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Envix
Avoidant Disorder



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IBM's "Cognitive Computer" mimics human brain functions
#18748394 - 08/23/13 06:29 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/08/23/is-ibm-building-a-computer-that-thinks-like-a-human/
IBM is developing a machine which processes information via parallel computing, rather than sequential computing. Parallel computing is much like how the human brain functions, where it takes in much information from many different sources simultaneously. typically, computers run on sequential processing which processes data in a linear step-by-step manner.
In more recent news (this month), IBM announced that they are also creating a new computing software with an entirely new programming architecture/language, fitted specifically to this cognitive computing chip.
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/08/26/how-ibms-cognitive-computer-works/
Quote:
Two years ago this month, IBM IBM +0.12% announced that it had developed a cognitive computer chip, inspired by human neural architecture. That chip was developed as part of the SyNAPSE project, which has a long term goal of building a computing system that can handle tasks that are relatively easy for human brains, but hard for computers. Today, the company has announced that it’s created a programming architecture for those chips so that developers can design applications for them once those chips are a reality.
Why a new programming architecture? Because once IBM’s “cognitive computers” are a reality, they’ll require a kind of programming that’s far different than computers today, which still derive themselves from FORTRAN, a programming language developed in the 1950s for ENIAC.
“We have developed a whole new architecture,” project leader Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha told me. “So we can’t use the language from the previous era. We had to develop a new programming model.”
The eventual hardware for IBM’s cognitive computers are built around small “neurosynaptic cores.” The cores are modeled on the brain, and feature 256 “neurons” (processors), 256 “axons” (memory) and 64,000 “synapses” (communications between neurons and axons). In the long term, IBM hopes to build a cognitive computer scaled to 100 trillion synapses.
That computer’s existence still lies in the future, but a simulation of that computer does exist on IBM’s “Blue Gene” supercomputers, located at the Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Using that simulator, the IBM team has developed the programming architecture that they see eventually being utilized on real cognitive computers.
That language is built around “corelets” – an object-oriented abstraction of each neurosynaptic core. In the programming architecture, each corelet just has 256 outputs and 256 inputs. Those outputs and inputs are used to connect the cores to each other.
“Traditional architecture is very sequential in nature, from memory to processor and back,” Dr. Modha said. “Our architecture is like a bunch of LEGO blocks with different features. Each corelet has a different function, then you compose them together.”
As an example, if you wanted to use a cognitive computer to find a face in a crowd, one corelet might be looking for colors. Another might be looking for nose shape. Still another might be looking for cheekbones, and so on. Each corelet by itself would run quite slowly, but all of the processing would be in parallel.
This means that once a cognitive computer is a reality, it can be utilized for applications involving pattern recognition and other problems involving sifting through big data that traditional computers just aren’t very good at.
Of course, the flip side is also true – the cognitive computers won’t be as good at things that today’s computers are good at. That’s why Modha sees computers of the future as being a hybrid of SyNAPSE chips and traditional computers.
“Today’s computers are very good at analytics and number crunching,” Dr. Modha told me. “Think of today’s computers as left brained and SyNAPSE as right brained.”
Of course, even those hybrid computers won’t be a replacement for the human brain. The IBM chips and architecture may be inspired by the human brain, but they don’t quite operate like it.
“We can’t build a brain,” Dr. Modha told me. “But the world is being populated every day with data. What we want to do is to make sense of that data and extract value from it, while staying true to what can be build on silicon. We believe that we’ve found the best architecture to do that in terms of power, speed and volume to get as close as we can to the brain while remaining feasible.”
So what kinds of applications might this programming language be useful for? The team already has several in mind. For example, use of the chips in wearable computing glasses might process visual data to those with impaired vision. Search and rescue robots might be equipped with the chips in order to find injured people during emergencies. According to Dr. Modha, the possibilities are endless.
“What will it enable?” he said. “The march of time will tell. We’re creating the platform for a huge community that we hope will get involved. Progress never stops – once you’ve scaled one peak, the next one manifests.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/08/08/ibm-develops-programming-language-inspired-by-the-human-brain/
what do you make of this, shroomery? great leap forward in cognitive science? the rise of robot/cyborg takeover? pretty soon we will be able to program our own thoughts and feelings. what do you make of this, shroomery?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/cognitive-computing-ibm-brain-like-computer_n_3726811.html
http://mashable.com/2013/08/08/ibm-cognitive-computing/
-------------------- smack a hoe out this dimension continue my ascension -bhad bhabie rip. todcasil, acid sloth, st1llnox, zappaisgod, big worm (sketch), tim b
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ModestMouse
IM WALKIN ON SUNSHINE


Registered: 05/06/13
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Loc: Upstate
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Re: IBM's "Cognitive Computer" mimics human brain functions [Re: Envix]
#18748418 - 08/23/13 06:36 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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This looks stunning. Im very excited to learn the language behind this beast when the time comes!
-------------------- Anyone got a lowpass filter in this biiiiash?
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Dawks
Jolly African Potato


Registered: 06/09/10
Posts: 4,935
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Re: IBM's "Cognitive Computer" mimics human brain functions [Re: Envix]
#18748420 - 08/23/13 06:37 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Parallel computing is nothing new. Your GPU for instance computes things in parallel when running a game, for instance.
As for mimicking human brain function there is more to it than that. The human brain develops through plasticity. New connections form and grow. Rather than having software, our brain learns by building paths of least resistance and this process is regulated by our neurochemistry.
The difficultly would be:
1. Mimicking the plasticity of an organic brain (new circuits/processors can not grow like braincells) 2. Recreating the "excepted reward" motivation response. How would the computer know better from best?
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date ; unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; umount ; sleep
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Envix
Avoidant Disorder



Registered: 11/04/08
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Re: IBM's "Cognitive Computer" mimics human brain functions [Re: ModestMouse]
#18749265 - 08/23/13 10:01 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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i agree! i would love to learn a programming language for modifying a brain-like computer system
-------------------- smack a hoe out this dimension continue my ascension -bhad bhabie rip. todcasil, acid sloth, st1llnox, zappaisgod, big worm (sketch), tim b
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Konyap

Registered: 06/30/07
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Re: IBM's "Cognitive Computer" mimics human brain functions [Re: Envix] 1
#18749285 - 08/23/13 10:05 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/Urban-Dictionary-Teaches-IBM-Watson-Supercomputer-to-Curse-320472.shtml
Quote:
IBM's Watson is probably the best-known supercomputer in the world, from having won Jeopardy against the top human contestant, but that wasn't enough for the IBM researchers who created him.
Having felt that Jeopardy participation built a solid enough base for understanding and interpreting sounds, voices and language, the team of scientists decided to go further.
The next step in the development of Watson's personality might come across as a bit questionable though.
In trying to teach Watson to really communicate through human speech, they have managed to teach him how to curse instead.
Eric Brown is the culprit here. He was determined to help Watson understand human slang, so it gave it access to a certain website called Urban Dictionary.
Sadly, Watson proved unable to distinguish between polite language and the not so polite, leading to a stream of sentences filled with expletives.
Definitely a setback in the test. The researchers set off to see if they could determine the capability of Watson to carry natural conversations, yet they hit this obstacle.
Brown and his researcher partners did find a preliminary solution though: a filter that would prevent Watson from swearing.
The filter isn't ready yet, but it should eventually manage to do the job, although success may come at the cost of blocking out Urban Dictionary altogether.
The men will just have to manually input the definitions for OMG, hot mess and everything else considered a central part of casual speech.
Watson has been picking up bad habits from reading Wikipedia as well, somehow, though the jumbled mess of words isn't as bad as in the former case.
Maybe next time the researchers will be careful and install filters before they set the poor infant consciousness loose on websites again. At this point, Watson won't be allowed to engage in small talk much.
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