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New Chip Offers Artificial Intelligence On A USB Stick (pcmag.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the It's-my-chip-on-a-box dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "Pretty much any device with a USB port will be able to use advanced neural networks," reports PC Magazine, announcing the new Fathom Neural Compute Stick from chip-maker (and Google supplier) Movidius. "Once it's plugged into a Linux-powered device, it will enable that device to perform neural network functions like language comprehension, image recognition, and pattern detection," and without even using an external power supply.

Device manufacturers could now move AI-level processing from the cloud down to end users, PC Magazine reports, with one New York computer science professor saying the technology means that now "every robot, big and small, can now have state-of-the-art vision capabilities."
The article argues that this standalone, ultra-low power neural network could start the creation of a whole new category of next-generation consumer technologies.

14 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Prototype as far as I can see by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2

    This is all very interesting. However, there is no indication of when the sticks will become generally available. Their website indicates that they intend to create 1000 sticks shortly for use by selected customers. It is difficult to know how real this is, actually.

    1. Re:Prototype as far as I can see by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is all very interesting. However, there is no indication of when the sticks will become generally available.

      There also seems to be very little actual information about it. How much memory does it have? How many FLOPS? The product sheet says it uses 16 bit floats, which are generally good enough for NNs. But can it do FP32 and FP64 at all? The power consumption is ~1W, so I doubt if it can do much with that. The USB interface would be a major bottleneck, as you fed information in, and pulled results out. A GPU on a PCIe bus would be way faster at that ... and nearly all computers already have a GPU. I think I will continue to run my NNs on a Tesla K80.

    2. Re:Prototype as far as I can see by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      It's just a mobile gpu chip with a USB interface.

    3. Re:Prototype as far as I can see by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I suspect (yes, I'm guessing) that this may be somewhat less expensive than a Tesla K80.

      Sure, but it is more expensive than the GPU already included in your computer, which has a marginal cost of $0 since you already have it. So why should you buy something that is far slower and less capable than something that is effectively free?

      Also, you don't need to buy a Tesla K80. You can rent them by the minute from AWS.

  2. Only for Linux? by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well, first time I've seen that in a long time. Sounds like this Xkcd (https://xkcd.com/644/) might have something to do with it.

  3. Bullshit by geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We should first create AI before we start selling it on fucking USB sticks.

    1. Re:Bullshit by mschwanke97402 · · Score: 2

      I agree. I'm tired of AI this and AI that. At best we're getting to expert systems that are tied to speech and sight recognition. When one of these "AI" thingies can come up with an original idea and implement new behavior as a result, we might be getting there.

    2. Re:Bullshit by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      I can replace most MBAs with a dirty sock. That doesn't mean we have AI.

    3. Re: Bullshit by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      Who treats doctors when they get sick?

      Their mothers — and robots don't have mothers.

    4. Re: Bullshit by WarJolt · · Score: 2

      You can train a machine to classify cat photos. I'm not sure if I'd call that intelligence.

      Scientists use the words machine learning. This device enables ML. At this time ML is by far the most useful aspect related to AI, but it's misleading to say this device enables AI. Additionally, mimicking human intelligence doesn't alway involve learned behavior.

      You might disagree with my terminology, but machine leaning enables better AI. Machine learning isn't AI. There are plenty of machines that have been trained that do completely unintelligent things.

    5. Re:Bullshit by dcollins117 · · Score: 2

      f I recognized that I'm being replaced by a robot and make the preparations to become a robot repairer, I'm going to be the person who gets the job.

      And I'll be the guy who breaks them. Job security for us both!

  4. Wasted potential... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    This is AI on a USB stick is smart enough to know that it was go into the drawer with all the non-AI USB sticks that I don't use anymore?

  5. Maybe by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2

    This USB stick will do a better job of editing Slashdot than the humans,

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  6. I have to create an account to view the API? by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fuck off. If you want me to have even a passing interest in this i want to see how easy it will be to use and port applications BEFORE I give you my details.