Research fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence and philosophy professor Massimo Pigliucci of the City University of New York discuss everything from intelligence to singularity.
Other then Henry Markrams Blue Brain, there is another project to emulate the brain - Spinnaker which uses affordable, practical, low-power components such as smartphone chips. The aim is to eventually have a brain like computer for controlling a humanoid. Read more on newscientist.com
What can we achieve with intelligence in computing? Watch the video where Walt interviews Dr. Jim Hardt and Manfred Hoffleisch. In this interview Jim, Manfred and Walt tackle issues like having the computer behave in an open ended way - the way a human brain behaves and the advantages of the computer that can think like a biological brain.
Navigation is still a challenge for robots. Now a team of researchers have developed a computer vision software which enables the computer to basically watch the road and recognize real world driving conditions a few steps in advance such as traffic signs or lane changes while also watching out for other cars and pedestrians. Read the article on bbc.co.uk or watch the video.
Remember last weeks post about memristors (Is the memristor the basis for a computer brain?)? According to Wei Lu, a computer engineer of the University of Michigan, memristors can possibly learn like synapses and be used to build human brain like computers. How close are we to biologically inspired computer intelligence?
(via umich.edu)
Remember the story about memristors? Now HP, the company developing the memristor, have talked to the media. The memristor promises to perform data processing and storage tasks (even without an electrical charge) - sounds a lot like the brain.
HP’s scientist claim that the human brain are made of memristors - so they could build a Memristor-based brain that could learn and think just as the human brain.
Read the article (New York Times) or watch the 6-minute memristor guide (youtube).
In 1940, futurist Bel Geddes predicted that “in two generations, we will drive in a new kind of driverless car that is controlled by the push of a button”. So far, this is still science fiction. Recently however, GM’s R&D has unveiled a space-age “talking car” - that is, it can “sense” other cars. Read more about projects of other vehicle manufacturers (via newscientist.com)
Maybe it is not mind over matter, like Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Research has shown that we think abstract concepts in terms of how our bodies function (see Embodied Intelligence Or Thinking with The Body). For example, researchers found, that the eye movements of the subject could be used to predict the size of the next number before it was spoken. Read more on how your body does your thinking (newscientist.com).
Filmmaker Noah Hutton is making a 10-year documentary of the Blue Brain Project (see Reverse-engineer the brain to build it). Watch the introduction of the project in which Henry Markram aims to reverse engineer an entire human brain, neuron for neuron (vimeo.com).
It seems, it is not a specific region (or regions) of the brain but more how efficiently wired specific brain areas make up what is called “general intelligence”. Read more on how the connections between very specific areas of the brain that determine intelligence and even how well someone does in life (businessweek.com).
