IBM researchers have simulated 'half' a mouse brain on a Blue Gene L supercomputer. For comparison, a real mouse brain has 8 million neurons with 8,000 synapses each. The simulation had 8 million artificial neurons with 6,300 virtual synapses each. It was only run for 10 seconds at one-tenth the speed of real-life...which equates to one full mouse second.
Quite a virtualization overhead if you ask me.
Showing posts with label ibm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ibm. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Giving Away the Farm
IBM has announced that it will release its new Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) technology under an open source license for software developers to build upon.
UIMA uses natural language processing and other techniques to analyze and annotate vast amounts of unstructured information, producing relevant knowledge for users to deal with. This will enable the creation of intelligent search engines that can understand the underlying conceptual relationships between documents, as opposed to current systems that focus simply on keywords and hyperlinks. The IBM website for this project seems rather dull at first, but if they can deliver on the capabilities they're promising, we certainly have a lot to look forward to.
UIMA uses natural language processing and other techniques to analyze and annotate vast amounts of unstructured information, producing relevant knowledge for users to deal with. This will enable the creation of intelligent search engines that can understand the underlying conceptual relationships between documents, as opposed to current systems that focus simply on keywords and hyperlinks. The IBM website for this project seems rather dull at first, but if they can deliver on the capabilities they're promising, we certainly have a lot to look forward to.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
From Deep Blue to Deep Thoughts
This week I began exchanging emails with an author who is writing a series of novels based on humanity's march towards the future.
One of the major events in the story is the emergence of a conscious AI. This process is presented from the point of view of the newly conscious entity, an approach that I find to be a wonderfully intriguing and novel concept. The process of becoming self-aware from the first-person perspective is certainly uncharted waters... even we humans cannot recall how or when we first became conscious as small infants. I have often tried to imagine what subjective experience would be like for a non-human intellect, both lower orders of intelligence (animal) and higher, more developed orders. I'm sure it must be very challenging to try to capture and describe that experience using human language and concepts. The small sample included in his most recent email has made me even more eager to read the story when it is completed.
He suggests that the key to subjective experience is likely the realization that the individual is separate and distinct from the rest of the environment, and I would be inclined to agree. He referenced a pdf slideshow by Owen Holland titled Machine Consciousness and Creativity. The central theme is that it is not the 'self,' but rather the 'internal model' of the self that is the conscious entity. If this is truly the case, it would fit well with the evolutionary development of consciousness (in that the capacity to accurately model future events would provide a strategic advantage in the 'survivial of the fittest' arms race), as well as cause a shift or refocus in AI research. It would seem that a conscious mind is more of a 'universal prediction engine' as opposed to a 'universal reaction engine.' So we might say that it would be impossible for a conscious entity to know what to do in every situation (or to program a machine for every possible circumstance), so instead we have developed the ability to predict possible outcomes and act accordingly. Interestingly, it is the ability to predict outcomes and formulate courses of action which is something IBM's Deep Blue has shown a remarkable aptitude for. Not that I am suggesting that a chess program is conscious, but if a machine was developed that was able to similarly model a much broader sample of reality, we might be much closer to accomplishing that goal.
One of the major events in the story is the emergence of a conscious AI. This process is presented from the point of view of the newly conscious entity, an approach that I find to be a wonderfully intriguing and novel concept. The process of becoming self-aware from the first-person perspective is certainly uncharted waters... even we humans cannot recall how or when we first became conscious as small infants. I have often tried to imagine what subjective experience would be like for a non-human intellect, both lower orders of intelligence (animal) and higher, more developed orders. I'm sure it must be very challenging to try to capture and describe that experience using human language and concepts. The small sample included in his most recent email has made me even more eager to read the story when it is completed.
He suggests that the key to subjective experience is likely the realization that the individual is separate and distinct from the rest of the environment, and I would be inclined to agree. He referenced a pdf slideshow by Owen Holland titled Machine Consciousness and Creativity. The central theme is that it is not the 'self,' but rather the 'internal model' of the self that is the conscious entity. If this is truly the case, it would fit well with the evolutionary development of consciousness (in that the capacity to accurately model future events would provide a strategic advantage in the 'survivial of the fittest' arms race), as well as cause a shift or refocus in AI research. It would seem that a conscious mind is more of a 'universal prediction engine' as opposed to a 'universal reaction engine.' So we might say that it would be impossible for a conscious entity to know what to do in every situation (or to program a machine for every possible circumstance), so instead we have developed the ability to predict possible outcomes and act accordingly. Interestingly, it is the ability to predict outcomes and formulate courses of action which is something IBM's Deep Blue has shown a remarkable aptitude for. Not that I am suggesting that a chess program is conscious, but if a machine was developed that was able to similarly model a much broader sample of reality, we might be much closer to accomplishing that goal.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Ethics & Artificial Intelligence
Right now I'm listening to a very interesting radio talk show about the IBM 'Blue Brain' Project and the ethics of creating a conscious machine.
You can listen to the RealAudio stream here.
You can listen to the RealAudio stream here.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
IBM is scanning my brain...
It seems as though I have some competition. Unfortunately, I am heavily outgunned.
Apparently, Pantera got its technology to steal song lyrics inside people's heads from IBM.
As reported on Slashdot, IBM is developing a system called Piquant, which can perform semantic analysis, extracting 'knowledge' from simple text.
Its nice to know I'm not the only one interested in developing this sort of technology.
Apparently, Pantera got its technology to steal song lyrics inside people's heads from IBM.
As reported on Slashdot, IBM is developing a system called Piquant, which can perform semantic analysis, extracting 'knowledge' from simple text.
Its nice to know I'm not the only one interested in developing this sort of technology.
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