DailyDirt: Creating Virtual And Artificial Brains

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Dec 14th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

We're a long way away from creating an artificial intelligence from scratch that can perform general tasks. But plenty of researchers are learning some interesting things about AI while they build massively parallel computers or grow microbrains from little clumps of cells. Here are just a few projects where some synthetic brains are being hand-built by people.

One *million* [/Dr. Evil voice] ARM processor cores are being hooked together to create a parallel computer called SpiNNaker that will try to simulate the human brain. Given that the human brain has about 100 billion neurons with 1,000 trillion connections between them all, this project is less than 1% of the way towards a full brain simulation. [url]
Growing a brain in a petri dish from rat neurons might be an interesting approach to building a brain de novo. So far, researchers have created a network of about 60 rat neurons which seem to be able to sustain activity for about 12 seconds. [url]
Folks from IBM are working on cognitive computing like the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project with some DARPA funding to re-create a billion artificial neurons. Trying to beat the power efficiency of the human brain isn't an easy task. [url]
To discover more interesting bot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: artificial intelligence, brains, cognitive computing, microbrains, neurons, parallel computers, spinnaker, synapse
Companies: darpa, ibm

7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2011 @ 5:48pm

Let's hope...
That when they succeed in making these synthetic brains, that they're not Abby Normal brains...
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Michael Ho (profile), 14 Dec 2011 @ 6:00pm

Re: Let's hope...
A 'Young Frankenstein' reference is rare event around here. :P
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 14 Dec 2011 @ 7:58pm

Victim Of The Brain
Anyone interested in ruminations about brains, natural versus artificial, thinking and �soul�, might like to view this mix of fact and fiction from 1988, including discussions with Douglas Hofstadter, a bit of fantasy about Daniel Dennett, and a story by Stanislaw Lem: Victim Of The Brain.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 14 Dec 2011 @ 9:29pm

Re: Re: Let's hope...
Perhaps not Young Frankenstein as a few Anonymous Cowards and at least one Average Joe seem poorly and repetitively programmed AI machines ;-)
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Pixelation, 14 Dec 2011 @ 10:39pm

Re: Re: Re: Let's hope...
The dead giveaway is they are always craving agar.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2011 @ 1:52am

How about downloading things directly to the brain?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111212124603.htm
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2011 @ 1:58am

Talking about downloading knowledge directly to the brain, how will a content owner deal with things that can't be erased yet from the brain.

'Matrix'-Style Effortless Learning? Vision Scientists Demonstrate Innovative Learning Method

Can people be sued for illegally downloading knowledge to their brains?
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