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Supercomputer Simulates Human Visual System

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-can-see-clearly-now dept.

An anonymous reader writes "What cool things can be done with the 100,000+ cores of the first petaflop supercomputer, the Roadrunner, that were impossible to do before? Because our brain is massively parallel, with a relatively small amount of communication over long distances, and is made of unreliable, imprecise components, it's quite easy to simulate large chunks of it on supercomputers. The Roadrunner has been up only for about a week, and researchers from Los Alamos National Lab are already reporting inaugural simulations of the human visual system, aiming to produce a machine that can see and interpret as well as a human. After examining the results, the researchers 'believe they can study in real time the entire human visual cortex.' How long until we can simulate the entire brain?"

5 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ghost in the supercomputer by owlnation · · Score: 5, Funny

    And when this simulation claims to be conscious, what do we make of that?
    Simple. We make whatever it tells us to make. Or else.
  2. Re:Just one word... by SupplyMission · · Score: 5, Funny

    One word? That makes your spelling error rate 100%.

  3. Re:Just one word... by KGIII · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's only 10% lower than my math error rate.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  4. Re:New goal... by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dude, calm down. I wasn't dissing humanity, by mentioning that mantis shrimp have better vision, okay?

    "Hew-mans! Hew-mans! Hew-mans! we're number one! we're number one!"

    Feel better now?

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  5. Re:New goal... by spun · · Score: 4, Funny
    Christ on a fucking pogo stick, another one? What's with people who can't admit that maybe, just maybe, humans aren't the best at everything?

    Mantis shrimp don't have a blind spot, because their eyes aren't like the stupid human eyes where the optic nerve attaches to the front! Nyah nyah nyah!

    Here's the quote I was referring too:

    The visual information leaving the retina seems to be processed into numerous parallel data streams leading into the central nervous system, greatly reducing the analytical requirements at higher levels. As far as I know, there is only a single data stream per eye in human vision. It may be transmitted in parallel, but there is only one image created for each eye. Not so for the vastly superior mantis shrimp. We have trinocular vision in each eye, so suck it, monkey boy!

    I wouldn't, I mean, a mantis shrimp would never consider trading my, I mean his superior eyes for your puny human ones!
    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton