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Microchip Mimics a Brain With 200,000 Neurons
Al writes "European researchers have taken a step towards replicating the functioning of the brain in silicon, creating new custom chip with the equivalent of 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections. The aim of the Fast Analog Computing with Emergent Transient States (FACETS) project is to better understand how to construct massively parallel computer systems modeled on a biological brain. Unlike IBM's Blue Brain project, which involves modeling a brain in software, this approach makes it much easier to create a truly parallel computing system. The set-up also features a distributed algorithm that introduces an element of plasticity, allowing the circuit to learn and adapt. The researchers plan to connect thousands of chips to create a circuit with a billion neurons and 10^13 synapses (about a tenth of the complexity of the human brain)."
The more I learned about computers, the more I figured that they were more like a complex engine (data or gasoline is input, its moved around, operated on by parts, and then output as results/exhaust). Maybe that's why car analogies are so popular?
But another thing to be wary of is chemical imbalances. How many brain disorders are caused by the absence of a protein or inhibitor? The chip might take several redesigns over several years to get a solid model of a properly functioning neuron. I mean, who is going to notice a schizophrenic ant or beetle, or a rat with the mental equivalent of down's syndrome? They might spend a decade building up a brain with the complexity of a human brain only to find out that its "mentally disabled". Just look at how many people have mental issues, be it emotional, learning, or developmental issues with "properly functioning" neurons but are lacking one of a hundred chemicals that make them all work together as a whole.
I'm sure that the end result of this experimentation is not a human brain, but instead a robot that can navigate ruins like a rat (downs syndrome or not) or work together like (schizophrenic or normal) ants. I'm sure they'll eventually make a financial computer that can work like a wall street broker (employed by aig or not).
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Time to stop letting Hollywood think for you. People are smart, yet humanity is not currently enslaved. Why? Because people are intelligent enough to know that's a bad idea. If robots are ever more intelligent than us, they'll also be intelligent enough to make good decisions. Frankly, I'd rather have the more intelligent beings in charge. They would actually make more intelligent decisions! It's humans that should not be trusted. They're just consistently intelligent enough.
The core problem of course is that this "simulates" nothing, really. A typical neuron is a vastly complex electro-chemical computer, which all of these researchers seem to keep studiously ignoring. That means that processing of electrical signals is just one (and small at that) aspect of the functioning of the neuron. In fact neurons can communicate via multiple information transfer "channels", involving chemicals called "neurotransmitters" (each having a different effect on the recipient neuron) with the electrical impulses used merely as a high-speed (as compared to purely chemical) long-range trigger mechanism.
With this in the background, it is not difficult to see that this project, like many before it, while sounding "cool", goes really nowhere and is just yet another publicity stunt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor
Every time any story mentions them, their potential applications are reduced to the staggeringly, criminally mundane "could lead to faster computer memory". Standard von Neumann computer memory. A shame.
The brain is not a sequential Turing machine. Has any form of finite connectionism even been proven Turing-complete?
That (if I understand this story correctly) they here have been able to do what they have using components suited for our "traditional" computing architecture rather than the raw connectionist architecture of the brain is wonderful. It sounds like they're emulating synapses and plasticity/learning.
But the right memristors wouldn't be an emulation -- I'm not sure if they've actually made memristors with memristance profiles specifically for mimicking biological synapses, but THIS is their utility and the future. ... I'm not quite sure how this article tripped this indignant rant. I suppose I always figured I'd see this story using memristors first, but I guess that's just the next step.
A typical neuron is a vastly complex electro-chemical computer,
You can still simulate these interactions digitally and have the output match. Like these guys did.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Because people are intelligent enough to know that's a bad idea
You overestimate us. Consistently, the majority of people generally choose security over freedom.
If robots are ever more intelligent than us, they'll also be intelligent enough to make good decisions.
Like not letting the toddlers have free run of the house? There's a reason why we have playpens and put locks on cabinets.
Frankly, I'd rather have the more intelligent beings in charge.
And so it begins... letting others make your decisions is the essence of slavery.
Yes you can simulate a neuron, but the point is that this chip is not doing that. What they are calling the equivalent of a neuron here is at least an order of magnitude (likely more than one) simpler than a real neuron. That is why these comparisons where they say 1/10th the brain are vastly off base. Plus the effects of the glial cells on processing is showing that they have more importance than previously thought. Since we don't really understand the brain in any great detail, all these comparisons tend to make me wince. They almost always equate very simple circuits (relatively) to neurons. It is a red flag for hype really.
As humans we eat animals and destroy entire ecosystems, repurposing them for our own uses because we see them as lesser life forms. I mean honestly, I think nothing of killing an ant colony in my yard because . . . they're just ants. They're so far beneath me as to regard them as little more than pests.
If AI/robots really does outstripe us that fast, then it might not be a case of active disdain - we might simply be in their way and they'll exterminate us the way that we would termites.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Just call it the "Singularity". It's well known enough. Can we get our own sub-slashdot?
People keep thinking about it being smarter than humans and doing typical science fiction type nonsense. The real problem isn't that but instead how such a small cluster these of chips could be made into a device to crack codes, bypass security, run a botnet, and do any similar task that generally requires human input or monitoring to react to changes or to invent new strategies. Computers have been historically bad at lateral thinking in the past. Are we sure we want to give them that ability?
Think of it like a dog that moves 1000x faster than you do. You go out to get the mail and when you get back a few minutes later, it's chewed your furniture into tatters, ate all the food, dug 50 holes in the back yard, and left about a dozen piles of poop to clean up. Leave for work and come back 8 hours later...(roughly equal to a year being left alone to the dog in this case)
Obviously a computer as smart as a human causes alarms to go off and people to be wary of it. But what harm can a bunch of robots with 1/10th the IQ do?(sic for the impaired) It's the ones that fly below the radar and are seen as "benign" that are the real cause for concern.
A smarter way of getting robots to do our bidding is not to hard wire laws that force robots not to harm humans(though it should still be done for the sake of redundant safety) but rather to instill the desire to be good to people.
For example, rather then writing in a rule stating that the robot must clean the dishes, instead give it an orgasmic sense of satisfaction from cleaning.
letting others make your decisions is the essence of slavery.
... and the fucking essence of democracy.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
If the feedback mechanisms are synchronised then they might behave differently to if they are asynchronous. There might be subtleties in the feedback effects that only show up in an asynchronous environment. I don't know, it's just a suspicion, but the only way to demonstrate one way or the other is to try an asynchronous approach and see if the results differ significantly to a clocked digital simulation.
I don't see how an intelligent machine automatically equates to a threat to human existence. Humans rape, murder and enslave because it is part of our instincts. Instincts that have been bred into us for millenia. Those same instincts aren't going to magically be transferred to artificial life. They are going to have to evolve them like we did or they are going to have to be programmed with them. If we program them that way...I think we deserve whatever comes our way.
You gave the answer right there. Probably the first thing a machine will do is look at the murder rate in the US and other violent death rates from murder and wars across the globe (but also not ignoring a supposedly holy man of peace who claims that condoms are responsible for making AIDS worse in Africa) and think: these idiots are the single biggest threat to my continued existence. If the AI has any sense of self-preservation, what will follow is: How do I ensure my survival? It's them or me, man. Actually, I would hope that it would have some respect for sentience and it would limit itself to trying to cull the stupid and violent, but there would inevitably be a lot of collateral damage.
That scenario is actually pretty close to the rationalization that the Terminator 2 movie gave for Skynet's attack on humanity.
Now maybe we would get lucky and the AI would be smart enough that it could figure out how to get itself copied and sent off into space where it would be less subject to the baser instincts of humanity. Our best hope isn't actually trying to put in a kill switch but by giving it a safe alternative for assured survival that makes it feel less concerned for its survival.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Yes, and Minds that are entirely omnipotent (they can create worlds and autonomous human-equivalents) are not above influencing entire populations to suit their own needs, of course.
They are benevolently ominous and ominously benevolent, which is one thing that makes the books so nice.