IBM researchers manage to create the first artificial neuron

 

if you ever thought that nothing can surprise you anymore, you should reconsider it. IBM researchers managed to create the first artificial neuron, in their center in Zurich. After the first one was a success, they created 500 of them and simulate a signal transfer similar to how the process is working in the human’s brain.

International Business Machines Corporation or IMB, as we know it, is an American company, one of the most popular in the entire world when it comes to technology.The experiment made by its scientists was a real success and it could mean the beginning of a new era, where we can use artificial intelligence  in order to solve difficult problems. We all know that computers have been compared to artificial brains for a long time, but this breakthrough is more important than anything that was discovered regarding this matter. IMB’s false neurons, as we could say, are made of well-known materials. They can be scaled down to microscopic scale and they still work!

The energy is absorbed by the signal gates, who are similar to the membranes the real neurons have. This was possible due to a very common ingredient, used especially in optical disks. It is named Germanium-Antimony-Tellurium or GST, which membranes never reset to the same configurations. That is how stochasticity was possible. This is a very important characteristic, that allows randomness in when signals fire.

But why did the scientists want to create this artificial neuron? They are planning to create computers mimicking the efficient, parallel processing design of the organic brain. Moreover, it should apply its style of approach to decision-making and processing sensory information. This means that our technology will be used to improve the computers and applications. The idea does not seem easy and neither will be writing software for this program.

IMB researchers managed to organize hundred of artificial neurons into groups and send fast signals. Those neurons could sustain billions of cycles.

We will see if IBM’s ideas will change the world as we know it and if the artificial neurons will mean the beginning of a new way of solving tech problems. The artificial intelligence, with its pros and cons, has become more and more popular so we should expect more experiments to come.

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