New IBM computer chip mimics the human brain

[Ringel05]

Can you say Skynet? Eagle Eye?

(CNN) -- Making computers behave like humans has taken another step forward.

IBM on Thursday announced it has created a chip designed to imitate the human brain's ability to understand its surroundings, act on things that happen around it and make sense of complex data.

Instead of requiring the type of programming that computers have needed for the past half-century, the experimental chip will let a new generation of computers, called "cognitive computers," learn through their experiences and form their own theories about what those experiences mean.

New IBM computer chip mimics the human brain - CNN.com

are these like Risc chips?

 

[FA_Q2]

Can you say Skynet? Eagle Eye?

(CNN) -- Making computers behave like humans has taken another step forward.

IBM on Thursday announced it has created a chip designed to imitate the human brain's ability to understand its surroundings, act on things that happen around it and make sense of complex data.

Instead of requiring the type of programming that computers have needed for the past half-century, the experimental chip will let a new generation of computers, called "cognitive computers," learn through their experiences and form their own theories about what those experiences mean.

New IBM computer chip mimics the human brain - CNN.com

And the redundancy of humor labor (including thinking labor) continues.

THIS is really going to become the thorniest problem facing mankind in this century IF Global Weirding doesn't.

At some point labor will be unnecessary though. At this time, Marx may actually be able to vindicate his theories on society. If work is no longer necessary and we can reach a infinite availability of goods communism may be where we end up.

 

[Ringel05]

Can you say Skynet? Eagle Eye?



New IBM computer chip mimics the human brain - CNN.com

And the redundancy of humor labor (including thinking labor) continues.

THIS is really going to become the thorniest problem facing mankind in this century IF Global Weirding doesn't.

At some point labor will be unnecessary though. At this time, Marx may actually be able to vindicate his theories on society. If work is no longer necessary and we can reach a infinite availability of goods communism may be where we end up.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9s7afoYI-M]Wall-E...the sad future of human kind - YouTube[/ame]

 

[flacaltenn]

Can you say Skynet? Eagle Eye?

(CNN) -- Making computers behave like humans has taken another step forward.

IBM on Thursday announced it has created a chip designed to imitate the human brain's ability to understand its surroundings, act on things that happen around it and make sense of complex data.

Instead of requiring the type of programming that computers have needed for the past half-century, the experimental chip will let a new generation of computers, called "cognitive computers," learn through their experiences and form their own theories about what those experiences mean.

New IBM computer chip mimics the human brain - CNN.com

are these like Risc chips?

Different computing structure. A neural computational network is more like a raw Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). It consists of layers of "neurons" (multipliers/adders/comparators) that take a string of input features and produce a decision. So you "train it" to recognize anything you want it to..

Say you wanted to predict rain.

1) You'd wire in the inputs that "you think" predict rain. Perhaps temperature, dewpoint, rate of baro pressure change, humidity, ect..

2) You'd train the network by feeding it past readings of your sensors and giving it the correct answer (rain or no rain). The training set would have to very representive of all the scenarios that the "brain" is likely to encounter.

3) The traditional computer part of the chip (or this can be done externally) tries to take the RAW array of neurons and exhaustively searches for the BEST predictor of rain. The HIGHEST correct answer with the most confidence margin.

4) THe final programming of the neural chip is done -- it's now more advanced than most TV weatherpeople..

5) Everything depends on how well you select the input feature set and whether the depth and topology of the neural network can accomodate a solution..

The alternate "puppy dog" training approach is to train "on the fly". If the puppy makes a good decision -- you give it a biscuit. If not- it's the newspaper..

IBM's New Chips Compute More Like We Do - Technology Review

The IBM researchers have built and tested two demonstration chips that store and process information in a way that mimics a natural nervous system. The company says these early chips could be the building blocks for something much more ambitious: a computer the size of a shoebox that has about half the complexity of a human brain and consumes just one kilowatt of power. This is being developed with $21 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in collaboration with several universities.

The company's researchers and their academic collaborators will present two papers next month at the Custom Integrated Circuits conference in San Jose, California, showing that the chip designs have very low power requirements and work with neural-circuit-mimicking software. In one experiment, a "neural core," as the new chips are called, learns to play Pong; in another, it learns to navigate a car on a simple race track; and in another it learns to recognize images.

""".... a computer the size of a shoebox that has about half the complexity of a human brain"

So THAT'S where the other half of Rush Limbaugh's brain is stored... (Raise your hand if you don't get that).

As the article says -- a lot of us wondering why this is considered "new". I'm sure it's probably a way more powerful silicon implementation than what's been tried before. But I'm kinda thinking that somewhere in the "intelligience" or "finance" communities, there have been hardware implementations of these techniques even 10 years ago..

BTW: I class this as "a GOOD waste of govt money" compared to some other ways that we blow cash on behalf of corporations..

 

[dilloduck]

Why would anyone create something that works like a human brain ? Have we learned our lesson by now ?

 

[flacaltenn]

Why would anyone create something that works like a human brain ? Have we learned our lesson by now ?

It'll make testing new drugs like Prozac and LSD that much more entertaining..

 

[freedombecki]

There are a few posters on this board that could directly benefit from this technology.....

Yes, I would.

 

[whitehall]

We can't even get democrats to mimic the human brain, how did IBM do it?

 

[uscitizen]

The chip can be fully programmed by sitting it in front of a television.

 

[Dude111]

Can you say Skynet?

Yup i can and its NOT GOOD!!