The Electronic Brain Hours Mimics The Human

A circuit that mimics the functions of the nervous system is the Synapse project, just introduced by IBM. Future systems will revolutionize cognitive science with the computing power and memory superhuman ALESSANDRO LONGO
 
It is the first concrete step toward a future where computers will think like the human brain, with neural networks of synapses, which learn from experience and from the environment. The promise is to solve problems by finding an order, now invisible, in the complexity of reality.

Synapse is the result of the project, the historic information technology company IBM, in collaboration with four U.S. universities and funded by the U.S. government itself. Who has just presented the first two prototypes of chips that work like a brain. In fact, mimic the nervous system are made of nodes that process information, like digital neurons, connected to the integrated memory that mimic the synapses.

It's a big difference to the way we now operate computers, which process information in a mechanical and sequential. A bit after the other, based on a predefined schedule. It is a structural limit and historical science: it dates back to the 40s, when the foundations were laid of the first computers.

The neural chip is beyond because it is able to process information in parallel and adapt to the environment, a little 'how does the brain of humans and animals. Learning basically equivalent to creating and strengthening synaptic connections between brain cells (neurons). Synapse simulates this mechanism: the neural chips are made to pay more or less attention to certain input signals, according to their importance, which changesextent of new events and experiences.

This is basically the philosophy of "cognitive computing", a branch of computer science, now with Synapse is a big step forward, but the road to debut on the market is still long. If the new prototypes are the first brick, missing is the rest of the building, to create the computer of the future will even years. But now there's optimism.

So much so that the government agency DARPA, pleased with the results, has announced that it will fund Synapse with other $ 21 million, for a total of 41 million to date. The project goes forward and it is expected that the final product will be the size of a shoebox, will consume one thousand watts, and ten million "neurons".

The stakes, moreover, is very important. For now, the prototype can handle up to a game of ping pong, but the future computers may revolutionize cognitive science, being able to analyze the reality with intelligence (almost) human. Combined with computing power and memory of course superhuman. Will not replace traditional computers, probably, but I will join. For example, they could find a law that explains and provides for certain atmospheric phenomena. Or economic: the next crisis may not seize it by surprise.

Another promise is that eventually the computers will help us to understand cognitive mechanisms, some of the same human brain, even inscrutable. Psychological and psychiatric diseases may be explained and perhaps a cure. There is the study and treatment of autism in children, for that matter, beyond the scope of one of the main Italian projects of cognitive computing: iCub, a humanoid robot built by the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa.

With the algorithms of its software, it adapts to its surroundings, learning new features.But the suspicion is that a system as fast as a computer and intelligent as a man can also come into weapons for future wars. No surprise. After all, DARPA is the agency of the U.S. defense scientific research.

Source repubblica.it