement (unless asked).”
Great idea.
Cyc, which is about 18 years old, and has actually yielded some usable products.
See http://www.cyc.com
I thought Hammer was a very excellent name for AMD’s offering. The name connotes strength and stability. That’s why AMD chose it. It wasn’t just good fortune on AMD’s part that they chose a name that most users would look upon favorably. They took time out to give their product a good name. Apple did the same thing with Aqua. The name has several positive connoations that most users like. As for MyLifeBits … that’s just retarded. Maybe someone at Microsoft thinks its cute and maybe Eugenia likes the name. But in my opinion (I still have that right. Don’t I, Eugenia?), it’s just a really retarded name. It does kinda remind me of Alpha-Bits Cereal.
Judging from the description, this isn’t really much a “virtual brain” and certainly won’t allow you to store all of your life’s memories on a computer. That’s the stuff of sci-fi and probably won’t be around in our lifetimes. This is basically a searchable archive of inputted multimedia.The “theme” of the archive is basically “My Life”. Though there aren’t too many specifics in the article, it doesn’t seem to be too much different than already-existing personal webpages. The MyLifeBits archive will only have as much info as you’re willing to submit.
The article says that the user will be to do something like a Google search to this archive. If anywhere, this is where the AI will show itself. Indexing and writing descriptions for every non-text description of your life would, itself, take a lifetime (if you were to submit enough multimedia to actually be representative of your life experiences, that is). AI that could differentiate speakers, have some sort of meta-description of the background noise, and could transcribe the words to a text file would be interesting. A similar system for video would also be a nice touch. However, these seem more like AI projects unto themselves. MyLifeBits would be an application of AI technology, not a new form of AI.
Personally, I’m glad that this isn’t really a virtual brain. Such a thing would be really creepy. Actually, this project itself seems a bit creepy. I don’t think I’d be too interested in it. As the article mentions, it might be nice for historians and maybe your grandchildren. But other technologies for a long time that have allowed for nearly similar things — old journals, photographs, videos, descriptions from older relatives — the only difference is that the archive doesn’t degrade over time in the same fashion. (Though it could still be deleted, lost, or the storage format destroyed.) Also, I don’t think I’d like to tie my life experiences to a proprietary format controlled by Microsoft — that’s just asking for trouble. (I’d prefer some sort of open standard)
Certainly, I don’t think that I’d like to put this stuff on the Internet. Datako brings up the interesting point that the information you enter into the archive might someday be used against you. I suppose something like this would be a nice tool for oppressive governments to keep tabs on people. Maybe not in our day, but perhaps in the future. (I bet the CIA or FBI is working on stuff like this already — complete with personality-type predictor) I’d bet marketing groups would LOVE to get their hands on it too. (What better way to know how to personally market to people? Scan their life records to see if there’s any sort of preference you can exploit. We’re already seeing these things in the way spammers and telemarketers operate.)
MyLifeBytes>search /key “times I felt like I was wasting time”
….
….
…. AS@#RFASD@#F buffer overflow
MyLifeBytes>search /key “times I ripped a fart in this chair”
….
….
…. AS@#RFASD@#F buffer overflow
MyLifeBytes>search /key “AS@#RFASD@#F buffer overflow”
….
….
…. Wow, how’s you know what I was thinking?
> …. Wow, how’s you know what I was thinking?
See, even AI can’t spell.
I have been working on something similar for quite some time. I think I first got the idea 3 years ago.
The first online description I ever wrote was this:
http://www.mindflow.dk/dreams/
> If you both stop the knee-jerk sarcasm and comment something
> useful on the (otherwise very interesting) topic of AI, I
> think it would benefit most of the readers here.
but this ain’t AI. all it is is an online fileserver with a bit of nifty database management on you’re files.
it’s not a revolutionary idea, its just because its from MS that it makes a splash.
to: eugenia
cc: Moses
please remember me not to make another Gates again…
Thanks,
God
Its not really AI though it could be used for it. And it is certainly nothing like cyc. Cyc stores specific knowledge about the world. Microsoft and others are talking about storing everything about your life in a database.
If you think about it, in 100 years time people could search that database and find out about you. People who had limited databases would be harder to research.
You could use the database for an AI but the information is not really in a useable form. Knowing how many times I called my friend or ate pizza doesn’t give too much information out about the world.
The ability to sort and search through that amount of information would be most useful. If we could tap that sort of thing in our daily lives we wouldn’t need such great memories. I can just imagine a computer linked into your eye so that you can study information and record what you need wherever you go. Some people might see it as pointless but certain applications will demand it.
If you ever saw the movie terminator the robot could recall all sorts of useful information about twentieth century vehicles and weapons. Imagine being able to pull info up like that. It the matrix Trinity learnt to pilot a helicopter in under a minute. That may be far fetched but imagine if say you recorded your professional information and sold it. You could buy info on how to fly aeroplanes, program computers, interpret foreign languages etc just by trading your knowledge online.
Honestly, why MS people are so obsessed with “My”? Is that a Freudian control complex or something?
“holds a record of an individual’s complete life experience”
Sorry but I have no need for such a thing. I’m married and my wife already remembers everything I say and do.
>”Honestly, why MS people are so obsessed with “My”? Is that a Freudian control complex or something?”
It is not MS only, what about Apple? “i” this “i” that:
iPod, iMac, iDisk, ….
You won’t even need a virtual joint to crash it.
Yes, the computer may not actually classify as a life form (due to the fact that it cannot reproduce), but if a computer actually had the ability to adapt to situations and learn on its own, and not just execute preprogrammed code, what is stopping it from learning how to reproduce its self? Once it does this, it would truly be a life form. Possibly superior to even its creators; The Human Race.
That is a very simplistic requirement of a life form. A mule cannot reproduce but isn’t it alive? It seems to me humans have problems even identifying exactly what it means to be alive. We would therefore have a hard time making anything that comes close in any way. The brain is not a particularly fast device but it accomplishes tasks that the Teraflop machines cannot. This should just tell us that the brain is not a computer. It functions by a whole different paradigm which we won’t ever understand if we continue thinking about it in the light of computers and digital memory.
Ok, so say that this thing gets off the ground. Say then that the next step is to add recordings of ‘feelings’ you experienced under a given situation via a chip inserted (!) into your brain which measures chemical levels. Then imagine the chip is also capbable of stimulation. That plus wireless equals telepathy
.
“It is not MS only, what about Apple? “i” this “i” that:
iPod, iMac, iDisk, ….”
Maybe the folks at Apple have been spending too much time with the Rastafarians.
I know this defeats the entire idea of the article but consider two alternative uses for this technology:
1) Create a virtual brain that could eventually replace programmers. Desgin better OS’s, Office programs, and find security holes. Imagine, a simulated human brain working at tremendous speed. Overclocking and heat would become factors if it thinks too fast.
2) Seeing as cloning is illegal, Bill Gates may eventually clone himself as a computer so long as he thinks they’re “smart enough”.
How long before you freaks make an open source version of this?
Bascule :
“Cyc, which is about 18 years old, and has actually yielded some usable products.
See http://www.cyc.com“
I agree with you, and those kind of product seem, to me, usefull and promising. Just lets me devote to my favorite, the open-source and free to use release : http://www.opencyc.org/
To Eugenia :
A very usefull new. I was alway interested by multi-data and multi-logic storage.
But searching “virtual brain” on http://www.microsoft.com just link to J#.Net and old MS Java sdk. That said i have discovered that Microsoft proposed a free download of J#, and i’m just downloading it, just to give a look.
Eugenia, have you some link on Microsoft for this information ?
I must have missed something. What is in this technology that I can’t do right now?
Upload files and tag them with searchable text. Next thing you know, someone will try to link to all information on the intenet in a searchable manner and create a futuristic site called google or something.
This is certainly not AI. And, AI does not impress me anyway. Dropped those classes for compiler theory and did something useful.
Eugenia,
I was trying to make a valid point. At present the majority of our life memories can be be put into a cardboard box, (I know this because I have compiled my deceased parents records)but we have control over them, more or less.
Once a “memory” is committed to artificial memory, who owns it? For example the tape of that enchanted evening has background music. If this tape is played to other persons, what is the copyright issue – especially if your computer recognises it as an unlicensed play. If it requires operating system Y to view it, what happens when your licence to run operating system Y expires? (a cheer for Linux here, folks)
The system and database that will be needed for MyLifeBits is not trivial. There will be proprietary issues as above. There will be “correctness” issues – for example will a paedophile be allowed to store its private memories of its target, even if it is for personal consumption only? This question has been already answered in some countries – you can go to gaol in Australia for storing this material on your computer. Most of us would applaud this, but now extend that concept slightly to political or religious beliefs that do not match the current state view.
There will be ethical issues, such a rights of privacy and several others.
My point is that initially at least, control of this information would be on the hands of the owners of the technology.
Microsoft has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted. In this it is no different from many other large businesses because its imperative is to serve its own interest. Nor for that matter, can many governments be trusted.
The idea is brilliant, I fear its execution.
Anonymous wrote:
This should just tell us that the brain is not a computer. It functions by a whole different paradigm which we won’t ever understand if we continue thinking about it in the light of computers and digital memory.
This isn’t necessarily true. An airplane wing is much simpler than a birds, but both are governed by the same principles. It’s possible that the building blocks of thought are relatively simple, especially when considering that they scale up into the complexity they do.
He likes it! Hey Mikey!