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posted by martyb on Sunday October 08 2017, @09:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-Robot dept.

From Quanta Magazine, A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn:

Now engineering researchers at the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles [UCLA], are hoping to match some of the brain's computational and energy efficiency with systems that mirror the brain's structure. They are building a device, perhaps the first one, that is "inspired by the brain to generate the properties that enable the brain to do what it does," according to Adam Stieg, a research scientist and associate director of the institute, who leads the project with Jim Gimzewski, a professor of chemistry at UCLA.

The device is a far cry from conventional computers, which are based on minute wires imprinted on silicon chips in highly ordered patterns. The current pilot version is a 2-millimeter-by-2-millimeter mesh of silver nanowires connected by artificial synapses. Unlike silicon circuitry, with its geometric precision, this device is messy, like "a highly interconnected plate of noodles," Stieg said. And instead of being designed, the fine structure of the UCLA device essentially organized itself out of random chemical and electrical processes.

Reminds me of Mike from Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress!


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  • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday October 09 2017, @03:13AM

    by crafoo (6639) on Monday October 09 2017, @03:13AM (#579092)

    This really seems pretty cool. The silver sulfide layer and the way the wires interact mean that the switching effect becomes stronger the more it is used, for each of the individual connections. This mimics one of the properties of a real neuron. There are so many other mechanisms at play in a real neuron though. It's still a pretty neat step, and I think it's in the right direction. We need to mimic neurons. We need to get messier and less precise. Simulating a brain in a binary state machine seems to be a dead end.

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