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IBM Takes a (Feline) Step Toward Thinking Machines

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the give-it-nip-or-it-launches-the-missiles dept.

bth writes "A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory — 100,000 times as much as your computer has."

1 of 428 comments (clear)

  1. A pile of neurons does not a brain make... by swm · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From TFA, it doesn't sound like they simulated the cerebral cortex of a cat.
    It sounds like they simulated a neural net with a comparable number of neurons.
    Not the same thing.

    A few days ago, Slashdot ran The Math of a Fly's Eye May Prove Useful.

    Those guys

    • reverse engineered the yaw motion detector in a fly brain
    • reduced the neural network to a set of 5 coupled, non-linear equations
    • implemented the equations on a computer
    • ran their implementation against an animated scene
    • observed that the equations correctly and robustly detect yaw

    and they still don't understand how the equations actually work.

    That's where we are with brain simulation.