Information Technology Reference
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the Master Chief for the first and last time. Besides introducing such love
interest, one of the innovative technologies introduced by Xbox and Halo was
an application of machine learning that was able to rapidly match the skill
levels of different players.
The last example of the creation of a sentient computer that we shall dis-
cuss is contained in the 2003 topic
Dark Matter
by Greg Iles. Here the method
for creating an intelligent machine is not by writing clever software but by
creating a “super MRI machine” to make an incredibly detailed copy of the
human brain:
Everyone wants to build a computer that works like the human brain, but
we don't understand how the brain works. Everyone concedes that. Well …
two years ago, one man realized this didn't have to be the obstacle everyone
thought it was. That we might be able to
copy
the brain without actually
understanding what we were doing.
45
The enormously high magnetic field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
machine has such a high resolution that the reactions between individual
nerve synapses are visible and the machine can produce three-dimensional
snapshots of the brain right down to the molecular level. This leads to the real-
ization that such detailed “neuromodels” of brains actually capture the person
it was taken from:
We can't build a computer that thinks
like
a person. We're talking about
copying an individual human brain. Creating a digital entity that for all
practical purposes
is
a person. With his or her cognitive functions, memories,
hopes, dreams … everything except a body. Only it would run at the speed of
a digital computer. One million times faster than biological circuitry.
46
By the end of the novel, the new type of supercomputer exists and has taken
control of the world's nuclear weapon systems. It promises to act as a benign
force for the survival of humanity - at least until threatened by the existence of
another Super-MRI-generated sentient supercomputer!