https://www.wired.com/story/gene-expression-in-neurons-solves-a-brain-evolution-puzzle/
With the rise of Chatbots and AI, we are left to wonder: what remains for paltry humans to do in this ever-evolving world?
A partial answer is here. Allison Whitten writes an evocative piece about the mammalian neocortex and the researchers using Single Cell RNA sequencing to tease apart the difference between ancestral salamander brains, modern reptilian brains and mammalian brains that include a neocortex.
I love this stuff. And it seems that the neocortex (for now, based on best evidence) is purely a mammalian innovation, the ability for higher level reasoning and thinking (and ? the seat of consciousness) different from ancestral or reptilian brains.
It makes me wonder about Wonderful Life, the Burgess Shale, where Gould talks about evolution and the dice-rolling that has occurred and how random it is that WE are here instead of completely different beings.
CMIO’s take: Learn about how we think, in the service of making tools that align and support these thoughts. AI does not supplant human. A human augmented with AI will supplant the human alone.
