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Brain-like chip outstrips normal computers
COMPUTER chips that mimic the human brain are outstripping conventional chips in crucial ways. They could also revolutionise our understanding of how the brain functions.
Attempts to simulate the brain usually involveprogramming software to behave like groups of neurons. A new "neuromorphic" design instead tries to recreate the brain's hardware, using analogue components last seen in the early days of computing. "On our system, you can physically point to the neuron," says Karlheinz Meier of the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
The Spikey chip contains 400 "neurons", or printed circuits. Real neurons have a voltage across their outer membrane, which Spikey mimics using capacitors: components that store charge. Just as in a real neuron, when the applied voltage reaches a certain level, the capacitor becomes conductive, firing a "nerve signal".
Spikey also mimics synapses - the connections between neurons. In a normal chip, every process is digital and so can only take the value 0 or 1. Meier's team instead used analogue components with variable levels of resistance to simulate the way connections between neurons become stronger or weaker depending on how much they are used. "Analogue circuits died after digital computers became more powerful," says Meier, but they are now finding new roles.
The team connected the neurons in the Spikey chip in different ways to mimic various brain circuits. They have now modelled six neural networks, including one found in the insect olfactory system. By measuring patterns of activity, they found Spikey's artificial networks behave much like the real thing (arxiv.org/abs/1210.7083).
"This is as good as you can get in simulating neural architecture," says Massimiliano Versace of Boston University, Massachusetts.
Neuromorphic chips do already exist, though until now each chip could only mimic one particular brain circuit. Spikey, on the other hand, can recreate any pattern.
Neuromorphics have advantages over conventional chips that makes them useful in certain situations. For example, they do not separate memory and computation - information is stored in the synaptic strength - so they can run faster using less power. They also cope better with damage. Knocking out a few bits of a normal chip often breaks it altogether, but neuromorphics keep working, albeit slowly.
Companies like IBM and HP are looking into neuromorphics (see "Compute like a human"), and some medical devices already use them. Versace is working with NASA to develop a neuromorphic system to control a Mars rover, and says that the chips' fault tolerance may make them better suited to surviving the intense radiation of space. The chips also allow theories of how the brain functions to be tested, in experiments that systematically change how each neuron and network behaves.
The team is now scaling up Spikey as part of a project called BrainScales. "Instead of 400 neurons we have 200,000," says team member Thomas Pfeil. The researchers have printed all the circuits onto a single silicon wafer, 20 centimetres across, which allowed them to incorporate many more connections. Next year, they will use it to simulate part of the cortex of a rat brain. From there, they plan to connect six wafers in parallel, simulating over a million neurons, and eventually model a rat's entire visual cortex.
"The idea is to develop a new computing architecture," says Pfeil.
Compute like a human
The idea of building computer chips that mimic the brain dates back to the 1970s.
Massimiliano Versace at Boston University has built a system called MoNETA, which mimics the way brains store information. It uses tiny devices called memristors that store information by"remembering" the last voltage applied to them. Because such neuromorphic chips are capable of learning, they are potentially suited for use in robots or drones, says Versace.
Meanwhile, IBM Research in California has built a chip covered with wires that mimic the branching projections of neurons. The chip learned to play the video game Pong without needing to be programmed.
Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628925.100-brainlike-chip-outstrips-normal-computers.html
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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