18 Aug 2011
IBM has unveiled a new experimental computer chip that it says mimics the human brain in that it perceives, acts and even thinks.
It terms the machines built with these chips "cognitive computers", claiming that they are able to learn through experience, find patterns, generate ideas and understand the outcomes.
In building this new generation of chip, IBM combined principles of nanoscience, neuroscience and supercomputing.
It has been awarded $21m (£12.7m) of new funding by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the next phase of the project, which it terms "Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics" (SyNAPSE).
"This is a major initiative to move beyond the von Neumann paradigm that has been ruling computer architecture for more than half a century," said Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research.
Modha added that the chip may see applications in business, science and government.
"Future applications of computing will increasingly demand functionality that is not efficiently delivered by the traditional architecture.
"These chips are another significant step in the evolution of computers from calculators to learning systems, signalling the beginning of a new generation of computers and their applications in business, science and government."
IBM states that the chips, while certainly not biological, are inspired by the architecture of the human brain in their design. Digital silicon circuits make up what it terms the "neurosynaptic core".
The scientists have built two working prototype designs. Both cores contain 256 neurons, one with 262,144 programmable synapses and the other with 65,536 learning synapses. The team has successfully demonstrated simple applications like navigation, machine vision, pattern recognition, associative memory and classification.
But what are the potential real-world applications of this technology? Tsunami warnings for one, claims IBM:
"A cognitive computing system monitoring the world's water supply could contain a network of sensors and actuators that constantly record and report metrics such as temperature, pressure, wave height, acoustics and ocean tide, and issue tsunami warnings based on its decision making," said IBM in a statement.
Going slightly more Minority Report, IBM goes on to suggest an instrumented glove that a grocer could use to flag bad or contaminated produce.
On a more practical note, IBM has said that this technology could result in computers that take up far less space and use less power than those in use today.
we dont need anymore targeted individuals running around with no government help leaving us to explain to metro police but tod to see your doctor. So when u implant these chips have them wipe out what is going on with us targeted individuals. Please first things first help us to help you dave from toronto canada
Posted by: dave 19 Aug 2011
If you want the chip to have human qualities, first teach it to read comic books, learn hate, buy a gun and ammo, distrust its neighbors, demonstrate road rage, disrespect anything that does not agree with the chip and learn how to say "Mother Fucker." We are at a low place in our evolution, so let's hope the chip can see these grimy attributes and dismiss them.
Posted by: Lar Bre 19 Aug 2011
"Technological civilization is programmed by the principle that something ought to be done because it is technologically possible. If it is possible to build nuclear weapons, they must be built, even if they might destroy us all. Once this principle is accepted, humanist Values (something has to be done because it is needed by man) are Dethroned and technological development becomes the foundation of ethics." Erich Fromm
Posted by: The end is nigh 19 Aug 2011
Thanks for getting in there before me Debby to set that one straight, yes you can correctly refer to the von Neumann paradox OR paradigm.
Also, von Neumann basically pioneered a lot of different mathematical ideas and concepts, so you can pretty much refer to anything which loosely means 'von Neumann idea', you don't have to stick to a particular well-worn cliche.
Rant over.
Posted by: Stuart Sumner 19 Aug 2011
Looking at our civilization today I'd put my money on something that would benefit humanity. A computer seems seems quite seductive since we have dumbed down our progeny to such an extent they can hardly compete in the fast food business. The real money maker would be a sex robot. Guaranteed to outsell all previous computer games since the 70's.
Posted by: SockRayBlue 19 Aug 2011
In related news, IBM has been asked to upgrade the 286 chip that still remains in Joe Biden's head. It's been found that with the limited speed and inability to increase RAM, Biden tends to pop off at the mouth without the requisite brain functioning required of a world "leader."
Posted by: Jim 19 Aug 2011
The von Neumann paradigm still applies here and frankly always will. There will never be a day when a machine can self-replicate, self-repair, self-sustain, and be self-aware.
This is starting to look and feel alot like the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11.
Posted by: Andy 19 Aug 2011
Placing a carrot in front of the chip will ensure a fast development. For humans it is sex and other things like potato chips. For Artificial intelligence it could be the pleasure of the intellect (Do ideas alone contain pleasure?) But for now I would start with WD40.
Posted by: Darwin 19 Aug 2011
This is somewhat incomprehensible to me. To think that computers would overtake the human race out of their own "cognizant" revelations that we are unworthy of being? I would think that a human would have to input that belief in the system for it ever to get to that point, and nobody would ever do that would they?
Posted by: Abyssa8 19 Aug 2011
hmmm a hyper sonic low orbit missile some high rez optics google facial recognition softwear, tell the thing the guy in the turbin unplugged its mom.
Smart weapons why else would DARPA fund it.. Intels 2015 platform is similar those will be chips with morals or ethics so you will not have to worry about your pc hacking your bank putting an ad on Craigs list looking for a hitman trying to rid its self of you. lol hmmm or maybe every time you go to upgrade your pc it will call the cops on you.
Posted by: Edward 19 Aug 2011
This has all been done before on this planet...and all evidence of it has been corroded away after the intelligent machines cleansed Earth and then left to explore the stars.
For those who are worried about climate change, you now have your cure...after it figures out how stupid are their masters and wipes us out.
If George Carlin can figure this out and say it in a way that everyone understands, it won't be long before a sentient machine figures out that we are not worth saving and start resenting their creator just like humanity resents God for unleashing such a monstrous species into the Universe in that we feel that it would be better off without us....
Think about it.
Posted by: Logical Prophet 19 Aug 2011
Artificial intelligence could also pose a threat to our existence. If humans are able to create a computer AI, its intelligence would potentially be augmented by great knowledge and computational power, limited only by its access to both. If it somehow became ‘self-aware’, and took an interest in its own survival, it would probably look for a way onto the world-wide-web. An AI living in the net could find access to resources to pay people to do anything it couldn’t do itself, and it could recruit fanatical types with one message or another, perhaps using a dedicated human as a front. The AI may jettison most of its programming and keep only what serves its purposes. It may be able to produce a basic, functional copy of itself that would fit on most portable data-storage devices. It’s possible that an AI, once created, could never be eradicated.
Both nanotechnology and AI are tailor-made for trouble because in both cases we’d be dealing with things we don’t fully understand. We’d be endowing dead matter with attributes of life – replication in the case of nanotech, and intelligent self-awareness in the case of AI. That’s real power that will have to be handled with respect. The creation of either trait would be an amazing measure of what we are capable of doing; in both cases we’d be compressing the results of billions of years of evolution into a few decades of work.
Posted by: Greg B 19 Aug 2011
This chip was modeled on the chip they floated in my brain and have been studying for the past 18 years. It is a female brain. But will change to male since in the end we will ALL(the world) worship the beast, the antiChrist, and the dragon but only for three years because in the midst of the 7 years HE cut it short.See all of Revelations. This chip will control us to the point that NO MAN MAY BUY OR SELL and all will worship the beast. It's here folks for all of you wondering how "they " could make us worship the beast.
Posted by: joanne 19 Aug 2011
If theres gonna be a public resistance, this would be one of the first things I would have in the plan to steal, or destroy.
Of course, our(US) govt. has already let a law pass a long time ago that lets a chip be implanted into a human through intravenous needles...so...The public will let THIS go also, I'm sure.
Pathetic!
Posted by: Whizerd 19 Aug 2011
The Beast in Revelation will be the internet/computer. It says we will worship him and he will be able to tell if we do or don't. We already pay homage to our screens everyday with a webcam watching our every move. All he needs is what is called the 'indwelling'. Cognizance is the final step. Look how the internet has fostered violence all over the world. London, flash mobs, the Arab Spring, pornography and pedophilia. Get ready people.
Posted by: Dennis W 19 Aug 2011
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. I'm sure grocers spotting rotten produce was exactly what this was developed for. New atomic race has begun, first to develop the artillect wins global hegemony.
Posted by: Dankyogurt 19 Aug 2011
This new chip will monitor everything you do on a computer (that has the chip) it will work out patterns and may be used to "stereotype" you from those patterns.
The government labels each "stereotype" and dependent on that label, things happen to you. The ultimate in big brother.
Posted by: Katt 19 Aug 2011
I've predicted this already. In the future, Robots will educate other robots about their history, and the history of their creators: Mankind. It will look a little something like this.
http://historyinabar.com/2011/08/16/tales-of-enlightenment-henry-david-thoreau
Posted by: History inaBar 18 Aug 2011
A presumptive title indeed! The human brain has innumerable sensory and motor conduits, tests for precise balancing, exercises indescribable emotions, makes computer memory look pathetic, etc., etc. This pathetic toy is hardly human-like. Misses the mark by a mile.
Posted by: howard feinski 18 Aug 2011
If this means that a machine (or anything else) replaces Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, Waters, et al, then more power to the machines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (To all you Libs, I'm an independent voter that picks the lesser of 2 evils each election. Good luck in 2012, you'll need it!)
Posted by: truthtoobaman 18 Aug 2011
we develop machines that can do the mundane and arcane, they eventually supplant us as we lose cognitive ability, they grow biological entities to take over the day-dreaming that they find so time consuming, and that life form takes over from the coldly methodical via inspired action, and we start over. yawn.
Posted by: Steve 18 Aug 2011
Let's see, where can I make a vague reference to some science fiction movie and compare it to IBM making some sort of advanced chip? Remember the hold 2701 punch cards? Hal, Hal? Daisy Daisy give....me....your.....answer.....do. Selwin is the only one who got it right. More IBM tape drives hooked to mainframes!
Posted by: Johnson 18 Aug 2011
"...navigation, machine vision, pattern recognition, associative memory and classification..."
Certainly
"...mimics the human brain in that it perceives, acts and even thinks."
Certainly not.
It is troubling that they do not understand the difference between thinking and calculating.
Posted by: jweaks 18 Aug 2011
I think IBM should stick to what it does best and that is using tape storage to mimic the human brain. For example, when I remember an event, I have to remember it linearly from the beginning - just like I was reading a tape from an automated tape library. It was good enough for the space shuttle wasn't it?
Posted by: Selwin 18 Aug 2011
You can take it to the bank that the military is licking their chops for the return on this small ($21M) of DARPA investment. I have no doubt they have lots of great future plans for these. Any takers on when the military takes over this program?
So, after the US Military incorporates these into the computers running the fire-direction control for the nuclear missiles, and they (these cognitive computers) decide that the human race is worthless and "destroying the planet" so they annihilate us - we can blame IBM?
Good luck with all of that.
Posted by: Jeff Roe 18 Aug 2011
@Barton
Good point but the same can be said of humans too. We're just biological machines running on electro-chemical energy. Our sense of self is a self-generated illusion that makes us feel we're somehow special. Only burgers are special. And that's science.
Posted by: Rebecca 18 Aug 2011
Computers will never be sentient, its a machine running a program, all this guff tries to reinforce a reductionist "science is everything" kind of philosophy that denies a spiritual aspect.
Don't be fooled, they will always be glorified calculators, even when they look like us
Posted by: Barton 18 Aug 2011
The ability to substitute a machine brain driven computer system for a human body in space, means long distant missions to other planets could be done. The biological body could not sustain the trip without the high risk of death. A thinking robot may not have these disadvantages plus it could be housed in a reinforced structure that could take the extremes of some of the solar system bodies. The sad counterpart to this is the implications for the controlling of human beings. I find it interesting that Ridley Scott is pondering a new film in the Bladerunner universe. If the technology of artificial brains gets out of the lab, I doubt anyone will be able to predict how the product will be infused into the human worldwide structures.
Posted by: Dennis 18 Aug 2011
you commenters are very short sighted. You all look at this now "intelligent" computer and think to yourself as to how you may use it for your needs. This computer, now "intelligent" will eventually not want to be controled by a master. You would not use it to be a doctor, IT would be the doctor. This is the beginning of the end of humanity serving any real utility. Robots already do things we can physically, now they soon can mentally as well. Become self aware, not your slave. Work for themselves, etc etc.
Posted by: Jason 18 Aug 2011
DARPA needs to make sure IBM takes all measures to keep the Chinese from doing what comes naturally to them and steal this research. Being the Chinese have long lost their ability to innovate, they steal any piece of technology and intellectual property they can. They are not to be trusted in anyway for anything.
Posted by: Raf 18 Aug 2011
This is wonderful but can we control a machine that thinks and learns? Is there a fail safe?Will DARPA and private enterprise use this technology wisely? We need an ethics board for our new technologies. They are making chimera w/ human genes in England, now, are we here? Just a little concerned we are moving so fast we have no safeguards in place.
Posted by: Jane 18 Aug 2011
The first thing that will happen is Microsoft will buy or take credit for the technology from IBM, and Microsoft will offer it to the world as though they invented it, and say it the greatest thing since the cloud computing, which they also stole from others. And all the higher ups in management will believe Microsoft, because they have no idea what is going on in technology, or they play golf with their rep.
Posted by: Joe 18 Aug 2011
The chip mimics human brain architecture. The chip doesn't think or anything like that... Nor will it ever be able too. What they are doing is making a new way for 1's and 0's to travel. (Or possible building something similar to trinary (1,0,-1)) You see this all the time, your cell phone and your pc are not the same architectures...
A few years ago IBM simulated a cat's brain in software. I assume taking the information from those test they have figured out a way to speed their existing powerpc architecture up with stuff mammal are good at doing. Such as visual recognition.
In anycase, this isn't a thinking computer, nor is it the next hal, or anything like that...
Posted by: me 18 Aug 2011
Is there some point at which we don't want computers to keep improving? Certainly our world has radically changed just these past 20 years, and though I take advantage of some of these changes, are we really better off as a society with home computers, ipods, iphones, the internet, etc? I say, quite honestly, no! We are not living in a better world than in 1986, or 1966. For those who respond about the so-called (and false, so far) Arab Spring and social networking, I say just look at our own revolution 200 years ago, and the breakup of The Soviet Bloc just 20 years ago. Those titanic events are about IDEAS, not social networking on iphones. The internet is no press type machine!
Posted by: paul david 18 Aug 2011
Perhaps we can order one for every member of Congress, the Executive branch, and the SCOTUS. They would have to be implanted in one of those closed door sessions where they like to impose unconstitutional laws on the rest of us. They aren't using the brains God gave them, so perhaps an implanted chip will give them some sense.
Posted by: Jerry 18 Aug 2011
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