Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Wednesday, November 18, 2009


A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory - 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

The scientists had previously simulated 40 percent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 percent of a human's cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers.

The latest feat, being presented at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, or that it is the progenitor of a race of robo-cats.


Oh come on ASSPress, that's precisely what it means: first robo-cats, then robo-dogs, then robo-monkeys, then robo-humans. Things like Moore's Law are mere nuisances. Any company that built a machine that could beat a chess master can build a machine that can beat humans.

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