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New "Wet Computer" To Mimic Neurons In the Brain
A new type of "wet computer" that mimics the actions of neurons in the brain is slated to be built thanks to a €1.8M EU emerging technologies program. The goal of the project is to explore new computing environments rather than to build a computer that surpasses current performance of conventional computers. "The group's approach hinges on two critical ideas. First, individual 'cells' are surrounded by a wall made up of so-called lipids that spontaneously encapsulate the liquid innards of the cell. Recent work has shown that when two such lipid layers encounter each other as the cells come into contact, a protein can form a passage between them, allowing chemical signaling molecules to pass. Second, the cells' interiors will play host to what is known as a Belousov-Zhabotinsky or B-Z chemical reaction. Simply put, reactions of this type can be initiated by changing the concentration of the element bromine by a certain threshold amount."
Puts a new spin on computer viruses ...
The wet mayor needs a wet computer.
Or was that white computer?
I'll have to change my opinion that we won't ever have true artificial intelligence. A chemical based computer could possibly become intelligent. After all, thought itself is only an electrochemical process.
Free Martian Whores!
welcome our new wet computing overlords.
Based on bromine, a dark, red, fuming, toxic liquid with a choking, irritating smell; from the Greek meaning stench. I'll take two, please.
That's a joke for funding. A project as ambitious as this cannot get much accomplished with a couple of million eurobucks. Ten times that amount would have been respectable. 1.8 million is money than it takes to open a fast food franchise joint in some cities.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
now just take a beowulf cluster of these and ... what would you do?
Heuristics is expected to make a big come back in Artificial Intelligence research, as the machine represents everything in terms of bromides.
I just don't see how this is going to be significantly different than something done in silica. It's the organization and processing, not whether it's made of coal or sand.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
From TFA:
"Recent work has shown that when two such lipid layers encounter each other as the cells come into contact, a protein can form a passage between them, allowing chemical signaling molecules to pass. Second, the cells' interiors will play host to what is known as a Belousov-Zhabotinsky or B-Z chemical reaction. Simply put, reactions of this type can be initiated by changing the concentration of the element bromine by a certain threshold amount."
And then some scientists are shocked to find out that prions can evolve.
then we'll: -add AI -make them in the image of ourselves -make them capable of self replication -make a male version and a female version -put them in a perfect, kick@ss new colony...wait a minute...
Or just when it is turn on?
great now when my PC breaks down I have to pay its medical bills too?
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
A "wet computer"? Didn't you guys just post this story two days ago?
Just throw a few ritalin in there, viola! If you want to go for XTREME overclocking you have to use crystal meth, but you risk overheating.
"..it will open up application domains where current IT does not offer any solutions - controlling molecular robots, fine-grained control of chemical assembly, and intelligent drugs that process the chemical signals of the human body and act according to the local biochemical state of the cell." Interesting possibilities abound when you have microscopic computers running around our bodies. Where will we buy the vaccines? Pfizer or Symantec?
I remember watching an episode batman Batman: The Animated Series about an AI developed in wet tissues. I think it was called "Heart of steel" but can't tell...
But... the future refused to change.
"so-called lipids" is a strange phrase. What does that mean? It is a lipid or it is not a lipid.
It's not osama bin laden's secret alias, a value judgment, a marketing campaign, or a trademark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid
I realize it was probably written by a journalist, so standards are pretty low, but still...
I will now hit my "so-called submit button" to post this.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I guess we're all fucked when it becomes self-aware. Do these scientist even watch the movies?
Is a lot like building an abacus using 3-D software and then manipulating your 3-D abacus to add 1 plus 3 to get four while chewing away millions of computational cycles...
We need a better way to simulate the effect of a neuron without having to re-create everything down to the last protein and lipid in a nerve cell....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I guess this gives a new meaning to: "My computer died". blackcrow.
But we don't actually have true randomness
Sure we do, if you actually care and want it. All you need is a source of true entropy.
I have yet to see a true random number generator.
BAM! And as of clicking that link, you can no longer say that.
Note that the actual implementation doesn't use a lava lamp anymore. For a general discussion of sources of true randomness, see here. The number generated from these devices are as random as the physical processes behind them.
Our algorithms are VERY deterministic. Lets say there is a purple car, but in my memory I remember it as blue.
Not always. Genetic algorithms (and quite a few other heuristic algorithms) are based on randomness. Even a simple neural network with feedback will exhibit the behavior of "remembered" values changing over time. You can easily combine the two techniques as well to create a very potent "fuzzy logic" system that's only as deterministic as your random number stream, minus that you can be pretty sure that it will converge on a solution to your problem (much like natural selection driven by random changes converges on solutions to the problem of survival).
Lets say for the sake of arguement you put it in your algorithm to on occaison 'randomly' alter data when its transfered to long term memory, and/or when it sits in long term memory. How often do you execute this? Is that up to 'random' chance? And how much gets altered? Is that random too? Could not my entire memory become distorted? Would that be the same thing as a mental disease - the computer happens to get a bad long series of random?
Well that depends on the algorithm, now doesn't it? If it's some kind of genetic algorithm, then randomness is introduced in things like the mutation rate. In real life, mutations are random, but the mutation rate itself is not a random variable (though it does change depending on environment).
If we're talking about something like brute-force simulation of the brain, then the randomness would only be introduced at those points where it must in physics, like qm waveform collapses.
If your point is that we don't know the proper algorithms yet, then I'm in total agreement. But we're talking about why a computer can't be intelligent, not why we're unlikely to make one that is any time soon.
The way to achieve true randomness, (From the article): One measures some physical phenomenon that is expected to be random and then compensates for possible biases in the measurement process.
So you knew about these techniques, but for some reason think they're cheating or something? If the computer has a sensor reading thermal noise and it uses that to produce Intelligence, suddenly it doesn't count as the computer being intelligence? Like what, the little sensor or the hot piece of metal is intelligent but the computer isn't? Come on.
Okay, assume the computer has a source of true randomness. NOW why can't it be intelligent but chemicals can?
The enemies of Democracy are
...a forest of these interconnected faux neurons.
Then imagine that everyone was blue.
I kinda dropped a sponge on it. I squeezed the goop back out, but I think maybe the sponge had some windex and everclear in it ...... yea, it was a pretty good party. The leds are blinking, but they're, like, orange and purple. Is that normal?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Wow, talk about carbon bias!
Can you cite a reason why silicon-based systems shouldn't be as capable carbon-based ones?
Because there's no evidence thus far for consciousness and cognition in anything other than carbon-based wetware.
You can hypothesize that consciousness and cognition are just another kind of computation, and a lot of people do, which near as I can tell is how we get the idea that silicon-based systems will someday do cognition and maybe even self-awareness when we find the right algorithm. But there are no such systems at the moment, and there's no particular evidence that given hypothesis is correct. It may well be self-aware intelligence is tied to the particular mix of phenomena that take place inside of carbon brains.
Tweet, tweet.
I'm pretty sure I've seen this on television.
Even if you manage to reproduce the human brain, won't it be just as vague, chaotic and mysterious as the original? Is there any point to that?
Hasn't this already been done? http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/MB/article.asp?doi=b808893d
you mean a computer dedicated to porn?