IBM Shows Off Brain-Inspired Microchips

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at IBM have created microchips inspired by the basic functioning of the human brain. They believe the chips could perform tasks that humans excel at but computers normally don't. So far they have been taught to recognize handwriting, play Pong, and guide a car around a track. The same researchers previously modeled this kind of neurologically inspired computing using supercomputer simulations, and claimed to have simulated the complexity of a cat's cortex — a claim that sparked a firestorm of controversy at the time. The new hardware is designed to run this same software much more efficiently."

Cargo Cult of the Neuroscience World

[Anonymous Coward]

This project attempts to build something as close to a brain as we currently can. However, trying to replicate something by copying only its most outwardly obvious features probably won't work, and IBM's attempt to recapitulate thought reminds me of the fiasco that were the cargo cults, where natives created effigies of technology they didn't understand because they thought through their imitation of colonizers, cargo would magically be delivered to them. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult [wikipedia.org]:

(begin quote)
The primary association in cargo cults is between the divine nature of "cargo" (manufactured goods) and the advanced, non-native behavior, clothing and equipment of the recipients of the "cargo". Since the modern manufacturing process is unknown to them, members, leaders, and prophets of the cults maintain that the manufactured goods of the non-native culture have been created by spiritual means, such as through their deities and ancestors, and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that the foreigners have unfairly gained control of these objects through malice or mistake.[3] Thus, a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will, at some future time, give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members.
(end quote)

Computational folks can still make progress studying how the brain works, but I think we should focus on understanding first which problems brains solve better than computers, and second which computational tricks are used that our computer scientists haven't yet discovered. Merely emulating a close approximation to the best understanding we have of neural hardware looks splashy, but isn't guaranteed to teach us anything, let alone replicate human intelligence.