In a new attempt to scare people or push the development of computers forward, researchers from the University of Illinois have built a form of “living computer”. It makes use of 80,000 programmed brain cells from mice and has been trained to recognize patterns of light and electricity. The hope is that this can be used for robots in the future. The inspiration has been new advances in artificial intelligence and developments in neural networks.
Instead of running the algorithms on a conventional computer, the researchers have tried to run them using brain cells and a computer component. By dividing the workload between an organic and a synthetic component (interpreting and producing data), it is hoped to create more durable computers. The results are not yet as good as in normal computers. The concept also called reservoir computing probably won’t give us meaty walking computers in the near future. On the other hand, Andrew Dou and his research team hope that their results will eventually contribute to new insights into AI, biotechnology and more efficient computer systems.
