IBM Takes a (Feline) Step Toward Thinking Machines

bth writes "A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory — 100,000 times as much as your computer has."

news for nerds

[blitzkrieg3]

(most modern PCs have just one or two processors)

Aren't we expected to know that? This is /. after all...

Why cats?

[Schiphol]

If Slashdot [slashdot.org] it to be trusted, there will soon be a sizeable number of cat brains living in our computers. Does anybody know why cats and not dogs or hamsters?

A pile of neurons does not a brain make...

[swm]

From TFA, it doesn't sound like they simulated the cerebral cortex of a cat.
It sounds like they simulated a neural net with a comparable number of neurons.
Not the same thing.

A few days ago, Slashdot ran The Math of a Fly's Eye May Prove Useful [slashdot.org].

Those guys

• reverse engineered the yaw motion detector in a fly brain
• reduced the neural network to a set of 5 coupled, non-linear equations
• implemented the equations on a computer
• ran their implementation against an animated scene
• observed that the equations correctly and robustly detect yaw

and they still don't understand how the equations actually work.

That's where we are with brain simulation.

Re:news for nerds

[visualight]

Yes it does, don't be pedantic.

cat-SIZED brain, not a cat brain

[WAG24601G]

This project is basically a massive neural network simulation with a number of nodes and connections comparable to the estimated totals in a cat's brain. In short, there is nothing cat-like about this system apart from its raw processing power.

Not to reduce the value of this feat, by any means! There are tons and tons of neural network simulations that can produce roughly human-like results in very, very narrow domains, but as the quote below explains, these simulations are decades (or more) from connecting the behavior of tiny subsystems (a few hundred neurons) with the overall phenomenon of 'mind' (conscious and unconscious cognition). The expectation is that a network of this size will show some new emergent properties that will give us clues about the intermediate "higher than cells, lower than interviewing a human" order of processing.

Jim Olds, a neuroscientist and director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, called the new research a "tremendous step." Olds, who was not involved in IBM's work, said neuroscientists have been amassing data about how the brain works much like "stamp collectors," without a way to tie it together.

"We've made tremendous advances in collecting data, but we don't have a collective theory yet for how this complex organ called the brain produces things like Shakespeare's sonnets and Mozart's symphonies," he said. "The holy grail for neuroscientists is to map activity from single nerve cells, which they know about, into how billions of nerve cells act in concert."

Re:meat versus silicon and metal

[E IS mC(Square)]

>> It amazes me how much hardware and power has to be thrown at the problem to solve it while nature can create a self-organizing machine that only requires material input of raw mice and lasagna.

But at the same time, there are two big differences:
1. Nature started bottom up (small to big - one cell to multicell), and it took millions of years to 'produce' a cat.
2. We have started top down (big to small - first achieve the goal and go smaller from there with newer technology), and it took us few decades to get there.

Re:A pile of neurons does not a brain make...

[lindseyp]

Penrose may have the last laugh.

Even if he doesn't.. Moore's law (or any misinformed transposition of such) isn't going to help us build a brain. We are seriously lacking in understanding in this respect and will be for many many years.

Re:news for nerds

[LWATCDR]

Actually most maybe but almost all netbooks have a single core CPU. So yes I would say that most modern PCs have one or two CPUs.

Re:news for nerds

[nschubach]

I always thought Hyper Threading was ...
"For each processor core that is physically present, the operating system addresses two virtual processors" - Wikipedia. Not two actual processors.

Re:people have been claiming this for 50 years or

[maxwell demon]

If there will ever an electronic brain, those were indeed all steps toward it. And if there will never be an electronic brain, those may still have been steps toward it. Just that you make steps toward something doesn't mean you reach it. It doesn't even imply that you can reach it. I easily can make a step towards the sun when it is on the horizon. I'll never reach it that way, though.

nearly one processor

[javalizard]

And I thought a PC had 1/4 of a processor (at least the way Windows runs on it)

Re:news for nerds

[MaskedSlacker]

What I want to know is how is the fact that you guessed supposed to make your erroneous spouting better?

When you spout misinformation, which is a serious problem on the internet (i'm looking at you conspiracy theorists), the fact that you guessed doesn't absolve you, since 15 seconds effort on your part would have meant 1 less piece of misinformation forever preserved.

I propose that you sir are an internet asshole (not that this particular piece of misinformation means a goddamn thing, since everyone who reads /. knew you were wrong, but THINK OF THE KITTENS!)

Point is, misinformation is a problem here, and being glib about the fact that you're a lazy trollop makes it worse, not better.