MoNETA, software that runs a memristor brain, could make artificial intelligence a reality
By Clay Dillow Posted 12.03.2010 at 11:20 am 17 Comments

Memristors An atomic force microscope shows a simple circuit containing 17 memristors. J. J. Yang, HP Labs via Wikimedia

Artificial intelligence has long been the overarching vision of computing, always the goal but never within reach. But using memristors from HP and steady funding from DARPA, computer scientists at Boston University are on a quest to build the electronic analog to a human brain. The software they are developing – called MoNETA for Modular Neural Exploring Traveling Agent – should be able to function more like a mammalian brain than a conventional computer. At least, that’s what they’re claiming in a new feature in IEEE Spectrum.

There’s reason to be optimistic that this attempt might be different from all the previous AI let-downs that have come before it. Why? The memristor, a concept that HP first realized in 2008. The memristor, put simply, is an electronic component in which the resistance is dependent on the amount of charge that passed through it at a previous time. In other words, it remembers the state it was in the last time charge was applied, unlike a conventional RAM cell (which requires constant power to maintain the same state).

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Tags

Technology, Clay Dillow, AI, artificial intelligence, Boston University, hp, machine learning, memristors, robots
Their ability to both store and process information as it transfers charge (and to do so with far less power consumption) makes memristors more analogous to the neurons in the brain than any other previously developed electronic component, and they are small enough, cheap enough and efficient enough to someday be used to build computing platforms that function more like the brain: learning, making decisions, and even using a machine version of intuition to execute their roles.

The Boston U. team, by its own admission, doesn’t yet know exactly what these platforms will look like, but they seem very confident that they will soon be a reality. They also admit that, due to their benefactor (the DoD) they will likely first find a home in military tech; think autonomous vehicles that don’t just prowl the skies, but that actively engage in learning behaviors and problem solving to, say, search for IEDs or patrol territory for hostile intent. But the researchers envision a much broader role for MoNETA – and brain mimicking machines on the whole – in the near future.

Decide for yourself if MoNETA is the real deal by clicking through the source link below. It’s a somewhat lengthy but entirely interesting read.

[IEEE Spectrum]

17 Comments

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bdotalex
12/03/10 at 11:45 am

Well, they better get to work on the other one, we all know what the first thing would be on a mamalian's mind, don't we? lol I hope they got their virus definitions up to date cuz that thing is gonna be downloading loooooooooooots of po.... I mean, it's gonna solve the worlds problems, yeah.

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Kherzhul
12/03/10 at 12:47 pm

Think we could place some 'chips' in people's brains for neural recovery? Since neurons can't reproduce, could we change the 'broken' neurons by memristor chips?

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caradoc01
12/03/10 at 1:13 pm

so, when should we expect to see Tachikoma on the battle field? 3-5 years? And the T-100? 10 years?

Please just remember to but the rules of robotics in first before giving them weapons (less than leathal)before putting them in the field.

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-my name here-
12/03/10 at 1:38 pm

better hope it doesn't have animal intelligence. or autism.

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omaracoustic
12/03/10 at 2:48 pm

2018

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jonny2010
12/03/10 at 4:15 pm

In the next 50 years I expect a transition bigger than the industrial evolution, into a world of artificial intelligence. People will no longer have to work, there would be no business', resources will be shared, space travel will become more practical, and medicine will change dramatically.

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AlBme
12/03/10 at 4:24 pm

Rise Of The Machines.
No?

How about: "You will be assimilated. Resistance is irrelevant. We only seek to improve quality of life for all."
Still doesn't shake your pants?

Try this one out: "Never send a human to do a machine's job."

I'm not all that excited by this development; concerned would be the word I would use.

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Sierra 34
12/03/10 at 5:02 pm

@Kherzhul

Why stop at just chips? Why not, over time, replace every neuron in the brain with some sort of "synthetic" neuron? Now it may or may not work with memristors, I don't know enough about these things to speculate, but perhaps in the coming decades nanomachines could become advanced enough to enter the human brain and replace aging neurons "in-situ", gradually replacing the organic human brain with something a little more long-lasting...

Immortality anyone?

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Mathieu.LeBlanc
12/03/10 at 7:42 pm

wtr to what you were saying jonny2010 i think thats whats gonna give us a real chance at restoring the environment!

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Greatusername
12/03/10 at 9:40 pm

yeah... why are they pretending this is a good thing?

Things could go bad if:

it thinks we're a threat
it wants to reproduce
it starts getting existential
it feels oppressed and wants more rights for machines
it suddenly gets autism and accidentally destroys us
or any number of other things

I hope that by the time AI comes around, we'll have colonies on Mars or other planets. If we don't, then I hope some folks have some good rocks to hide under and big magnets to kill the computers with.

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glock19
12/04/10 at 8:35 am

I still want my flying car.

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brublr
12/04/10 at 8:49 am

Yesterday we read about the latest modern miracle: the non-aging mice portending the soon to be enabled 500 year life span. Of course, that will only be available for Republican aldermen, their progeny and those of similar polity. The rest of us will probably have to colonize the galaxy, sublime off the planet, or subsist in our soon to be enabled virtual garden of memristors somewhere in Google's servers.

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benjerome
12/04/10 at 10:47 am

I want to see organic computers. This is the
next step to that.

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bob clemintime
12/04/10 at 12:37 pm

I honestly think they will not get anywhere close to AI. I see no reason that they will succeed when so many others have failed. But I am not sure why we keep trying to develop it. Do the positives really outweigh the negatives. Im not one to be scared by things that will not happen (at least during my lifetime), but I really dont know why we want to have AI. If it ever was developed then I would be very scared.

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nebulation
12/08/10 at 4:45 am

Bob, I'm surprised artificial intelligence has not already been created, and there is no reason to be scared, and you should definitely look at this from some other angles because this definitely has some major positives

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nebulation
12/08/10 at 5:06 am

no reason to be scared because of programming

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David77
07/06/12 at 4:24 pm

Sadly, this project has been terminated. Boston and Darpa have parted ways.



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