First rule: don’t spend your days scrolling on your smartphone screen, don’t trust the Google oracle body and soul for every piece of information you need. Instead, it’s better to invest time in an afternoon nap that’s better for the brain than omniscient search engines. These are the tips of a person who knows a thing or two about neural networks, technologies and, above all, artificial intelligence. On World Brain Day, Canadian academic Mohamed I. Elmasry shares a sort of ‘check list’ to understand if we are making the right moves to reduce the risk of senile dementia: by adequately training the brain instead of searching for everything on Google, for example. This is the first ‘commandment’.
Another maxim: taking regular daytime naps, because – he assures in his recently published book, ‘iMind: Artificial and Real Intelligence’ – it can increase the chances of healthy aging. The mind-friendly list includes simple daily habits (such as the so-called nap, precisely), memory training, advice such as not using the smartphone. Elmasry highlights that today the focus has shifted too far from ‘Ri’ intelligence (Real Intelligence, i.e. natural or real intelligence) in favor of Ai, the machine. But, he points out, if “the useful life of current smartphones is about 10 years, a healthy mind inside a healthy body can live for 100 years or more”. And the invitation is therefore to nourish it because the mind, like smartphones, has ‘hardware’, ‘software’ and ‘Apps’, but it is many times more powerful and will last much longer with the right care.
An internationally renowned expert in microchip design and artificial intelligence, Elmasry was inspired to write the book after his brother-in-law died of Alzheimer’s and other close friends, including his mother, died of other forms of dementia. Although he says smart devices are “getting smarter and smarter,” he says none come close to “duplicating the capacity, storage capacity, longevity, energy efficiency, or self-healing capabilities of the original human brain.” “Your brain-mind is the most valuable asset you have or will ever have,” he writes on iMind. “Increase its potential and longevity by caring for it from an early age, keeping it healthy so it can continue to develop.”
Elmasry gets specific: “Humans can intentionally develop and test their memory by playing ‘brain games’ or doing daily brain exercises.” While “you can’t exercise your smartphone’s memory to make it last longer or encourage it to function at a higher level.” In his book, the professor tells an anecdote about his grandchildren, who had to use their smartphones’ search engine to name the capital of Cuba, after spending a week in the country with their parents. The story has a moral: it illustrates, he explains, how young people have come to rely on smartphone AI apps instead of using their real intelligence. “A healthy memory goes hand in hand with real intelligence. Our memory simply cannot reach its full potential without Real Intelligence.”
Elmasry’s book includes insights into the history of microchip design, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, as well as their role in smartphones and other technologies. The book also explains how both AI and human intelligence actually work, and how brain function connects the mind and memory. He compares the human mind and brain function to that of smartphones, ChatGpt, and other AI-based systems. He then draws on extensive existing research to address the current controversy over AI and aims to inspire researchers to find new treatments for Alzheimer’s, other neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer. He argues that current or even planned AI cannot match the capabilities of human brain-minds in terms of speed, accuracy, storage capacity, and other functions. Healthy aging, he notes, is therefore as important as climate change, but it doesn’t attract a fraction of the hype.
Elmasry therefore calls on policymakers to adopt a series of key reforms to promote healthy ageing. Among these changes, he suggests that bingo halls could shift from their function of sedentary entertainment to active and stimulating learning centers. As for practical advice for individuals, in addition to the nap that refreshes memory and other brain and body functions, the expert also offers a series of concrete suggestions for enhancing brain capacity and real intelligence. These include creating an ‘associative’ memory: the brain’s “dictionary of meaning”, in which new information is associated with what is already known. The suggestion is then: try reading a book aloud, using all your senses instead of going on autopilot, and transform everyday encounters into fully lived experiences. Other techniques include incorporating a day of real rest into your week, reviewing your lifestyle as early as your 20s or 30s, adopting a healthy diet, and eliminating or radically moderating your alcohol consumption to reduce your risk of dementia.
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