Ray Kurzweil has already thrown down the gauntlet and predicted that around 2020 a computer would pass the Turing Test and become the first “real” AI (artificial intelligence). It appears that once again he may be on track with his predictions. According to IBM, ‘BlueMatter, a new algorithm created by IBM researchers in collaboration with Stanford University, exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information.’

Regardless of the timing, the aim is clear: reverse-engineer the human brain and learn its computational algorithms. And then deploy them in a bid to solve some of the world’s most complicated computing problems.