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New Hardware Needed For Future Computational Brain
schliz writes "Salk Institute director Terrence Sejnowski has called for more power-efficient, parallel computing architecture to support future robots that could keep up with the human brain. While human brains had 100 billion neurons and required only 20 Watts of energy, today's most powerful supercomputer, the 2.57 PFlop Chinese Tianhe-1A, requires four megawatts, and still has trouble with vision, motion, and 'common sense,' he said."
I think one mistake (besides the power requirements) that people make is to assume "if you build it it will work from the start", the human brain needs over ten year to develop even mediocre common sense and awareness of its surroundings. We should not be able to just build the hardware, install the software, flip a switch and then expect the machine to fully function the first year even. A learning period for the machine is to be expected (though it might be accelerated to some degree) if it is going to work like a human thinks.
Each pint of beer contains 600 joules of energy, which can power your 20 watt brain for many hours, and give you trouble with vision, motion, and common sense.