IBM AiMs To ReVeRsE-EnGiNeEr ThE MiNd

Cognitive Computing Project Aims to Reverse-Engineer the Mind

By Priya Ganapati

Imagine a computer that can process text, video and audio in an instant, solve problems on the fly, and do it all while consuming just 10 watts of power. It would be the ultimate computing machine if it were built with silicon instead of human nerve cells.

Compare that to current computers, which require extensive, custom programming for each application, consume hundreds of watts in power, and are still not fast enough. So it's no surprise that some computer scientists want to go back to the drawing board and try building computers that more closely emulate nature.

"The plan is to engineer the mind by reverse-engineering the brain," says Dharmendra Modha, manager of the cognitive computing project at IBM Almaden Research Center. 

In what could be one of the most ambitious computing projects ever, neuroscientists, computer engineers and psychologists are coming together in a bid to create an entirely new computing architecture that can simulate the brain's abilities for perception, interaction and cognition. All that, while being small enough to fit into a lunch box and consuming extremely small amounts of power.

The 39-year old Modha, a Mumbai, India-born computer science engineer, has helped assemble a coalition of the country's best researchers in a collaborative project that includes five universities, including Stanford, Cornell and Columbia, in addition to IBM.

Meanwhile, at the University of California-Merced, Kello and his team are creating a virtual environment that could train the simulated brain to experience and learn. They are using the Unreal Tournament videogame engine to help train the system. When it's ready, it will be used to teach the neural networks how to make decisions and learn along the way.

Again, please be mindful that what's made public usually trails research and development by 10 to 15 years.

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[Update: IBM is its own open-source lab for social software]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10345493-16.html

[Circuit-Tweaking Reverse Engineers a Gene Network]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/networkengineering/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/googlefoodwebs/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8238462.stm

[Laser-Controlled Humans Closer to Reality]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/lasercontrolledhumans/

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/noliemri.html

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090210092730.htm