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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.
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.
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