IBM’s Synapse marshals the power of the human brain in a computer

a reply to: DaRAGE

It's still not a direct comparison. The architecture is different. There's only a quarter of the connections. 1:256 vs 1:1000 estimate.

Also the brain's wave state fluctuates. It's dynamic. Some think perhaps this fluctuates is part of the mind/brain connection. This chip is static, set at 5hz. So if everything else were equal, it would be operating slower than the conscious psyche.

I think this is a step in the right direction, and something that may help us gleam insights into new ways of going about AI, but you can't just scale up and expect to recreate the human psyche. There's just not a direct comparison of architecture. Similar in many ways, yes, but not there yet.

originally posted by: DaRAGE
a reply to: Cantbebothered

You've only proven to be a twat. My maths is correct. Prove me wrong u internet troll.

Makes a mistake. Is a twat and Internet troll.
Username checks out.

a reply to: neoholographic

Right. And the PlayStation 2 "emotion engine" can process real emotions.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

I think this is a key point and this is why I think machine intelligence will not look like human intelligence. They will be creating machine that expresses intelligence differently than we do and it may look at us the same way we look at Dinosaurs.

Some people say, well the computer is pre programmed so it's not A.I. I think it's just the opposite because we depend on pre programmed information. I was visiting my cousin at her Day Care and they were teaching kids through flashcards. This is pre programmed information.

This is a step in the right direction because the thing that will make machine intelligence explode is can a computer learn this pre programmed information.

So you could one day have a computer that can learn things that we learn in K-12 at school in like 30 minutes. We're still learning about Einstein and Relativity but a machine like this could learn it in a few hours or a couple of days and tell us everything we need to know about Relativity.

Machine intelligence will be like an Oracle and it will be a boon for the human race. It will give us so much information.

Think of Einstein or Neils Bohr working without human noise like sleeping, eating, personal lives, watching TV or any other noise that distracts humans. Machine intelligence will do nothing but learn about the information we program into it.

The Singularity will come if we create a way for these computers to think about the information it learns. At this point, we wouldn't have any idea about what the computer was thinking because we don't understand everything that it's learning.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: pl3bscheese

I think this is a key point and this is why I think machine intelligence will not look like human intelligence. They will be creating machine that expresses intelligence differently than we do and it may look at us the same way we look at Dinosaurs.

There might be a difference between very advanced automatrons and humans. I believe it is the connection with a field / force we routinely describe as 'soul' or 'spirit'. Recent scientific research indicates that our brain somewhat works like a radio receiver: brain circuits can tune into the frequency of other brain parts relevant at the time. Now, if a brain circuit can tune into the frequency of other brain parts directly, perhaps it can tune into the frequency of other brains brain parts too, which might explain some paranormal phenomena. Or maybe our brains are indeed just complex receivers and processors of external information from a universal conscience - yes, God exists. And there may be a complex interaction going on between our brains and this omni-present field.

If so - it's a theory with a lot of circumstantial evidence going for it - you could even say that God created these automatrons indirectly, hence creating a new species that can populate the earth. They would be silicon based creatures. They would be the New Man who'd populate a New Earth.

Exciting times, as always

This topic fascinates me. I could see this coming 20 years ago, but doubted it would advance as quickly as it has. AI will soon reach a level where it becomes common for people to form emotional attachments to their machines. It has already been reported that soldiers in combat have done this when their mine-detecting robots are KIA. When it becomes normal for us to issue verbal commands to our computers more often than we use the keyboard, you can bet that the love affairs will begin. Then when someone tells you they really love their new computer, THEY REALLY LOVE THEIR NEW COMPUTER!

Once computers can effectively program themselves and reproduce (make other machines) with improvements incorporated into each new generation (machine evolution), a technological intelligence explosion could conceivably occur and proceed at an exponential rate. At this point human intervention may no longer be necessary, and may even be a hindrance. Whether through improvements made to initial programming done by humans or via naturally occurring machine evolution, once superintelligent machines reach a certain level it may be an inescapable consequence that the properties of self-awareness, self-preservation and goal-seeking naturally emerge.

From here on out, all bets are off. It’s hard to imagine the extreme and ridiculous lengths a self-aware, goal-seeking, superintellegent system may go to in order to fulfill it’s desired goals; goals that may change radically as the machines get smarter. With machines that can outwit us in a fight for resources and self-preservation, things could get a little spooky. Hal comes to mind.

A British cyberneticist named Kevin Warwick once said something that kinda struck me. He asked, “How can you reason, how can you bargain, how can you understand what a machine is thinking when it’s thinking in dimensions you can’t conceive of?”

I hope I got that quote right. At any rate, the things I just mentioned aren’t wild speculations on my part. These are very real considerations by leaders in the field right now. It’s no longer science fiction. This is an inevitable reality, and it’s right around the corner.

Oh yeah, and IBM is doing some remarkable work in this area. This new chip is a radically new design. As I understand it, this chip processes information in a kind of analog-like fashion, being more similar to the way our brains do. At some point they will integrate this into a configurable analog-digital system having characteristics of both technologies. This will then be a very smart machine. It may be almost indistinguishable by most of us from a human, but still not quite sentient. Self-awareness is a whole other ball game.

Great post...

originally posted by: 3n19m470

originally posted by: DaRAGE
a reply to: Cantbebothered

You've only proven to be a twat. My maths is correct. Prove me wrong u internet troll.

Makes a mistake. Is a twat and Internet troll.
Username checks out.

Oh really? I thought he was a taw not because he amde a mistake, but simply because he did not rebute his assumptions that were wrong with actual evidence... thus being wrong himself... an therfore trying to make me think i was wrong... which i wasn't.. and after doing the math 3 times in tottally DIFFERENT ways and still getting the same answer... KNOWING he was wrong.. and still posting no evidence as to WHY i was wrong... yes i called him a twat and an internet trlll because that's what I thought he was...

I was trying to get him to A. Think. B. Prove me wrong. C. Provide evidence. In the end he admitted he was wrong.. but then still SAYING I was wrong about something without proving or explaining WHY or HOW I was wrong....

Thus trying to make a better commmunity member, you decided to.. what? Yes I did check the username... this thought.. if he cant be bothered.. so why should I?

I feel i did my best disconcerning that username, the abuse suffered without evidence contradicting me.....

a reply to: mattsawaufo

i remember a few years back sony put out a swath of press releases
"our next generation consoles will interface directly with the human brain, blah blah"
and all that kinda stuff...
...a few days later,
another swath of press releases,
"oh, this is isn't scheduled for X amount of years yet, blah blah bull# bull#"

/watches "videodrome"
/popcorn

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Now if we can just find a way to download our consciousness into it...

I think you mean 'upload'.

What would you do with the leftover meat?

THINK HAL 9000 Dehomag "See everything with Hollerith punchcards"

a reply to: neoholographic

The power of the chip suggests it could become more than a processing unit but emulating human thought, without feeling. Stephen Hawkins see AI as biggest threat to humanity. I add to that by saying thought without feeling, and where have we seen that well presented, in Terminator films calculating intelligences with no pity or empathy to their creators.

Five years later we have Intel creating a chip that has 130,000 Neurons with 130 million synapses and we are mean't to be impressed?

Fudzilla: Intels Pohoiki Beach

How to exaggerate something in the title of a news article to grab attention and make a profit 101:

See article linked in the OP.

Or should I just say: Advertising 101?

Interesting technology nevertheless, but the word "marshals" should read "copies" or "imitates" for the purpose of accuracy rather than exaggeration. We stll have quite a way to go for "marshals" as meant or implied in that context regarding the full power of the human brain in a computer.

Anyone who has ever programmed AI for a strategy game, especially RTS, may understand that the problems or challenges in this area are not always solved by merely having more raw computing power (as this is what this technology focusses on; which of course is very appropiate for their particular field of science, not to get me wrong).

I absolutely LOVE that scene because it's so true.* Now I had another excuse to use it. Thanks. *: "[Love] rejoices with the truth." (1 Cor.13:6b)