[ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping

[Anders Sandberg]

Seems like we are moving closer to a real project. Good news!

I am not just saying that as a neuroscientist/neuropundit, but also from 
the perspective of the safety of an upload transition. The worst 
scenarios are all of the type that neuroscience arrives last: we already 
have powerful computers and brain scans, we just cant get them to run. 
Then a breakthrough happens, and suddenly we have massive hardware 
overhang (very fast, multiple uploads can be run) and rapid change 
society is unlikely to keep up with. The nicer scenarios get the 
neuroscience roughly right from the start, and then show increasingly 
large animal models - the trend is obvious, society has a chance to 
adapt, and the first uploads will not be strongly posthuman. The BRAIN 
project aims at exactly what we need for increasing the chances of 
neuroscience getting there in time. There are also other projects (the 
EU one, and one other) that seem to be pulling in the right direction.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Faculty of Philosophy
Oxford University