A Positronic Brain?

Researchers at a Hewlet Packard Laboratory have combined computer logic with at type of controllable variable resistor into a neural network that may in time be dense enough to mimic a human brain.

Also at the symposium, Snider unveiled a design that used memristors in their analog mode as synapses in a neural computing architecture. Memristor crossbars are the only technology that is dense enough to simulate the human brain, Snider claimed, adding that the HP Labs crossbars are ten times denser than synapses in the human cortex. By stacking crossbars on a CMOS logic chip, variable resistance could mimic the learning functions of synapses in neural networks.

HP Labs and Boston University were recently awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build the first artificial neural network based on memristors.

Also at the conference, Massimiliano Di Ventra of the University of California at San Diego described how memristors can explain biological learning in amoebas.

Isaac Asimov the inventor (in fiction) of the Positronic Brain would be so proud. And of course there is the possibility that one day a human brain could be downloaded into a positronic brain leading to a type of human immortality. Or at least a C3PO type cyborg.

Cross Posted at Classical Values