For decades, we have dreamt about an age in which computers are able to take a technological leap forward and learn from their own mistakes. It seems that time might be near, with the first commercial version of a new kind of computer chip scheduled to be released in 2014.
Not only can this new type of chip automate tasks that now require painstaking programming — for example, moving a robot’s arm smoothly and efficiently — but it can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term “computer crash” obsolete.
The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.
In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.
Designers say the computing style can clear the way for robots that can safely walk and drive in the physical world, though a thinking or conscious computer, a staple of science fiction, is still far off on the digital horizon.
“We’re moving from engineering computing systems to something that has many of the characteristics of biological computing,” said Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of many research centers devoted to developing these new kinds of computer circuits.
Read the full, original story: Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience
Additional Resources:
- Wait, could we make a computer out of our DNA? Pacific Standard
- The brain is not computable, MIT Technology Review
- Brain-net: Telepathic mice first step in creation of biological computer, Financial Times
