Brain Reference Architecture (BRA)-driven Development

BRA-driven development is a methodology for developing software to build AGI from a whole-brain architecture approach, and is a method for building software that reproduces human cognitive functions by referring to the neural circuits of the entire brain [1]. It has the excellent feature of being able to construct hypotheses about brain functions that are not necessarily obvious over a relatively wide area with the SCID method. Therefore, WBAI has been promoting research and development of brain-morphic AGI through BRA-driven development since FY 2018.

BRA-driven development uses the Brain Information Flow (BIF) diagram, which is based on the mesoscopic anatomical structure of the brain associated with human cognitive behavior, and the Hypothetical Component Diagram (HCD), which is a description of computational functions consistent with the BIF (see the figure below) as design information for brain-morphic software The BIF is based on the anatomical structure of the brain at the topic level.

The brain reference architecture (BRA), which plays a central role in BRA-driven development, includes the following

• Brain Information Flow (BIF) diagrams: extracted mesoscopic anatomical knowledge associated with human cognitive behavior.
• Hypothetical Component Diagrams (HCD): functional components organized to be structurally consistent with the BIF.

In BRA-driven development, BRA design and software implementation based on the BRA are separated. This has a major advantage in that it allows multiple brain scientists and software developers to collaborate on large-scale development.

The resulting BRA data will be submitted, reviewed, and published using BRAES.

[1] Yamakawa, H. (2021). The whole brain architecture approach: Accelerating the development of artificial general intelligence by referring to the brain. Neural Networks: The Official Journal of the International Neural Network Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2021.09.004