IBM develops a computer chip with one million 'neurons' that 'functions like a h

[Renegade]

Embrace your infant overlords!

http://www.dailymail...ike-human-brain.html

• TrueNorth is being hailed as the world’s first neurosynaptic computer chip because it can figure things out on its own
• Modern processors have 1.4 bn transistors and consume up to 140 watts but the IBM chip contains 5.4 bn transistors and uses just 70 milliwatts
• Richard Doherty, the research director of tech research firm Envisioneering Group, hailed IBM's chip as a ‘really big deal’

IBM has developed a computer chip which it says will function like a human brain in a giant step forward for artificial intelligence.

TrueNorth is being hailed as the world’s first neurosynaptic computer chip because it can figure things out on its own.

The chip also has one million ‘neurons’ and could cram the same power as a super computer into a circuit the size of a postage stamp.

IBM's TrueNorth processor could enable a wide variety of applications based on the human brain's computing power. For instance, it could help assist vision-impaired people to navigate through an environment

Experts said that it was as big an advance as the advent of supercomputers in the 1980.

Horst Simon, deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told the New York Times: ‘It is a remarkable achievement in terms of scalability and low power consumption’.

Modern processors have some 1.4 billion transistors and consume up to 140 watts but the IBM chip contains 5.4 billion transistors and uses just 70 milliwatts of power, meaning it is incredibly efficient.

More about your new masters at the link!

[kunkel321]

Hopefully they can combine this new technology with those self-replicating 3D printers...   

[Renegade]

Hopefully they can combine this new technology with those self-replicating 3D printers...   

-kunkel321 (August 13, 2014, 11:17 AM)

You mean like Replicators from Star Gate?

[MilesAhead]

It would've been funnier if it said "Richard Doherty, the former research director of tech research firm Envisioneering Group(he has since been replaced by the prototype) said..."

[MilesAhead]

Hmm, if a chip has more than a million neurons does that make it a moron?

[SeraphimLabs]

Just being able to create synaptic mesh networks does not make a functional intelligence.

Although we know what the human gray matter is made of, we don't have anywhere near a complete mapping of its connectivity to use as a template for intelligences.

Developing artificial intelligence using these new synaptic chips is going to be a bit of a guessing game for quite some time until someone finally stumbles into it.

However, I see one very radical application right off the top- Prosthetics.

Right now we are just starting to be able to interface the human body directly to electronic constructs and use that to control motion in a natural manner.

If you used a synaptic design as the computing device in such a prosthetic device, it would be possible for the device to learn the user's behavior and adjust its output accordingly to be as lifelike and natural-fitting as their original limb would have been.

This also opens up the possiblity of more and more sophisticated prosthetics, replacing even sections of the eyes and ears or perhaps the entire lower body by using the synaptic learning ability to train the prosthetic to respond to its wearer's thoughts and neural impulses.

It seems that the age of cybernetics is about to begin at last.

[Renegade]

Just being able to create synaptic mesh networks does not make a functional intelligence.

Although we know what the human gray matter is made of, we don't have anywhere near a complete mapping of its connectivity to use as a template for intelligences.

Developing artificial intelligence using these new synaptic chips is going to be a bit of a guessing game for quite some time until someone finally stumbles into it.

-SeraphimLabs (August 13, 2014, 01:01 PM)

It's a fascinating field. Roger Penrose argued in "The Emperor's New Mind" that AI was a pipe dream in the sense of actual consciousness.

But, who knows?

[MilesAhead]

Strosser used this quote in the beginning of Accelerando

The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.

    Dijkstra (1984) The threats to computing science (EWD898)

I never thought of it quite that way. 

I have about 70 pages left to read.

[kunkel321]

You mean like Replicators from Star Gate?

-Renegade (August 13, 2014, 11:21 AM)

  Yep.  That's where I was headed!