- Getty Images
VIVA – Scientists plan to create computers out of the same materials that power the human brain. Computer developers have long looked to emulate the performance of the human brain, especially with artificial intelligence (AI).
But those techniques have never been able to match the variety of achievements that humans have made while using their organic brains.
Scientists hope that building biocomputers, made out of three-dimensional collections of brain cells, could help them get closer to that dream. They would work as something like biological hardware that would allow for the rapid development of new kinds of computers, they claim.
Researchers have already trained such a brain-based computer to play the video game Pong, and hope to scale it up and replicate it so that it can produce a kind of new capability that is akin to artificial intelligence.
“We call this new interdisciplinary field ‘organoid intelligence’ (OI). A community of top scientists has gathered to develop this technology, which we believe will launch a new era of fast, powerful, and efficient biocomputing.” said Thomas Hartung of Johns Hopkins University, as reported from the independent site.
ilustrasi otak manusia.
- Pixabay
Several researchers have proposed new work that would look at brain organoids to power computers. Those are grown in a lab but share important aspects of the function and patterns of the brain, including many of the cells that are used for things like learning and memory.
Also, researchers hope that would allow such biocomputers to learn much more quickly than silicon-based computers. The organic computers would also be more efficient, they hope, as well as able to store far more detail.
“Brains also have an amazing capacity to store information, estimated at 2,500TB,” Hartung said. “We’re reaching the physical limits of silicon computers because we cannot pack more transistors into a tiny chip. But the brain is wired completely differently. It has about 100bn neurons linked through over 1015 connection points. It’s an enormous power difference compared to our current technology.”
Some work are needed before biocomputers can become something practical for actual use. They need to be much larger and able to communicate by sending and receiving information to understand what they are thinking.
In addition to improving computing, organic computers could also help tell us more about the brains that inspired them. Researchers can compare how healthy organoids, learn with people who may have neurological conditions as well as test how substances damage the brain.
