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Nvidia's GPU neural network tops Google
A year ago, Google constructed a “neural network” of servers that eventually learned how to recognize cats. On Tuesday, Nvidia said that a team of Stanford researchers had used its own graphics cores to create another approximately 6.5 times more powerful, using just 16 servers.
The Stanford and Nvidia researchers showed off their work at the International Supercomputing Conference this week in Leipzig, Germany, where the list of the top 500 most powerful supercomputers was unveiled.
Neural networks attempt to re-create the brain’s structure by approximating not only the millions of neurons within it, but also how the brain itself learns. The overarching principle is to create a framework by which the network can teach itself. That process can lead in unexpected directions, such as the Google network teaching itself to identify images of a cat inside a number of YouTube videos that Google exposed it to. Japanese researchers also developed a neural network that taught a robot how to pour a glass of water.
While Google’s efforts to create a neural network most likely attracted attention because of its whimsical results, neural networks are a serious endeavor. In March, Google acquired DNNresearch for its work on layered, “deep neural networks,” which it will apply to a variety of services. Although Google did not say to what purpose it would put DNNresearch, it’s likely that its intelligence could be applied to everything from translation to Google Now, the service that Google uses to parse a user’s data and to show him or her relevant information, such as the time to leave to arrive in time for the next appointment.
The EU has also dedicated a billion euros to the Human Brain Project to simulate the human brain in silicon. In March, the Obama administration proposed $100 million in funding for a similar, U.S.-led initiative that would map how the brain’s neural circuitry interacts with itself.
Google’s network used 16,000 microprocessor cores across its data centers, and the company didn’t disclose how many servers it used. (Most modern microprocessors contain four or eight cores.) Nvidia first used its GPU cores to create a neural network that matched what Google had constructed using just three servers, then expanded the network to what it claimed was 6.5 times that of Google, using 16 servers in all. In all, Nvidia’s network covered 11.2 billion “parameters,” which describe how the artificial neurons are organized, interact, and compute. Google’s network forged a billion “connections,” Google said at the time.
NVIDIAThe Nvidia K20X “Tesla” GPU.
The underlying message that Nvidia wished to convey, however, is that GPUs aren’t just good for rendering images of the world’s latest games. Instead, they can be used as coprocessors or accelerators, assisting high-performance computers by offloading specialized, repetitive tasks. Just over 10 percent of the TOP500 list of supercomputers use a coprocessor like the Nvidia K20X that the second most powerful supercomputer, ORNL’s Titan, uses. PC gamers can also buy a version of that chip for their own use.
Nvidia revealed that Nuance Communications and its speech recognition algorithms run on Nvidia GPUs.
“Delivering significantly higher levels of computational performance than CPUs, GPU accelerators bring large-scale neural network modeling to the masses,” said Sumit Gupta, general manager of the Tesla Accelerated Computing Business Unit at Nvidia, in a statement. “Any researcher or company can now use machine learning to solve all kinds of real-life problems with just a few GPU-accelerated servers.”
Nvidia also said that it had updated its CUDA programming language for those GPUs to include ARM chips, allowing future servers makers to pair the low-power ARM chips with Nvidia’s GPU accelerators. ARM chips for servers are due through late 2013 and early 2014 from Applied Micro, AMD, and a number of other chip suppliers.
Unfortunately, the Stanford team didn’t say what, if any, odd conclusions its neural networks had drawn. We’ll just have to wait and see what it learns.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2042339/nvidias-gpu-neural-network-tops-google.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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