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IBM Working on Brain-Rivaling Computer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the will-it-get-bored-too dept.

Obdurate writes "The first supercomputers to approach and even surpass the processing power of the human brain are to be built by IBM, under a $184M contract announced by the US Government yesterday. ASCI Purple and Blue Gene/L will be the fastest and most powerful machines built, with a combined capacity equal to the 500 best of todays computers."

17 of 560 comments (clear)

  1. No match for me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How often does it think about sex?

    1. Re:No match for me... by Per+Wigren · · Score: 4, Funny

      Considering how much the average person thinks about sex, it won't take much more than a 2.5Ghz P4 to emulate the rest!

      With that in mind, a P2/266 will probably do it for my brain.. ;)

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    2. Re:No match for me... by scott1853 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "In that particular moment, I was reconfiguring the warp field parameters, analyzing the collected works of Charles Dickens, calculating the maximum pressure I could safely apply to your lips, considering a new food supplement for Spot..."

      Looks like it's only a low priority thread.

  2. Brian's nothing special by 20goto10 · · Score: 5, Funny

    In fact he's a bit thick.

  3. Thank god by drunkmonk · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we can have computers that screw things up at a rate that rivals our own! Because seriously, we needed the competition.

  4. Re:uhu by e8johan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I do 1-2 flops if I get easy numbers...

  5. Re:uhu by binaryDigit · · Score: 5, Funny

    Easy, just run SPEC-brain.

  6. Hooray! by RomikQ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps now we will get the Answer to Life, Universe, Everything!

    And it damn better not be 42!

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  7. Well - the Orange Catholic Bible says: by Etrigan_696 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thou Shalt Not Make a Machine in the image of the mind of Man.

    Somehow, I think that might be good advice.

  8. And they will name it 'skynet' by the_mind_ · · Score: 4, Funny



    Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14am.

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  9. Government brainpower? by banda · · Score: 5, Funny

    So a computer with the processing capacity of a human brain is to be put to work by the government? Does the US government have any actual experience in managing something as powerful as a human brain? How long before the computer realizes it could do much better in the private sector?

  10. Re:uhu by scotay · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's before overclocking.

  11. Business Proposal by limekiller4 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear IBM,

    I couldn't help but notice that you were hard at work developing a computer to rival the human brain to the tune of $184,000,000.

    It just so happens that I have a human brain and I would be quite happy to let you use it for a tidy sum that is far below the aformentioned $184M.

    Please give me a call at your earliest convenience to work out the details.

    Thanks,
    Jason

    ----[%snip]----

    --
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    Limekiller
  12. There is hope for the scarecrow after all! by Joey7F · · Score: 5, Funny

    We can make mechanical hearts so the tin man is taken care of. All that's left is to give the cowardly lion a lot of booze and suddenly Dorothy is off to see the wizard by herself.

    --Joey

  13. He he he by ayjay29 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a bewul... --sssllllaaaaappppp!!!!

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  14. Re:uhu by einer · · Score: 5, Funny

    A phaser's energy pulse doesn't travel at c--if it did, we'd never see even a little streak in any scale small enough to see the crew or the enterprise. The directed-energy weapon has at least some mass to contain the energy.

    Hate to be a dick, but.

    It's people like you that make it hard for people like me to get laid. It's not just that you know a bunch of stuff about technology. It's that you know a bunch of stuff about technology that doesn't exist. For example, last week I was forced to break up a conversation that two of my cow-orkers were having on the relative merits and drawbacks of the different types of transporters used by the different races. Had that conversation continued, it might have made it impossible for any geek to EVER GET LAID AGAIN.

    Just the hearing phrase "computer scientist" causes most women to stop ovulating immediately already. Let's not make things worse on ourselves.

  15. Re:Processing power only part of the issue... by deblau · · Score: 5, Funny
    So the human brain totally and utterly is secondary to the computer already.

    Ah, I beg to differ. Pour orange juice on a motherboard. Totally disfunctional in a few seconds. Now pour orange juice on your head.

    Brain 1, Computers 0.

    --
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