University of Waterloo neuroscientist Chris Eliasmith has spent the better part of his working years in figuring out just how one is able to build a brain.

Well, he has compiled his thoughts into a book with complete instructions, describing the grey matter’s architecture as well as the manner where all of the different components interact.

Eliasmith’s team has come up with what is said to be “the world’s largest simulation of a functioning brain.” It is called Spaun.

Spaun is capable of recognizing numbers, taking note of lists and remembering them while writing them down. And it is also capable of passing some basic aspects of an IQ test.

Spaun has taken more than a year to build, which is quite some time for a simplified model of the brain. It is capable of capturing many aspects of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and psychological behavior.

If this is all true about the creation of Spaun this would be one of the most significant advances in artificial intelligence in history.

Let’s all pray Spaun doesn’t turn evil and decide to gather all robots, tech gadgets and other machines and rise up to take on the human race. But that doesn’t seem very likely, at least not until they become a little more advanced from this early stage of course.