[agi] DARPA funds using memsistors to model synapses in neuromorphic computing
A few months ago I read an article saying DARPA had issued one of their requests for proposal for a neuromorphic computing architecture. I thought the request was extremely interesting because it was asking for proposals for how to build a system that was capable of Hebbian like learning and ultimately high levels of cognition, could have as many synapses as a human brain, fit in quite a small package, and consume very little power. I.e., the makings of a potentially cheap, portable, low power, AGI. The proposal wanted an architecture that could promise of scaling of an average density of synapses of something amazingly small, such as, if I remember correctly, one thousand per square micrometer, or roughly 32x32 nanometers to model each synapse and somehow includes its connections. That would enable 100G synapse per cm2, or 100T synapse in roughly 1 foot square, with just one layer. I Googled a little on the subject and found that most of the electronic analogue models of synapses I found on the web had something like five transistors per synapse, so I though to myself maybe DARPA was thinking of memsisters, which I had read could remember at least one variably selectable analogue value at each position in a densly packed cross bar --- and I had heard a speaker from HP say they felt 100B bits per cm memories were possible with their cross bars (in pre-memsistor days) even including addressing and drive electronics and interconnect to the outside world. When I saw the date that the very lengthy response to the request for proposal had to be filed by was only several weeks after the proposal had been announced, I knew that this request --- as Ben has told me many DARPA request for proposals are --- had been designed with the winner of the grant in mind. I guessed it might be HP with memsistors. I was right. The below quote and its link to the article it came from indicate that DARPA has selected a memsistor approach to its neuromorphic computer initiative, and HP is one of the two contractors. == from http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212200673 Also at the symposium, Snider unveiled a design that used memristors in their analog mode as synapses in a neural computing architecture. Memristor crossbars are the only technology that is dense enough to simulate the human brain, Snider claimed, adding that the HP Labs crossbars are ten times denser than synapses in the human cortex. By stacking crossbars on a CMOS logic chip, variable resistance could mimic the learning functions of synapses in neural networks. HP Labs and Boston University were recently awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build the first artificial neural network based on memristors. == As the article indicates, each layer of these cross bars do not require a silicon substrate, so it is possible to stack many such layers; If this technology pans out, it could make AGI's one whole hell of a lot cheaper to build. Ed Porter --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com attachment: winmail.dat
RE: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them
Eric, You have made a series of fantastic allegations, and I asked what evidence you had for them, and all you provide is that you have experienced them while under the influence of drugs. I hope --- for your sake --- that for at least some percent of your weekly existence you are sober enough to be capable of understanding how unpersuasive that is --- and why. I understand that you might experience many of the things you say in the theater of your own mind, particularly when under the influence. And I understand that experiences in that theater are real in a meaningful sense. But that in no way means your statements are correct descriptions of external reality, as many of your statements would appear to claim to be. And you have provided no evidence, other than drug induced experience within your own mind, that they are. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Eric Burton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:28 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them Thoughts are surely a subset of felt experience. The contact experiences reliably induced by committed doses of for instance psilocibin are objective, not subjective events! They are breaches in consensus reality, they mutate it. I don't know the source of the information I've received when bemushroomed. It could be aeons old and delivered by panspermia. Much of it is presented with great gravity. The experince could easily be a disorienting allergic response evolved on Earth to discourage predation. But that does not explain the intimate Other that appears in the head to take great glee in the interface! It does not explain the reams of art, the many and varied vistas and plateaus, and the challenges one encounters in the psilocibin trance. Either it is offering us all this or it is generated by the brain. Why then is this uniquely characteristic hallucinosis particular to the ingestion of this specific substance? You can read for yourself on the effects I'm describing. But none of this feeds into anyone's theory of mind until we can trap and trace the experiences in question. It is probably quantum. On 11/26/08, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What evidence, other than your thoughts when using drugs, do you have for such statements? -Original Message- From: Eric Burton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 5:22 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them What I want to emphasize is that our world is bathed in signals from superintelligent civilizations every day. The way you can put an antenna into the ground and use the Earth to conduct radio frequencies, these things are using the organization of space and time. The laws of physics and the cosmological constants that inform them may arise from the content of communication and computation being performed at the psycho-atomic level, where mind manifests in quark form! What could possibly concern such a superior race! On 11/26/08, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Translate into English, please. -Original Message- From: Bob Mottram [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 1:35 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them 2008/11/26 Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I have never experienced a UFO, but several people I have known and generally trusted, and who are not drug users or wackos, have claimed to have seen them directly. belief (Y, foo) belief (X, credibility (Y) minimum credibility (X)) || dominance heirachy (Y) dominance heirachy (X) meme strength (X, Y) threshold = belief (X, foo) --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription:
Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them
But that in no way means your statements are correct descriptions of external reality, as many of your statements would appear to claim to be. And you have provided no evidence, other than drug induced experience within your own mind, that they are. Ed Porter The notions of correct descriptions and external reality rather fall apart when one subjects them to careful rational scrutiny, as many philosophers of science have found... The real question to me is what is the utility of the ideas being proferred ... and IMO the jury is still out on that... I do think, however, that it would be a strategic and sociological mistake to associate AGI with UFO-related space aliens or Terrence McKenna style mushroom aliens, at this point in time ;-) ... so, I suggest we can this thread or take it to some other forum... -- Ben G --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them
All I've tried to impress is that these revelations, epiphanies, theophanies or what-have-you are at least as primary as the sensations associated with daily life. I am tempted to compare the problem to that of many people speaking about one microscope no-one can access. If the issue is what you see through it then a projector would solve the problem. A digital video output on the locked away microscope would also serve. What I am thinking is... Psychedelic experiences are as encapsulated, personal, and inaccessible as dreams, though not as ephemeral. Like dreams, you could potentially make recordings of the constituent sensations as they arise and translate them onto a receiver sensorium in order to communicate insights, objects and events which resist Englishing. I am talking about VR recreations. Then various gnoses, paradoxes and rap sessions with aliens would be opened to some extent. There is some allusion here to the fate of Gallileo. The solution could be group hallucinations, telepathic drugs or cybernetic telepathy used with drugs, so that a distributed warping occurs. Then these experiences would each carry the weight of a dozen people's sworn testimony. Otherwise, only when some wide-eyed camper returns to civilization clutching the blueprints for a working stardrive will they gain sway with science. Ok... bye :D On 11/27/08, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eric, You have made a series of fantastic allegations, and I asked what evidence you had for them, and all you provide is that you have experienced them while under the influence of drugs. I hope --- for your sake --- that for at least some percent of your weekly existence you are sober enough to be capable of understanding how unpersuasive that is --- and why. I understand that you might experience many of the things you say in the theater of your own mind, particularly when under the influence. And I understand that experiences in that theater are real in a meaningful sense. But that in no way means your statements are correct descriptions of external reality, as many of your statements would appear to claim to be. And you have provided no evidence, other than drug induced experience within your own mind, that they are. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Eric Burton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:28 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them Thoughts are surely a subset of felt experience. The contact experiences reliably induced by committed doses of for instance psilocibin are objective, not subjective events! They are breaches in consensus reality, they mutate it. I don't know the source of the information I've received when bemushroomed. It could be aeons old and delivered by panspermia. Much of it is presented with great gravity. The experince could easily be a disorienting allergic response evolved on Earth to discourage predation. But that does not explain the intimate Other that appears in the head to take great glee in the interface! It does not explain the reams of art, the many and varied vistas and plateaus, and the challenges one encounters in the psilocibin trance. Either it is offering us all this or it is generated by the brain. Why then is this uniquely characteristic hallucinosis particular to the ingestion of this specific substance? You can read for yourself on the effects I'm describing. But none of this feeds into anyone's theory of mind until we can trap and trace the experiences in question. It is probably quantum. On 11/26/08, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What evidence, other than your thoughts when using drugs, do you have for such statements? -Original Message- From: Eric Burton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 5:22 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them What I want to emphasize is that our world is bathed in signals from superintelligent civilizations every day. The way you can put an antenna into the ground and use the Earth to conduct radio frequencies, these things are using the organization of space and time. The laws of physics and the cosmological constants that inform them may arise from the content of communication and computation being performed at the psycho-atomic level, where mind manifests in quark form! What could possibly concern such a superior race! On 11/26/08, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Translate into English, please. -Original Message- From: Bob Mottram [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 1:35 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them 2008/11/26 Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I have never
Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them
On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Eric Burton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All I've tried to impress is that these revelations, epiphanies, theophanies or what-have-you are at least as primary as the sensations associated with daily life. I tend to agree ... but unless you are going to tie these ideas in specifically with AGI, this isn't really the right venue for such discussions. Why don't we take this discussion to the Singularity list? (to which I've now cc'd it.) There is a lot more obvious relevance between these musings and the Singularity, than between them and AGI in specific... -- Ben G --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] If aliens are monitoring us, our development of AGI might concern them
Singularity is a good home for it. Kind of a panicked digression ,_, --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] DARPA funds using memsistors to model synapses in neuromorphic computing
--- On Thu, 11/27/08, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212200673 ... If this technology pans out, it could make AGI's one whole hell of a lot cheaper to build. Maybe. HP's technology is based on titanium dioxide doped with oxygen vacancies between a crossbar switch. One problem is that oxygen vacancies move 10^13 times slower than electrons and holes in silicon. HP reports a switching speed of about 1 second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor#Titanium_dioxide_memristor This is probably not a serious problem for neural networks because the connections could be written in parallel. It's actually much faster than the write times in the human brain, probably 10^4 seconds in the hippocampus and 10^8 seconds in the cortex. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] DARPA funds using memsistors to model synapses in neuromorphic computing
2008/11/27 Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This is probably not a serious problem for neural networks because the connections could be written in parallel. It's actually much faster than the write times in the human brain, probably 10^4 seconds in the hippocampus and 10^8 seconds in the cortex. 10^8 seconds is 3 years! I think that number's wrong. -- Philip Hunt, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] DARPA funds using memsistors to model synapses in neuromorphic computing
--- On Thu, 11/27/08, Philip Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/11/27 Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This is probably not a serious problem for neural networks because the connections could be written in parallel. It's actually much faster than the write times in the human brain, probably 10^4 seconds in the hippocampus and 10^8 seconds in the cortex. 10^8 seconds is 3 years! I think that number's wrong. Yeah, I think it is closer to 10^9 seconds. Landauer estimates human long term memory at 10^9 bits and a learning rate of 2 bits per second. http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/1986v10/i04/p0477p0493/MAIN.PDF -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
