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Microprocessors With Living Brain Tissue
FurBurger writes: "Another interesting article from Discover.com on NeuroComputers . 'Although scientists have developed software that attempts to mimic the brain's learning process using only the yes-no binary logic of digital computers, all the connections in a personal computer are wired back at the factory. Breaking a single one of these connections usually crashes the computer.' (a la Windows =))" The promise of neuron-based computers is greater flexibility and fault tolerance, with components that require very little power. Or, as FurBurger puts, it, "Watch out, Transmeta!" Mike also points to a June article on the BBC about the same group and their "leech-ulator."
Good afternoon gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H A L plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January, 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it, I could sing it for you...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
The article had so many technical errors that it became unreadable to me. First off, transistors can have a near infinite number of states, not just "on" and "off". Otherwise they would make very poor amplifiers, which is what they were invented for. Secondly, silicon neurons can have millions of states, be self organizing, learn... just like the carbon based neurons we use. Silicon neurons have the nice features that they don't catch cold, operate a million time faster than living neurons, use very little energy, and can operate at a range of temperatures that will kill a living neuron. This groups sounds more like a "carbon cult" than a research group.
Of course, when we get to this stage, we won't have only the virus to worry about. E.g. when are we going to see the "Norton 'Cure for Cancer 2.42'" in the local store?
And will we stop measuring "power" in MHz and start usin IQ?
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This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
One of the problems I think techie people have comprehending organic neuroscience is due to the loss of the software/hardware duality present in computing.
When I said "pre-programming," I was talking in a very general sense. I consider the physical assembling of the neurons to be part of the pre-programming. Besides, in my earlier post, I said "it's all intertwined;" I understand the fact that software and hardware becomes as one.
An organic neural system ONS) is a learning, and functioning, machine. One doesn't need to "program" the CNS of a locust for it to do it's job- control a locust's behaviour, motor and sensory function etc. The set of commands to be a locust aren't somehow coded onto a blank CNS before birth- they are the locust CNS!
That's fine if your goal is to build a locust.
However, the proposal was to take leech neurons, put them together in some way, and then teach them how to walk with legs. This is a completely different ball of wax.
It's not obvious to me that you should be able to put them together any way you want, and they'll magically start walking. How many neurons? How to put them together? What kinds of commands to the legs require to move? What kind of feedback do the neurons get? How are you going to teach them?
It seems to me that these are very big obstacles to overcome.
Cynicism is healthy, but I would have thought /. readers would have held a bit more hope
for the future.
Oh, I do have hope. I describe myself as an optimist. I have no doubt that someday, the obstacles will be overcome; I'm just not certain when somday will come.
One must be careful that one's hope is not misplaced.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
playing god is easy. just ask alanis morisette. She did just that in Dogma
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Actually, the BSOD frequently experienced with NT is almost always the fault of either a hardware problem or a poorly written device driver.
I have frequently received the BSOD when trying to incorporate an old SCSI card into an NT workstation. You know the type: ISA card originally packaged with some type of scanner for use on Windows 3.1. NT doesn't come with a driver for the card so you end up searching the web to find a driver, and when you finally find it, the manufacturer gives you the disclaimer of "This may or may not work, either way, we no longer support this hardware but only provide the driver for your convenience.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
The uptime on my Linux LAPTOP is current at 53 days (since I upgraded to Mandrake 7.1). I never turn my laptop off, I simply go into suspend mode while I travel between work and home. This is with normal computing, games, internet, lots of instances of god-awful, bug-ridden Sun Microsystems StarOffice documents open all over the place... So... what is your point? And no! I am not saying that Linux is so much better then Windows. If Windows is working for you and you are happy with what you have... that is fine with me. Yes. I have used NT. The OS is simply a TOOL to get things done. I use Linux because I prefer to get things done without spending a lot of money. As far as NT or 2000 being as stable as any Linux distro, maybe so. However, I have never had to reboot my laptop when the network settings have changed (I can go to any new location and reset my network settings on the fly) I don't have to reboot when I install new software. Yes, I have had my laptop lockup on me, usually something hangs in X when this happens. I simply plug a cat5 cable into my laptop and telnet (ssh for you security freaks) to it from another workstation and kill whatever process has caused the problem. On the other hand, I have a Winnt4.0 laptop that is currently sitting at a BSOD because it didn't like the "Designed for Windows NT 4.0" network card that I installed using the manufacturer's software (I get the screen to 'press ctrl alt del to logon', at which point ctrl+alt+del=instant BSOD)
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
I hate M$ as much as the next guy, but I hate to see brain-dead digs like this one show up on the front page of Slashdot. What next, Bill Gate's Momma jokes? It makes us look stupid.
Cut it out.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Did anyone else have 790 pop in mind when reading this post? He's a character in the great sci-fi series *LEXX*, who happens to have a piece of human brain tissue at the core of his circuitry. Which explains how he, a robot head, could fall in love with the love slave Xev.
Sci fi and science have always played off one another. I wonder how many scientists were inspired growing up by the fantastic creations of the 1950s comic books, like aeroplanes that could fly into space, or by Asimov and others.
But, I digress. I just have to point out that it may be difficult to overclock human brain tissue, but...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
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Imagine the Office paperclip a few years down the line if its capble of changing, learning and growing in strength
-- Oh Well
Breaking a single one of these connections usually crashes the computer.' (a la Windows =))
so, who can find me an operating system, open source or closed, that can withstand an electrical connection failure? redudant hardware is typically abstracted from the OS, so it stands to reason that any real hardware failure is gonna cause you a very real OS failure. GNU/Linux or GNU/Not.
640 Neurons is enough for anyone!!
Why AC?
I'm thinking more of the Emperors..., basically 2 or 3 chapters from the end he makes a huge quantum leap and says "none of that nice stuff we've just played with can explain the following, so I propose the following..." and introduces some completely off-the wall _physics_.
He's a _mathematician_ you see. I remember I first read the book when I was reading mathematics at the same university where Penrose was, and one of my flatmates was a physicist there. He'd heard of Penrose, but insisted that he was firmly in the "mathematicians mucking around in fields they don't understand" camp when it came to the fundamentals of physics.
It's not a problem of understanding. It's a problem of me _refusing_ to jump to the same conclusion given the same facts.
Penrose isn't the only one who meets my critical side.
The astute reader will note that there's a flaw in chapter 7 of Hawking's A Brief History of Time. In this case, however, it's probably a simplification to permit the book to still be popular science, but nonetheless it is a flaw.
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
What bothered me was the claim in the other direction, i.e., the suggestion that the lack of the ability to change the connections dynamically is some sort of fundamental limitation on what can be computed (or, more generally, "done") by a traditional digital computer. I don't know how applicable this is here, but it always bothers me when people say things like that because it seems to indicate a complete lack of understanding of the layer of abstraction that exists between hardware and software.
That is, a digital computer can simulate a neural network, with all the flexible connections you could want, in software. The neurons, connections, etc., are data structures in the computer's memory, not actual pieces of circuitry, and the structure of the network can be changed arbitrarily simply by changing the appropriate values in memory. People don't seem to have much trouble with this in other contexts: when you draw a "box-and-pointer" diagram of a data structure and use it to step through an algorithm, changing values by breaking arrows and drawing new ones, nobody protests, "Wait! You can't change the connections in the computer because they are 'wired back at the factory'!" Nor do you hear arguments like "Computers can't model three-dimensional objects because their memory is structured one-dimensionally," or "Computers can't process text because all they have are ones and zeroes -- no letters." Why, then, is there this fundamental confusion of levels when we talk about computers simulating brains?
To say that breaking the connections among the computer's transistors would crash it is more like saying that breaking enough connections within the nuclei of the atoms in my brain (as in nuclear fission) would cause it to "crash". Well, yeah, but how is that a limitation on my brain's computational abilities?
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Today Mr Random J. Hacker was banned from keeping computer equipment for life after being found guilty of cruelty to electronics after leaving his PDA on the dashboard of his car. Mr Hacker said "I only popped into Radio Shack for five minutes and I thought that it would be fine, left in the car". A spokes-terminal for the SPCEE (Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Electronic Equipment) said "The interior of a car can heat up rapidly, literarily cooking electronic devices to death. You should always try to take any devices with you when you get out the car, but if you must leave then inside make sure that you wind the window down and leave them a bowl of water".
Maybe this explains Arnie's accent in The Terminator?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I am absolute disagreement with your assessment of living neural tissue vs. silicon. Comparison of conduction rates is invalid and misguided for a host of reasons, an elctrical engineer or a neuroscientist could give you a trillion reasons why each. But leaving aside that technical point, I think you misunderstand the potential advantages of neural circuit over simple semiconductor technology. 1) Complexity of input, simplicity of output. Silicon semiconductors are on or off. CNS neurons are arranged in such a way that thousands of inputs synapse onto one neuron, which then either does or does not fire an action potential. This is an extremely elegant and flexible system. Each one of those thousand odd inputs is either inhibitory or excitatory, and also has a set strength realtive to other inputs. The beauty of this system is clear- it allows distillation of huge amouints of information into one action- the exact ability we are searching for in intelligent beings, whether natural or built by us. While this could be SIMULATED by a comparatively gigantic nmber of silicon transistors (in the form of a chip), it would never possess 2) Learning ability Neurons and synapses are plastic. The strength of individual inputs in the CNS is continually changing, being reinforced by certain actions and reduced by others. This is the cellular basis of learnt behaviour (ok, a bit simplified). Silicon can't do this. An OS running on the silicon could be programmed to SIMULATE this behaviour, but again in an artificial, memory hungry way. Your brain doesn't have an OS, it is an OS! That is the plain advantage of organoc neural computers. A chunk of memory doesn't need to be clogged up by instructions on HOW to artificially "learn", the whole thing is a learning machine! By the way, why are they using leech neurons? Surely they suck! (sorry, couldn't resist)
Tonight the sky is empty. But that is nothing new
I've worked with artificial neural networks to some extent in the past, so I hope that lends my words a bit of credibility. I don't call myself an expert, by any means, but I know a bit of what I'm talking about. (Tho' I'm first to admit that "a little knowledge is dangerous...") Anyways.
At some time in the past (I don't know exactly when, probably in the 50's), a group of computer scientists, excited by their new technology, tried throwing together a large number of analog "neuron" circuits to see if they will exhibit any kind of self-organization. It's similar as what these people are proposing to do with living tissue, except that it was done with electronics.
I don't know the details of what they tried, but the conclusion was simple. Nothing happened. It just sat there and did random stuff, from beginning to end.
I don't think self-organization in the brain is possible without having some kind of enforced organization at birth that gets the process going. To put it another way, the neurons have to be "pre-programmed," from the start, to organize themselves.
In artificial neural networks (simulated with digital computers), the problem is finding the right network topology, and the right learning algorithm to fit your problem. Maybe things have changed, but the last time I worked with it (about five years ago), this problem was still a black art. And not only do you have to get the network itself correct, you have to encode your problem in the right way, in order to get the best results. You have to do a lot of pre-programming (and maybe even some post-processing).
It goes to show that "self-organization" is not a magic bullet. The problem is that the whole system interacts. The operation of each neuron, the interactions between them, the format and encoding of the input data, and the format and encoding of the expected output data. It's all intertwined.
Will biological neural programming have the same problems? Or will the fact that real neurons are being used reduce the problem? Maybe it will actually compound the problem by making the whole pre-programming question heinously complex. After all, neuron interaction is more than just synapses: there's hormones, there's chemistry, and maybe there's stuff we haven't discovered yet.
DeWeerth says, "we might not have to understand [self-organization] to exploit it." I'm not about to argue against a person who no doubt knows his stuff (and I don't for a moment think he's unaware of the issues), but I must admit to being a little skeptical. Programming with zero effort has been a dream in A.I. circles for a long time. I can't help but feel that it's a pipe dream.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
It is correct that the brain has some fantastci computing powers we cannot mimic yet. It is also correct that the brain rewires to an extent. It is also very robust in that it can sustain substantial damage and still continue to work.
But this has to do with the LOGIC of how the brain works and NOT the MATERIAL.
In order to make our silicon function as the brain we have to understand how the brain functions. And here we're talking about billions of very complex neurons working in parallell. (Even for insect we're talking tens of thousands).
When we understand the logic we can implement it using the best suited technology.
Living neurons are slow.In the human brain the maximum spikerate is 1000 Hz and the conduction velocity through the nerve-fibers are not that much either. (Don't remember the figures, but we're talking about metres per second.) This is much much slower than silicon.
The comparrison between a transistor (2 states) and a neuron (more or less analog) is stupid. We can pack a shitload of transistors into the same space used by a neuron. In addition we don't have to keep the silicon alive.
Silicon can never rewire, but the logic of
rewiring can be implemented.
While the article is interesting, it is not interesting to see a computer built from brain tissue. But the knowledge of creating a computer from brain tissue would probably enable us to build real smart silicon.
OK, it will be more fault-toerant, parallel and perhaps able to predict things to som extent, but remember that most brains are known to make errors in many areas, such as simple mathematis an so on. It it possible to inherit the parallelism, fult-tolerance and prediction properies of a brain without inheriting the bad properties? // Vordf