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My name is Ted Berger.
I'm a David Packard professor of engineering
and a professor of neuroscience
and biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California.
I think that this GF 2045 meeting
is going to be a terrific meeting
that will raise some of the most essential issues that need to be raised
for the future of humanity.
I would invite everyone who can come to come
and participate
be part of this process
and with your very presence
raise the importance of these issues
so they can be recreated
and moved forward as a new set of solutions
for all of us.
It is quite reasonable to think about
several parts of the brain
being understood well enough
that we can develop
not just mathematical models
but silicon models, microchip models
of how those parts of the brain work.
We have learned enough about
what long-term memories are, when they're in code, that we can identify
long-term memory codes
in the behaving rat brain
so we can say: there, right there
there is the code for the bar
that the animal's going to press to get water.
We can say that's the code.
And so we can recognize these things, we can see what they are,
and manipulate them in some ways.
So within a couple of years,
we will have the ability to form
new long-term memories in the way they are formed in the brain.
There are several parts in the brain that I consider to be ready
for this next-generation analysis
and this will allow us to create a mathematical model
of how some of the functions work
and we'll be able
to reproduce those
in mathematical models, and we'll be able to reproduce those
in microchip form.
We need to sit down and commit ourselves
to these kind of goals.
There is every reason to determine,
to develop
set of concepts
a set of procedures
a set of surgical procedures
to reach this kind of
biomimetic replacement
of brain parts
that's what we're talking about
bio-mimetic replacement of brain parts.
We need to commit ourselves to that as a goal -- it's going to happen.
We need to find a way to develop
this kind of commitment, and
the congress that we're talking about is a wonderful way to do this.
The congress
that is being organized
for 2045 this June
2013, is a wonderful step
in that direction.
But we need more than that.
I think that the key factors
after that that are needed
are an acceptance of the fact
that these experiments need to be done
on humans.
There's no reason why some
of these experiments can't be done, and can't be done readily
in a human context.
Most of us have a sense
a sense that there's uh...
that there is something sacred about
the human and the human brain
and it's something that's not to be touched
that we need to be careful about it.
But I think that there are a lot of tests, a lot of investigations that
can be done
readily right now
with patients.
With heartfelt consent,
a lot of patients
would love
to be a part of something that really increases their level of understanding
of the brain
and they'd like to share their body and their brain in that process.
I think we need to recruit
the human for clinical involvement.
The patient, the public
involvement is something that's necessary
and I think it's underused, we really need to go out there
and get the public behind this.
And we need to get more involvement of
small businesses and start-up companies
in these efforts at the right time
but they could be a source of funds
for faster development of these biomimetic models
that we will use to replace brain parts.
We are living longer and longer,
and so more and more
of these diseases of the brain
degenerative or accidental damage to the brain, are going to be seen
and must be dealt with.
And so having a strategy
where we think about which brain parts can be replaced
in the context of which ones are damaged more often
is just a wise thing to do.
We were just talking about facing reality.
By getting business and academic
and government forces together
to recognize this reality
it can be done.
As we understand these sophisticated computations,
these sophisticated representations
that are involved in thought processes more and more
the possibility of passing
that capability on to a non-human
non-living substrate becomes very real
and I think that will be the next step for this.
It will become part of the process
because how else do we take
the sophisticated thoughts
the sophisticated representations
that are created in any part of the brain
for even a few seconds?
How do we take that in representing it in such a way that we can have those same calculations
being used in the context of repairing the brain?
You have to move to an in silicon representation
of those capabilities, because otherwise
you'd be asking patients to carry several computers behind them on wheels.
It doesn't work.
So transferring this kind of understanding
to a silicon base will naturally evolve from the first step
and I think it will be so exciting at that point that there'll be
a new movement
a new enthusiasm
that will come from a non-medical area
a non-medical rationale
for completing these kinds of experiments.
We need evolution over
a very long time before we find solutions, particularly to
how to be a better human being
and I'd like to be able to have an avatar that
allows me to create those optimal values.
That's what I'm looking for.
I think this letter is really terrific, it takes a position
that's very important
and it's a powerful position.
It makes a demand at a scale
which is a needed scale.
It has a world venue, which is very important, it identifies
some of the clear weaknesses,
the shortcomings
of the international and national policies that we have
and the directions which are encouraged
uh... the directions which are encouraged
or just allowed to develop by humanity.
We need a new vision
we need a new direction
and Global Future 2045 captures that need.
Hopefully in the context
of this next congress
we will be able to put even more of the pieces together
which will define the directions in which we have to move
for the solutions to these kinds of global problems.