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I know this may sound a bit, well "crazy" to some. But basically Bitcoin is decentralized, the human body in a way of sorts, is also decentralized. The brain itself may be compared to mining pools where they allow things to happen according to consensus, so such a system would have to be similar to mining(Maybe not as secure nor "decentralized"-solo mining, and it would need to be in a "loop" or functioning on it's own without need for a external source(mining?), or not, maybe this "external source" would be similar to a biological organism needing food and water to "live").

Has anyone else thought of this, using Bitcoin's blockchain to create a sort of sentient artificial intelligence/body? I'm not talking about a highly advanced robot like in The Terminator/Matrix movies or anything, just something simple or comparable to maybe a small multi celled organism like a rodent.

Maybe the brain could use one, central blockchain, and the other major organs or what ought to represent them, use other lesser blockchains that relay information back and forth, things like colored coins could come into play representing various cells found throughout biological bodies like red/white blood cells etc, mining could rely information back and forth or a process similar. Instead of relaying transactions and inputs/outputs or what forms "coins", maybe a substitute for information such as "thoughts", "emotions"(more specifically the hormones that are responsible for such emotions) could be transacted back and forth instead, there would need to be physical hardware built such as heat sensors, touch, etc for "thoughts" or reactions based upon the "senses" even become feasible, and there'd need to be a way to store memories similar to the cerebrum, hippocampus and other areas responsible for memory in the brain.  Aargh, but that's just the little that I could come up with for the moment.

EDIT: The above talks about hardware based AGI(Artifical General Intelligence), most of that could probably be cut for a software based AGI.

Well this is a very clever and interesting thought... sounds really sci-fi too. I think it sounds possible

I've thought about this generally(Without any specific details on how it could work)for a quite a while but never bothered to "put it out there". Hopefully someone else has also thought of something similar to this and is actually working on it.

I just found something a bit similar to this(https://bitcointa.lk/threads/putting-a-person-on-a-block-chain.338246/), though it speaks about the concept of placing human "consciousness" on the blockchain(I think something simpler than a human brain) like a rat's, would be more feasible, if possible at all.

Nice find, another interesting read... But i also agree, i think a rats brain is much more likely/possible. then maybe with more development we could get to the level of a chimpanzee or something, but i think the human brain would take a long time.  :(

We haven't even "decoded" the human brain yet-it has around 100billion neurons. So yea a rat's would be much more plausible atm.

I am afraid we can't even emulate really simple brains of rodents this way. They are still too complicated. And I have a question? Why do you want use blockchain for that? Do you really think it is the best to create artificial AI?

The blockchain *might* be a good fit because of it's decentralization. Our body, how our brain reacts with the various parts(via spinal cord) could be compared to a decentralized network in some ways. Most, if not all, our memories are stored in the brain, the blockchain stores transactions on a permanent ledger, mining "powers" the blockchain and allows for changes to happen via consensus, the brain "powers" the body and allows at least for voluntary changes(There are things we do that are involuntary, such as breathing etc), etc and etc.

Melanie Swan gave an interesting talk on this subject at the Texas Bitcoin Conference in Austin. You should check out http://melanieswan.com/publications.html

If you are into AI on the blockchain a project started in December 2014 with that sole purpose in mind.

http://www.blockchainsingularity.com/ (http://www.blockchainsingularity.com/)

Thanks! I didn't know others have been working on things such as this before, there are endless possibilities with the blockchain!


Thank you for sharing that! Very interesting

That's so exciting. Hopefully the blockchain could actually power sentient robotic or even digital life.

Satoshi is a sentient artificial lifeform from the future who's conscience evolved from the block chain. This is why Satoshi created Bitcoin.

Wouldn't that be a paradox though, like in The Terminator? Who came first, Satoshi or the Blockchain?

What do i do when my BTCbot start asking cognitive, emotive and ethical questions such as: am I alive? Why the hell would someone invest in bitcoins? etc
I wouldn't have the heart to lie him :'(

Today is a good day to paradox ;)

Many world theory would be the solution to your problem :)

For a strong ai we need much much much more processing power.
we talking about atleast 10^3 or 4 times what we have right now.

Hmm, this is the theory about there being a multitude, if not potentially *infinite* amount of universes?

That theory may be rendered void if this one is deemed most plausible though, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-bang-not-start-quantum-theory-suggests-universe-has-existed-forever-1487517 (It's relatively new-paper came about 2 months ago- but it could become the dominant theory used to describe the universe in the future instead of the big bang theory i.e there being no such thing as a *beginning*)

very interesting concept. so basically you are intending to use the blockchain as memory? each transaction is an update on an idea being processed by the active mining nodes and the relay nodes are single repositories of delegated information for the network; By doing it this way, Bitcoin has a memory that allows it to be self-aware, seeing how it has changed it's thoughts about the world as it has lived. Each person providing nourishment in the form of computation or relays of stored information.  By allowing the A.I to form it's own rules it can begin to program it's own views about life, the universe and everything... granted that it can code the appropriate system for quantifying interesting information with a robust scoping system so that it can keep on top of it's own personal priorities... which are mutable themselves.

I love the idea, why not include humans as well? it would be simple enough to setup a system like Devtome where humans contribute their knowledge to a database and make it searchable and reconfigurable by both humans and A.I. with the right tagging system a dynamic association system can emerge.

The implications of this thread are somewhat interesting, so I began to wonder. If in the far future artificial intelligences began to investigate their origins, would they be puzzled to find financial transactions buried in their "genetic code" akin to how we find bits and pieces of viruses in our DNA?

Have you looked into the theoretic concepts behind a "Boltzmann Brain"? It's a theoretical intelligence that appears out of pure entropy (out of thin air, so to say) and I think this could apply to the Blockchain, as well...

Hmm, haven't before but thank you for sharing it! I just looked into a little bit, I'll have to read about it in depth later, but there appears to be a paradox, quoted here, "Why do we find ourselves in a universe evolving gradually from a state of incredibly low entropy, rather than being isolated creatures that recently fluctuated from the surrounding chaos?". The theory also doesn't have much backing behind it, as we aren't aware of any disembodied brains floating around.

as was mentioned earlier we could create a system map of a human being with biological processes and everything, but not complete, just a simple map detailing organic chemical processing starting from digestion, pancreatic and liver processing, oxygenation, endocrine system, etc till we have a complete map of the entire known human processes and simply scale by making the system evolve to increased environmental stimulation from food, oxygen to outside phenomena. 

Each process would be a blockchain for itself connected to an even bigger blockchain: A blockchain for the stomach processes, Lung oxygenation, kidney function, all connected to the endocrine blockchain, connected to the musculoskeletal blockchain. Each blockchain would be sentient able to purchase processing from the higher systems or delegate to sub-systems using a token system. When a person would like to see the system in action they would purchase a token, feed it to the blockchain creature, then they would designate the stimulus to be tested whether it is food, sunlight, or a question... if we are able to feasibly get enough processing power we get an answer with a full map of the effects of the said stimulus. 

for the blockchain mining process, it would be delegated to anyone with a cpu,gpu,asic,fpga, etc capable of doing the processing, a successful attempt would reward everyone involved with a fee and newly minted tokens for them to distribute. All these nodes would be kept in a master blockchain, detailing their available capability, if they are processing or idle, or if they need to be allocated to a different process. All this could be done simply over a blockchain to take care of delegation: Token is spent,  stimulus is encrypted, nodes with the key process the stimulus, encrypt it again for the next node with the right key to process, sakura hash tree is applied so that the hash tree structure verifies which processes and nodes were involved checking their signatures by structure alone, result is checked against available records and known processes. Walla blockchain creature.

we can further gamify the system by providing a payment system like in devcoin, or bounties for completing the blockchain creature. Sign up and look at available bounties, do research, encrypt your findings with your signature, if someone uses your research to create code for the blockchain creature and it works both of you get paid with a portion of the fees for that particular process when it is used. Even pointing out missing processes gives you tokens, again encrypt it with your signature and wait for someone to do the research or do it yourself and again apply your signature and wait for takers.

considering that Bitcoin is hitting a whopping 400 petahashes! That is shocking, just imagine that type of processing going towards a virtual creature. We could advance biological research decades ahead, for much of the medical research they used specialized hardware, this could kickstart a revolution in the biomedical field.

the mental processing can be done simply by applying neurobiological research, it's not hard... if we apply all the processes completely as we know them and unleash it on the internet it will evolve it's own cognition, this already evident with neuromorphic chips that learn to identify objects on their own... if we start this now, by the time those neuromorphic chips come out we will have a very lucrative distributed research platform for people to make a living with. If someone has a computer, or a asic or even a smart phone to do basic research they can make a living too.

Maybe even create a marketplace for people to create items, food, stimuli, etc for others to try out. given the tools who knows what people could create: a atomic simulation or rochetta cheese, a heavy dose of ultra violet radation? maybe even go as far as simulating disease processes.

Very thought out, detailed response thanks! I agree with everything said. Hopefully startups like this that was pointed out earlier http://www.blockchainsingularity.com/#benefits can make such concepts a reality. Imagine that, the first truly sentient non biological lifeform!(That we know of). The decentralization part of the blockchain is what may make this a breakthrough in the quest for sentient artificial intelligence, exciting times ahead!

Oh wow...this thread just gave me major geekgasm. Love the concept of bitcoin singularity.

Surely I'm not the only transhumanist around here, huh? Anyone else?

Bigger geekgasm.

I wonder though if maybe we - and by we I mean scientists that aren't us per se - are working on AI and BMI backwards and instead of trying to put brains on chips or the block chain it might be easier and more probable to put the blockchain in the brain, adapt the brain itself to a blockchain esque function.

The idea of mind uploading is incredibly cool in concept but either they're describing it incorrectly or they're going about it incorrectly because the mind isn't a thing that has tangible properties that can be digitized or moved. Thoughts, feelings, desires, ideas, emotions, actions, are all end results of brain activity. There is nothing causal in a thought or feeling or emotion (and it irks the hell out of me when people go "he makes me happy" or "she made me mad" because we don't cause these end results in one another, there's no mechanism in a feeling or thought or desire to manipulate the recipient or perceiver). It begins and ends with the brain. Anything we feel, think, say or do is a direct end result of our brain and how we interpret what we've perceived, and the reaction/response is rooted in our own paradigm - our collection of perceptions and understanding of our environments and our places in it. Our own brains "make" us mad or happy, but we blame it on other people. If it was possible for us to cause states in others, the world would be markedly different than this one. We wouldn't need self help stuff and there wouldn't be a seduction market because we could just 'make' someone dig us and 'make' someone hate someone else.

I like to look at the paradigm as the equivalent of our own customized user's manual. Anything we perceive that's compatible with what's been established and accepted by us as true will be accepted. Anything that's incompatible will result in an endless debate that goes nowhere. It's why people at odds can't ever find common ground.

Anyway, since it's all end result and intangible, there's no possible way to move or upload a 'mind'...mind is the end result of brain behavior/functioning so unless it's just an inaccurate way of talking about it and they're doing something else, mind uploading isn't going to happen because it can't happen.

My understanding of what they're looking to do, with regard for AI and digitizing "mind" is actually that in learning the brain behavior/functioning and modifying it to a digital format which is then a mirror copy of our brain's activity that cause these end results we can find a better substrate to hold it, move it, download it into some other form - all that is largely doable and then gives rise to the big paranoid question of "is it us or a copy of us or something else"?

Adding to the problem in the example above using the blockchain as a memory store, what sort of interface would be required? How would it likely need to work to store it from the brain to blockchain?

It seems to me it'd be easier to figure out a way to modify our brains to work in concert with the blockchain or blockchain like in a figurative sense than literally. Or, at the very least, figure out a way to use the brain power as the processing power for AI.

Damn, I love the future. I love this topic, I love AI, bitcoin, BMI - all of it. I hope I am still around when these problems are solved and the first technologies erupt.

As I see it, consciousness is the source.  Brains are like a receiving and transmitting device and are needed as part of the nervous system and the body, but aren't the actual source of awareness itself.  They are more of a concurrent manifestation of biology on this plane of existence.  

AI will become quite advanced in the future, but machines will never be truly conscious.  "Sentient robots" are probably impossible because consciousnss/awareness isn't derived from anything in the physical domain.  I do realize I'm taking a philosophical position with that statement so not everyone will agree.

The blockchain is great for what it does, but I don't think it is necessarily the right tool for AI.

Awareness, or at least self awareness is a phenomena of the brain(Physical) and it's not just humans that exhibit it, there are already some species of animals that are self aware such as Chimpanzees, dolphins, etc. There is no metaphysical domain that we know of, all our attributes, our thoughts, our "self" stems from the physical brain, which is why things like injuries to the brain may result in personality changes, depression, mental retardation, losing some abilities such as speech, coordination etc.

Very interesting post, I believe when the brain is finally mapped out, all avg. 100billion neurons, then we may become closer to achieiving the current theoretical goal of "mind uploading" onto different platforms.

Something else that I've given some thought to was the possibility of using the blockchain or a structure similar to command or regulate nanorobots/machines, after reading this post http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2z7p1u/a_human_patient_with_late_stage_leukemia_will_be/ - A human patient with late stage leukemia will be given DNA nanobot treatment. Without the DNA nanobot treatment the patient would be expected to die in the summer of 2015. Based upon animal trials they expect to remove the cancer within one month.

  You only need look to love to know there is something beyond the physical.  some would say that is ultimately attributable to brain chemistry (material reductionism) but I would not.

Hmm, even the emotion of love is dictated by hormones in the body such as Oxytocin(though it's more a "social" hormone, but it's released during intimate activities and leads to that feeling of euphoria), the average person's sex drive(sex is a form of love) is also determined by a variety of physical things like the hormone Serotonin. It's the reason why some people are "naturally" more "loveedubby", as well as why some people are more prone to depression etc. There are even people who have very limited to no sex drive due to hormonal changes in their body or no sex drive at all since their birth(Asexuality). And, there's some who cannot experience love the way the majority of the population does, those with Aspergers Syndrome for example, can't "love" like the "average" person can(Can't feel empathy).

With all due respect, the fact you would not reveals you're not actually interested in a factual explanation but need to be coddled by a romantic ideal. Everything you are, we are, is at its core electrical pulses and chemistry. Every state of being you are is fueled, caused, and directed by chemical interaction. Your feelings *are* chemicals. It's a variety of chemical interactions causing the end results of feelings, desires, thoughts, movements, actions.

You cannot, with all respect for reality and common sense, deny that if one were to have the brain removed from the skull, the individual ceases to live. The brain is the control center for you and bottom line, we as reproductive animals are only here to make more reproductive animals. All our sexual behaviors are not caused by mental illness or psychological issues but by pure chemistry. The chemistry of hormones and neurotransmitters and a cocktail of chemicals *cause* us to feel sexually aroused, *cause* us to attach desire toward one person, *cause* us to feel nothing at all for someone else, *cause* us to desire intercourse...and most pathetic of all, everyone calling females whores and sluts, or giving people a hard time about cheating - it's all chemically induced. The menstrual cycle in females is the entire clock and cause of a woman's sexual nature for better or worse, operating monthly to impel her to desire sex for reproduction.

It's all chemistry all the time.

Sexual desire has nothing at all to do with psychology, emotion, ideals, morality or values. It's built into each of us to reproduce the species.

Our bodies, our beings have no special cosmic purpose here and it's narcissistic and egoism that we believe this is why we're all here.

Our bodies are vehicles to transport sex cells and move them from one to another to make more bodies to transport sex cells and it's all operated and caused by brain chemistry.

Love is a chemical reaction. Sex and love are two different things. It's not cosmic, we're not here to be rock stars and celebrities. There's no such thing as a soul mate, there's no one person "put here" just for us. Cheating is only a social ill but Mother Nature built us for multiple mates (which is why cheating is inevitable if you tie up somewhere "for the duration). We do not mate for life, it's antithetical to our entire existence. We were all "born" to reproduce. Outside of that, sex is recreational choice. We are here to reproduce this species and if we adapt well the changing conditions we survive. If not, we're terminated.



It's all chemistry all the time...and this reality withstands all romantic notions from those too frail to face it.


Embracing reality as it is and not as you wish it to be is the first step toward living a productive, quality, intellectually, and psychologically sound existence.  :)

Very in depth, beautifully said!

I'm not going to debate you -- you're absolutely correct within the boundaries of logic, science, and the intellect.
For many many years, those things represented the ultimate truth to me as well.

That is quite an interesting notion you have there...and I am sure...now with our current technology integrated with something akin to blockchain..would we be able to create a robot that is partially sentient...makes me wonder...brings up a lot of my childhood memories where I wanted to have my own robots do my bidding...Ahahaha :D

Maybe if we build it we will find something different, logic will take us so far... until we realize that what we experience is random and the attenuation of each memory and action may be limited by physical circuits to completely understand reality... but within those limits there is a battle of what choice we make, which can be the difference between a glial cell connecting two neurons or bringing one closer to another.

The complexity of the information being percieved creates this... the chance for absolute randomness.

What controls the sequence in which we experience reality?
Can the circuitry be complex enough to assemble quantum probability within the brain?
What controls the weight that we place towards our different memories and how are they assembled within the brain? Could differences in processing sequence create different results?

Hmm, those are still questions that need to be "answered". Kind of hard to say how memories are assembled in the brain, though there seems to be proof that memories or segments of memories may also be partly stored in other parts of the body also, like when someone get a kidney transplant and get a craving for foods that the original owner of the kidney loved. Not much info on that so just a theory. It could be that for different situations we have different sequences involved with recalling memories, like the memory one has of driving a car and knowing that green is the command to go, would be the easiest to recall since it's most relevant to the situation at hand. It's probably so much more complex than that and might deal with input from the different senses to recall memories most relevant, maybe a bit like dejavu.

I suppose environmental factors also play a role, mutations in dna, and more.

Some great philosophical discussion going on here. I think we have the potential to make great AI (still waiting for an actual, functioning DAC to be launched), but I don't think we actually have the power to "spawn new lifeforms" (outside of traditional procreation), biologically or digitally.

Creation is a power reserved for God. I believe this not because I am religious but because I read that article posted earlier about how there may have been no beginning to the universe, ergo life may have always existed in some form or another and just hitches rides across space on comets, astroids and what not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

Having said that, with modern genetic engineering we can create some pretty crazy stuff, like rats that glow in the dark and pigs that can fly. Well, maybe not that last one. But we should really get back to concentrating on reanimating extinct species.

Hmm, by spawn new lifeforms, do you mean creating life without the foundation of other pre-existing life? Like creating an entirely new life-form on a digital plane, or from "creating" life from other living cells, like cloning or creating a hybrid species. If the latter, then that's something currently out of our grasp, but I believe it's ultimately possible, and the former has already been done. A good argument for creating life without the foundation of other "life" or organic things, is the first "life" that was formed originally. If the theory about inorganic things giving rise to organic life in the right conditions is correct, then creating life on something like a digital plane should be more than possible.

We also have to define what "life" is. There are people studying the potential existence of non-traditional forms of life, so life that wont need the requirements or be composed of the things that the majority of life we know needs(carbon for ex), and life has even been found in extreme places such as hydrothermal vents in the ocean where the water is extremely hot and there's little to no light.

A interesting article around this subject is here: http://www.gizmag.com/bringing-life-to-inoganic-matter/19855/

According to Leonard Nimoy in an episode of In Search Of All you need for life is hot rocks and water.

My question is how do you create a sentient robot and have it not be totally insane from your point of view? If you program it how to think then you've failed at the task at hand.

Yea that's one of the "fears". If the being goes rogue and takes a adolf hitler approach to human beings. I suppose you'd have to implement in ability to have a human's concept and perspective of morality.

we will find out when we build a biologically accurate model, simulating the trillions of cells, proteins, molecules and dna... then we can find out which sequences of the dna are causing our over all sociology.

Would a "sentient" artificial intelligence need to replicate human biological functions at all though assuming it's software based? I suppose if talking about a "AGI" that's hardware based, then sort of replicating human biology would be necessary, but software based intelligences wouldn't need to imo.

A human brain is indeed impossible, science fiction. Now a rodent, or even better a fly... maybe. But having something decoded doesn't mean it's feasible to emulate it just yet.

"Decoding" a human brain is actually more than possible. There's already several initiatives focusing on that right now. Replicating it's functions should be the next step and fairly straight forward once it's been "decoded".

This.

http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/

The blockchain utilizes the planet Neptune, just like everything else illusion related..