Artificial Synapse Created For Synthetic Brain

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Artificial Synapse Created For Synthetic Brain

Posted by timothy on Tuesday April 26, 2011 @04:52PM from the let's-vote-these-amateur-clowns-out-of-office dept.

Zothecula writes "It's probably still going to be a while before autonomous, self-aware androids are wandering amongst us. That scenario has come a little closer to reality, however, with researchers from the University of Southern California having created a functioning synapse circuit using carbon nanotubes. An artificial version of the connections that allow electrical impulses to pass between neurons in our brains, the circuit could someday be one component of a synthetic brain."

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Whatever you say by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2011-04-26 16:54 · Score: 5, Funny

It's probably still going to be a while before autonomous, self-aware androids are wandering amongst us.
Sure, that's what they'd like us to believe, anyway...
(crap - forgot to post this anonymously!)

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Why do robot brains need synapses? by MMC+Monster · 2011-04-26 22:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

Just because biological brains have synapses, do computer brains need them as well?
Serious question. I don't know where AI is or where it's taking us.
This is more useful to study human neurology.

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1. Re:Why do robot brains need synapses? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-26 22:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ust because biological brains have synapses, do computer brains need them as well?
  Serious question. I don't know where AI is or where it's taking us.
  The answer to the question is simply: "nobody knows". Is the role of the synapse simply to connect one cell to another, like a piece of wire in a circuit, or does it have some deeper functional role? Its behaviour is certainly far more complex than the OP suggests. My money is on the current paradigm (the brain as a computer) being about as completely and utterly wrong as the previous paradigm (the brain as a clock-work mechanical machine) was.