Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap is a 2008 technical report by Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, published as Technical Report #2008‐3, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.

In order to develop ideas about the feasibility of whole brain emulation, ground technology foresight and stimulate interdisciplinary exchange, the Future of Humanity Institute hosted a workshop on May 26 and 27, 2007, in Oxford. Invited experts from areas such as computational neuroscience, brain‐scanning technology, computing, nanotechnology, and neurobiology presented their findings and discussed the possibilities, problems and milestones that would have to be reached before WBE becomes feasible. The workshop avoided dealing with socioeconomic ramifications and with philosophical issues such as theory of mind, identity or ethics.

Workshop participants were: John Fiala, Robin Hanson, Kenneth Jeffrey Hayworth, Todd Huffman, Eugene Leitl, Bruce McCormick, Ralph Merkle, Toby Ord, Peter Passaro, Nick Shackel, Randall A. Koene, Robert A. Freitas Jr and Rebecca Roache. Stuart Armstrong also made useful comments.

The Roadmap combines an earlier whitepaper that was circulated among workshop participants, and additions suggested by those participants before, during and after the workshop. It aims at providing a preliminary roadmap for WBE, sketching out key technologies that would need to be developed or refined, and identifying key problems or uncertainties.

Two critiques of the Roadmap were published on a blog in 2010¹ ²; Sandberg has acknowledged them as worthy of reply but has yet to do so.

External links

Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap

References