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Category: robotics/AI – Page 861

The computational power of the human brain

At the end of the 20th century, analog systems in computer science have been widely replaced by digital systems due to their higher computing power. Nevertheless, the question keeps being intriguing until now: is the brain analog or digital? Initially, the latter has been favored, considering it as a Turing machine that works like a digital computer. However, more recently, digital and analog processes have been combined to implant human behavior in robots, endowing them with artificial intelligence (AI). Therefore, we think it is timely to compare mathematical models with the biology of computation in the brain. To this end, digital and analog processes clearly identified in cellular and molecular interactions in the Central Nervous System are highlighted. But above that, we try to pinpoint reasons distinguishing in silico computation from salient features of biological computation. First, genuinely analog information processing has been observed in electrical synapses and through gap junctions, the latter both in neurons and astrocytes. Apparently opposed to that, neuronal action potentials (APs) or spikes represent clearly digital events, like the yes/no or 1/0 of a Turing machine. However, spikes are rarely uniform, but can vary in amplitude and widths, which has significant, differential effects on transmitter release at the presynaptic terminal, where notwithstanding the quantal (vesicular) release itself is digital. Conversely, at the dendritic site of the postsynaptic neuron, there are numerous analog events of computation. Moreover, synaptic transmission of information is not only neuronal, but heavily influenced by astrocytes tightly ensheathing the majority of synapses in brain (tripartite synapse). At least at this point, LTP and LTD modifying synaptic plasticity and believed to induce short and long-term memory processes including consolidation (equivalent to RAM and ROM in electronic devices) have to be discussed. The present knowledge of how the brain stores and retrieves memories includes a variety of options (e.g., neuronal network oscillations, engram cells, astrocytic syncytium). Also epigenetic features play crucial roles in memory formation and its consolidation, which necessarily guides to molecular events like gene transcription and translation. In conclusion, brain computation is not only digital or analog, or a combination of both, but encompasses features in parallel, and of higher orders of complexity.

Keywords: analog-digital computation; artificial and biological intelligence; bifurcations; cellular computation; engrams; learning and memory; molecular computation; network oscillations.

Copyright © 2023 Gebicke-Haerter.

KAIST researchers develop world’s first ‘neuromorphic’ AI chip

A research team at KAIST has developed the world’s first AI semiconductor capable of processing a large language model (LLM) with ultra-low power consumption using neuromorphic computing technology.

The technology aims to develop integrated circuits mimicking the human nervous system so that chips could be able to perform more sophisticated tasks that require adaption and reasoning with far less energy consumption.

Researchers enhance peripheral vision in AI models

“That let us faithfully model peripheral vision the same way it is being done in human vision research,” says Harrington.

The researchers used this modified technique to generate a huge dataset of transformed images that appear more textural in certain areas, to represent the loss of detail that occurs when a human looks further into the periphery.

A Google AI Watched 30,000 Hours of Video Games—Now It Makes Its Own

Whipping Up Worlds

Because the AI can learn from unlabeled online videos and is still a modest size—just 11 billion parameters—there’s ample opportunity to scale up. Bigger models trained on more information tend to improve dramatically. And with a growing industry focused on inference —the process of by which a trained AI performs tasks, like generating images or text—it’s likely to get faster.

DeepMind says Genie could help people, like professional developers, make video games. But like OpenAI—which believes Sora is about more than videos—the team is thinking bigger. The approach could go well beyond video games.

VIDEO: ‘Pervert’ male robot in Saudi Arabia touches woman inappropriately, sparks outrage

Saudi Arabia’s first male robot ‘Muhammad’ allegedly touched a woman inappropriately, sparking outrage on social media platforms with one user calling it a “pervert”. Recently, Muhammad was unveiled during the second edition of DeepFast in Riyadh.

Video of the incident went viral on social media forums. It shows the robot stretching its right hand toward a female reporter when she was giving a piece to the camera.

Some of the users have alleged that the movements of the robot looked intentional when the female reporter, identified as Rawya Kassem, was talking about it.

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