Developing whole-brain emulation (WBE) technology would provide immense benefits across neuroscience, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and robotics. At this time, constructing a simulated human brain lacks feasibility due to limited experimental data and limited computational resources. However, I suggest that progress toward this goal might be accelerated by working toward an intermediate objective, namely insect brain emulation (IBE). More specifically, this would entail creating biologically realistic simulations of entire insect nervous systems along with more approximate simulations of non-neuronal insect physiology to make "virtual insects." I argue that this could be realistically achievable within the next 20 years. I propose that developing emulations of insect brains will galvanize the global community of scientists, businesspeople, and policymakers toward pursuing the loftier goal of emulating the human brain. By demonstrating that WBE is possible via IBE, simulating mammalian brains and eventually the human brain may no longer be viewed as too radically ambitious to deserve substantial funding and resources. Furthermore, IBE will facilitate dramatic advances in cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and robotics through studies performed using virtual insects.

中文翻译：

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使用配备有神经元活动生物物理模型的解剖学“接线图”模拟昆虫大脑的案例。

开发全脑仿真（WBE）技术将为神经科学，生物医学，人工智能和机器人技术带来巨大收益。此时，由于有限的实验数据和有限的计算资源，构建模拟的人脑缺乏可行性。但是，我建议通过朝一个中间目标（即昆虫大脑仿真（IBE））努力，可以加快实现该目标的进度。更具体地说，这将需要创建整个昆虫神经系统的生物学逼真模拟以及非神经元昆虫生理学的更近似模拟，以制造“虚拟昆虫”。我认为这可能在未来20年内可以实现。我建议，开发模仿昆虫的大脑将激发全球科学家群体的兴趣，商人和决策者，以追求更高的目标来模仿人类的大脑。通过证明通过IBE可以实现WBE，可以模拟哺乳动物的大脑，并最终不再认为人类的大脑过于雄心勃勃，以至于不能获得大量的资金和资源。此外，IBE将通过使用虚拟昆虫进行的研究来促进认知神经科学，人工智能和机器人技术的巨大进步。