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IBM plans to build virtual human brain
Cognitive computing project plans to use nanoscale devices as virtual neurons and synapses
Robots and computers that think like humans have traditionally been confined to sci-fi worlds such as those in ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Red Dwarf’, but IBM reckons that a real-time computer simulation of the human brain isn’t out of the question. In fact, the company has just announced that it’s embarking on a project to ‘simulate and emulate the brain’s abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition.’
In conjunction with five universities, the company that brought us the PC standard has formed a cognitive computing project, claiming that although the amount of data storage is increasing every year, the ability to interpret that data in a quick and useful way is lacking. ‘Without the ability to monitor, analyse and react to this information in real-time,’ says IBM, ‘the majority of its value may be lost.’
IBM says that its new AI project will be ‘seeking inspiration from the structure, dynamics, function, and behaviour of the brain,’ and that it’s aiming to ‘break the conventional programmable machine paradigm.’ The virtual brain, if it’s successfully developed, will feature virtual synapses and neurons in the form of nanoscale devices.
Of course, even basic brains are intensely complicated, and although IBM recently simulated a small mammal brain in near real-time earlier this year, the computer required was the Blue Gene supercomputer. However, IBM says that it can use this simulation capacity to experiment with ‘various mathematical hypotheses of brain function and structure’ in order to work towards ‘discovering the brain’s core computational micro and macro circuits.’
The objective of the project, according to IBM, is to make the technology ubiquitous in the future. As a result, the company hopes that future computers will be ‘imbued with a new intelligence that can integrate information from a variety of sensors and sources.’ As such, IBM hopes that they’ll be able to ‘deal with ambiguity, respond in a context-dependent way, learn over time and carry out pattern recognition to solve difficult problems based on perception, action and cognition in complex, real-world environments.’
Josephine Cheng, vice president of IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, said that ‘we believe that our cognitive computing initiative will help shape the future of computing in a significant way, bringing to bear new technologies that we haven’t even begun to imagine.’ IBM has also released a short video that explains the project, which you can see on the next page.
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IBM's shares will soon be bought out by a little scandinavian company called Skynet.
Comment by thegreat0mi at 9:33am 26th November 2008
I just hope they remeber to turn off there modem before they power it up, otherwize i'm gonna cr$p myself every time the phone ring's!! lolz
Comment by ramos001 at 9:31pm 25th November 2008
most of the best ideas ever arent really ideas. they are just stolen from nature and adapted. so this might work lol
Comment by vulcanproject at 10:59pm 23rd November 2008
Well if the AI does go mad lets hope that it will kill paris hilton first and give us some happiness LOL. Anyway looks like a cool experiment and I can only hope it will give us new advances in our technology. If not we will have to settle for the i7 Core CPU's, Direct X 11 and Windows 7 in the near future. Love the little Red Dwarf reference at the beginning of the article. Made my day :-)
Comment by Nickuk1987 at 10:34pm 23rd November 2008
If you were sensible as soon as you'd built your time machine you would go back in time and deliver the flux capacitor to you at exactly the time you wanted it to be able to finish and .. errr. go back in time to deliver the ... noooooo my head hurts..
Comment by NewParadigm at 12:18pm 22nd November 2008
Imagine a few hundred thousand of them! That would be scary... But you could have so much fun asking them (if its intergrated into a human robot thing) to keep parking your car everytime you go out :D Its almost sinister, yet total entertainment.
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 12:11pm 22nd November 2008
if they base it on the female of the species it will have no concept of time, space, reverse parking, or reasoning skills, and will just malfunction for 7 days a month. I am expecting awesome reviews on curtains, bedding and the soap operas........oo behave.
Comment by mudslinger at 11:41pm 21st November 2008
I've nearly finished building my time machine, so when the inevitable happens, we can send you back to stop the madness before it starts. It'll just be a few days for the Flux Capacitor to arrive. (should have payed for next day delivery, oh well).
Comment by smiffy at 6:56pm 21st November 2008
Bad move. The machines will take over the world if this happens, and we will have an armageddon situation. Humans vs Robots. Only I would be able to save the human race then.
Comment by l00ney at 5:04pm 21st November 2008
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