Say What Was Not Said.

Abstract

About one year ago, I learnt of the existence of In Silico . It did not come as a surprise, as I had expected that toward the end of the Human Brain Project (HBP)’s 10-year funding period, there will be a rush of articles and generally increased media interest in covering the project’s progress, achievements, and failures, although In Silico is special, given its 10-year time frame. I joined the HBP in 2014 and lead today one of three science work packages. For this documentary, I expected to hear requests for interviews, but there was literally nothing of that sort. After I have finally watched In Silico , I understand why. The documentary is in fact not about HBP, despite claims to the contrary by a previous review (Abbott, 2020). In Silico director, Noah Hutton, rather focuses on his fascination with Henry Markram’s 10-year vision of building a brain from the bottom up, the Blue Brain Project (BBP). As will be described towards the end, the HBP follows a stringent and much broader concept of integrating neuroscience and medicine with technology. In a companion commentary (Destexhe, 2021), Alain Destexhe explains that only a small percentage of the actual efforts in HBP is devoted to Henry Markram’s activities in the project, I will thus not further dwell on it. My second expectation was to find a discussion of science, shedding light on the scientific controversy regarding the endeavor of constructing an in silico brain. Disappointingly, this expectation was not fulfilled either, and it is, in my opinion, a missed opportunity. Noah Hutton thematizes several points such as bottom-up construction, consciousness, as well as noise and variability. But the discussion remains shallow, hardly reaching beyond snippets of statements by neuroscientists flagging key words and reiterating the …