IBM to build brain-like computers (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.

Part of a field called "cognitive computing", the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists.

As a first step in its research the project has been granted $4.9m (£3.27m) from US defence agency Darpa.
***
IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integrate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do.

The longer-term goal is to create a system with the level of complexity of a cat's brain.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7740484.stm

They'll know they've succeeded when they've built a system that won't come when it's called, but only when it hears a can opener.

[YOY]

1. Is the first one going to be called Skynet?

n/t

[zipplewrath]

2. Oh, great

We're going to build a mechanical cat that manipulates its owners with computer like efficiency.


Dogs have owners, cats have slaves.

[TommyO]

4. My cats already do that

They have me very well trained.

[FreepFryer]

3. Ummm, can anyone scream 'BAD IDEA' please? :)

[TommyO]

5. Why is it necessarily a bad idea?

It's technology, it's a tool. Like many devices, it can be put to good use, or used in negative ways.

[FreepFryer]

7. Just because we CAN do a thing, it does not mean that we SHOULD do that thing. (n/t)

[Posteritatis]

9. Again, with fewer cliches this time? (nt)

[Posteritatis]

10. But - but - but - mediocre science fiction says it's evil! (nt)

[pokerfan]

12. Mediocre?

"Thou shalt not create machines in the image of a human mind." - Butlerian Jihad (Dune)

[Posteritatis]

14. So someone's thou-shalt-not decrees are okay if they're science fiction and not mythology? (nt)

[eppur_se_muova]

6. I, for one, welcome our new silicon overlords. nt

[Indenturedebtor]

8. Yes, it's not as though ANYTHING that's remotely sentient could make worse decisions than we have

as a species.

Hook me up to the matrix and make me a pornstar please.

[phantom power]

11. Yes, but think how much *faster* it will be able to make bad decisions!

We'll have to come up with a new measure -- BDpS (Bad Decisions per Second) I'm sure the first models will only achieve kilo-BDpS, but Moore's Law will surely enable giga-BDpS in short order.

[laconicsax]

13. Why don't they just make a positronic neural network?

[Tesha]

15. Because it's against the Lor! (NT)

[Morpheal]

16. DARPA AND HOW TO BUILD A BETTER CAT ?

Well, they should have started with something simpler.
Maybe a monarch butterfly.
One that is capable of navigating itself across continent on its migration path, successfully.

I think building a "better" cat was a bit too ambitious for DARPA.

Who is crazy enough to approve that kind of funding anyway ? Congress ???

When DARPA has proven that it can build a monarch butterfly that is truly fully functional
the way a monarch butterfly is able to function, then let's consider whether they deserve
the money to build a cat. Ok ?

Bet they can't build the butterfly first.

And how many neurons does the average butterfly have in it ?

The major reason such things are the way they are is that the fundamental principles
concerning intelligence and the brain remain severely flawed. With the current
set of faithfully believed and cherished paradigms, you cannot build a functional,
intelligent and thus learning and evolving, one celled organism, much less a cat.

Maybe you can build a religion, but not a functional one celled organism.

Cheers.

Robert Morpheal