For the longest time it has been the dream of many to create an artificial life, an artificial intelligence. It has been the subject of countless discussions and films. By some it is seen as an opportunity to advance our knowledge, and explore areas that are unreachable to man, by others as an apocalypse waiting to happen.

For me, it is the best way for us to learn about ourselves. In order to create artificial life, we need first to understand what it is that we want to replicate.

There are many active projects with the goal to create Artificial Intelligence. Many of these projects are impressive, but they all lack in some areas:

• All bots (I use bots as an example, since there are several in use today, and many that anyone can talk to) in themselves act differently. Mainly because their creators designed them differently. But all bots running on the same code are the same, therefore; they lack personality. They should be able to develop individually.
• Flexibility: At the moment, AI is limited in the way that it can not think of things on its own. Every "thought" it expresses originates from a different source, for example: a user, or the creator. This behaviour can be simulated by using keywords or randomization to access certain predefined behaviour. True AI should be able to think on its own.
• Flaws: As in human flaws, not flaws in the design of AI. No human is perfect, and thus AI can never truly act human unless it has the same flaws as humans.

When creating AI, our goal should be to get rid of the "A". As long as our goal is to create Artificial Intelligence, that is exactly what we will get: Artificial Intelligence.

Humans have the tendency to glorify themselves. Therefore our flaws are never included in the code. Our goal should be to recreate intelligence, not the feeling of it. Of course, the meaning of Flaw could be discussed. What I am referring to are personality traits that are generally regarded as illogical and useless in modern society, such as: nervosity, anxiety and stress.

Depending on your convictions, the word could be taken to even higher levels, and incorporate every single emotion. However, I would not go to such extreme lengths, since I believe that many traits are highly significant to the stability of our world. No mater how you see it, the behaviour of AI should be indistinguishable from real humans, if we ever expect it to gain popularity and wide-spread use in any area that requires communication with actual people.

One of the biggest obstacles in obtaining full AI is the raw computing power needed. We simply do not have computers that can match the speed of the human brain, and our current technology does not allow the creation of such machines (that are not ridiculously large). This is not to say that it is impossible, after all, our brain works so why shouldn't a computer be able to do the same?

In my opinion, the best way to achieve full AI is to first understand our own brain and then replicate it. Unlike the transistors of the computer, the synapses in the brain can be more than just active and passive (0 and 1).

A synapse consists of the ends of two nerve cells facing each other, with a gap that is about 20 nm wide. When a nerve impulse reaches the post-synaptic nerve-terminal (the first nerve cell) a neurotransmitter is rapidly secreted though a process known as exocytosis (This is refering to Chemical synapses, small vesicles containing the neurotransmitter merge with the cell membrane, releasing it into the gap between the cells), which is then intercepted by receptors on the post-synaptic cell. When the neurotransmitter is intercepted, the cell opens ion-channels releasing ions in or out of the cell, changing its transmembrane potential (the difference in potential across the cells membrane), this change is called a post-synaptic potential. Depending on which neurotransmitter is released the effect to the post-synaptic potential can be eigter exitatory or inhibitory (Differently charged ions can be released). ACh (Acetylcholine) can be used as an example of an exitatory neurotransmitter and GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid) as an inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Furthermore, to create full AI, I believe that we must first mimic the behaviour of synapses in the brain and then divide the computers system into something equivalent to the lobes of the brain.