Fastest Integrated Circuit Doubles the Previous Record, Getting Close to One Terahertz

Nearly 1 THz?!?! I wonder how many of those chips could reproduce the equivalent intelligence of the human brain? 100? 1000? over 9000!?!? XD

"God is just a statistic":Marilyn Manson.

logical_atheist: This is a single logic gate, so it would require far far far more than 9000 of them.

Also, the brain is very different type of computer. It is a massively parallel analog computer. Like comparing a diamond to gravel.

@ logical_athiest

The ability to do simple math very quickly does not equate to intelligence.

The only thing that can make a computer as smart as a human would be the software. Think about it...a computer or program is only as smart as its programming. Only after the software is in place, can you even consider what type of hardware would be needed for it to perform as well as a human brain at the same speed.

To date, no one has created a program nearly as smart as a cat yet...it doesn't matter if the computer is capable of 20 THz operation...it's still only a super fast calculator.

3DTOPO is right.

The brain is analog, and analog circuits are dumb, error prone but very powerful.

Just compare how much technical literature you need to build an analog crystal radio, and how much you need to build a digital radio.

We will just need to wait a bit more.

I bought this year a PC, I tried to buy the fastest but it is still slow for what I need. I really need several OS running in vmware plus other programs all open at the same time but the PC just can't follow my pace and requirements.

The problem is not the speed of the processor. It's the processor's ability to multi-task. There are many factors that go into human decision making. Logical, emotional, moral, and ethical modes of reasoning and most humans can do it simultaneously. So a machine would need massive amounts of software and be able to access it all very quickly. The computers have us beat on processor speed but, they've still got a long way to go before they can match our levels of cache size and RAM/ROM storage.

@brian P.:

True, processors do need to be able to multitask to perform like a human brain, and yes, we do have more "biological equivalent" of RAM/ROM. but who says they need morals and ethics?

Most of the time, morals and ethics interfere with you/our own prosperity by placing limits on what you/we can and can't do.

For instance: We could have a far more efficient distribution of resources if our "morals" and "ethics" against abortion weren't in the way. We could(if detected early) could eliminate the mentally ill before birth. thereby decreasing the costs and burden of raising children that will never benefit the collective society. the money spent on these useless children would be then relocated to productive areas of society such as R&D or the education of "worthwhile" children.

or how about something less radical???

the goldman sachs scandal:

There is absolutely nothing ethicallly or morally wrong with how GS bet against their clients. they are a company out to make money, and the person hedging against the client was smart enough(operative word being smart) to know that the housing market would eventually crash in the way that it did. Goldman simply reduced the risk to it's assests as anyone would expect.
but if they factored morals and ethics into their business calculations, they would've lost alot more money during the crisis than they did.

just some thoughts.

"God is just a statistic":Marilyn Manson.

Ok we get it atheist. You can do whatever you want without guilt because god doesn't exist. Sounds like excuses to me.

@mrclean: so let me see if I have this straight.

If you think I'm making excuses, then you think wasting money on mentally ill children is a good idea?

"sounds smart."

I actually see these kids in the school I work at, they are an absolute embaressment to our species.

And yet you religious types think they're the same as those of us intelligent enough to
work and be productive?

"The ability to do simple math very quickly does not equate to intelligence."

Yeah, but the inabillity to do simple math very quickly equates to no intelligence. The brain is slow in terms of latency, but very fast in terms of throughput because it does many calculations in parallel.

@logical_atheist

You mention being "smart" several times in your posts, the implication, of course, being that you are smart. Yet, your ideas and comments are so poorly formed and ill considered that I think it only fair that your intellect be called into question.

Morals and ethics are the function of higher reasoning, not quaint or antiquated concepts that are "in the way" as you put it. If you are incapable of this level of reasoning then perhaps you qualify as one of the mentally ill that should have been eliminated before birth.

History is full of examples of people with mental and physical disabilities who have made enormous contributions to humanity. John Forbes Nash, for example, suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia and yet was a Nobel laureate in economics.

It is not up to me to speak for the rest of our species but, if a vote was to be taken, I am pretty sure we would find out that we are much more embarressed of you than we are of the people you would like to see eliminated.

hey, taking God out of the equation, morals and ethics keep us from going extinct, it's what let's us function in a society where we have to deal with millions and millions of people daily.

think about if you live in new york city then you see close to 2 million+ people daily, your brain can't possibly consider all these people human (google the monkey sphere) but you don't exactly start freaking out because suddenly your surrounded by animals. that's what ethics do for you.

morals on the other hand allow to deal with your partner and friends in life, you can't live with another person and not have conflicts. morals introduce a way for us to deal with conflicting views, opinions and personalities. so logical atheist, while we can sit here and chat nicely thanks to good morals and ethics, continue to look and act like an a$$ and you'll find just how easy it is for some people to put those aside long enough to pimp slap you.

grow up, you don't live in a vacuum, your actions not only have consequences that affect you, but everyone around you. yes you could probably do a better job succeeding if you throw away your morals and ethics focusing solely on what you want and need, but in doing so you would undoubtedly leave a path of destruction behind you. you would die alone with your mountains of gold and when people ask you why, all that you would be able to say is that you succeeded at gaining.

@ Logical Atheist

As tecton wrote, those morals and ethnics that you seem to think get in the way of personal prosperity are exactly the reason we haven't yet gone extinct. Just like most other animals we work in groups. Our society and ability to work together is what has allowed us to succeed throughout our evolution. Without morals and ethics we wouldn't be able to work together to ensure the survival of the group.

Ghost:

"yes you could probably do a better job succeeding if you throw away your morals and ethics focusing solely on what you want and need, but in doing so you would undoubtedly leave a path of destruction behind you. you would die alone with your mountains of gold and when people ask you why, all that you would be able to say is that you succeeded at gaining."

and that's all i care about, money puts food on the table, money gets you a house, money pays for your retirement, i could go on.

with regards to the "paths of destruction" that i may leave behind, i couldn't care less. because it concerns others, not myself. (though i personally plan to gain wealth in the stock market, i fail to see a path of destruction in that.)

I couldn't care less if i died alone either, love and romance is only worth it if humans were immortal. because eventually one of you will die and leave the other alone to die sad and alone with only saddening memories of the way things used to be better.

all that being said...

Our capitalistic economy (at least in America) is focused on and designed for individual success, and that's what i ultimately focus on.

but anyway, thanks for an interesting debate you guys. i hope to have more in the future. :)