As I read through this article, my first thought was, what if they do create a full, human-like brain. Would it be immoral to then shut it down?

So, if everything freezes and restarts at a later time, the brain would not perceive any missing time.

This will be a huge can of worms one day.

Also, the estimates of the total complexity of the brain may have all been greatly underestimated. We now have strong evidence from evolutionary Proteomics that each synapse has considerable complexity and is itself involved in computation. This makes perfect sense: the synapse must have evolved from the molecular sensing and navigation mechanisms of single celled Eukaryotes, and these are clearly capable of some computation.

(See the Brain Science Podcast episode 51)

When asked when the simulation would come up with something artistic or an invention, Professor Markram said it was simply a matter of money. "[...T]he technology is there today."

Boy does that sound like a lot of software projects I know.

They are criticized for taking a reductionistic approach, and I actually agree with the critics. Metaphorically, they are now able to build puzzle pieces, but haven't yet figured how to make them fit, let alone how to assemble the big picture.

Embryogenesis and development are very complicated processes, and, even though we also have a good idea of the macroscopic function of the cortex (primary, secondary areas for different tasks, associative areas ), some structure are still very mysterious and entangled. The brainstem is still a maze, for example, as is the so-called "mesoscopic" achitecture of the cortex.