Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Use Your Brain: Artificial Intelligence Isn't Close to Replacing It

A mind-uploading startup shows how far we are from true artificial intelligence.

Marvelous.

Image: iStock/Getty Images

Nectome promises to preserve the brains of terminally ill people in order to turn them into computer simulations -- at some point in the future when such a thing is possible. It's a startup that's easy to mock.1521218917192 Just beyond the mockery, however, lies an important reminder to remain skeptical of modern artificial intelligence technology.

The idea behind Nectome is known to mind uploading enthusiasts (yes, there's an entire culture around the idea, with a number of wealthy foundations backing the research) as "destructive uploading": A brain must be killed to map it. That macabre proposition has resulted in lots of publicity for Nectome, which predictably got lumped together with earlier efforts to deep-freeze millionaires' bodies so they could be revived when technology allows it. Nectome's biggest problem, however, isn't primarily ethical.