Technology, especially computers seem to get more and more advanced by the day. When you buy a computer, it seems that it is out of date within the same month of purchase. There are always upgrades that need to be installed and after about three to four years, you need to buy a new computer to keep up with the latest technology. Computers back in the day were basically just used for typing and other minute tasks. Now computers can do almost anything. A lot of computers have built in cameras so you can talk to someone and see them, even if they are in another country. Also, some computers are great with graphic imaging and even writing music or making videos.
Today companies are working on “brain like” computers where computers are being put together similar to the human brain. “IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.” This job will require the help of neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologist. The US defense agency has giving IBM $4.9 million to start its research. They are studying simple animals brains to learn about the inner workings like neurons and the synapses, which connect them. This new supercomputing will hopefully be able to work like a brain and be able to problem solve and think just like humans do. One of the major problems is finding materials that will be able to perform the same functions as in the brain. For example, synapses break, weaken and are even strengthened by the signals that pass through them. Finding a material that will be able to do this is going to be very difficult.
I am not sure exactly how I feel about this new super advanced technology. I think that this new advancement is extremely interesting and there is nothing else even close to it but at the same time I am not sure if it is totally necessary. I understand that the government would want something this advanced for their usage but for everyday people, I am not sure if it is needed. A lot of adults today still don’t know how to use the new technology like options on the computer and their cell phones. Introducing something like this, as a household computer would be way too advanced for our everyday society. I understand that this wouldn’t be available for many years, so maybe then it could be possible to open it up to everyday people. I also think that if they are able to make such advanced technology like a computer that works like a brain, I don’t understand how they don’t have technology that can be used to get rid of viruses and sicknesses like cancer. People donate millions of dollars to find a cure for cancer but for some reason we just don’t have the technology for it. How is that possible? We are able to build a computer that can think and perform functions that only our brain can do.
BBC News
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This blog article was extremely interesting. I found it so interesting not so much because of the content, but mostly because of the controversy created because of it. I had heard recently that "super-computing brain-like" computers were going to be created, but I didn't really know which company set out specifically to do the task or the details involved with it. Once I read the blog, however, I thought about many different issues that this "brain-like" computer could possibly create. First of all, why is this a government spending project? If the company wants to try something so bold and new, shouldn't they fund it with the hopes that if it succeeds, they will gain back the money (and more) that they spend testing/making it? I think this invention could be one of the biggest and most powerful of our century, but I certainly do not think, as the blogger said, that it is necessary or worth spending so much of our country's money on. Where would the government money come from, tax-payers dollars? We are already a country spending enormous amounts of money on war and we have many of our soldiers overseas and yet, our government thinks it is important to spend more on a brain-like computer? The creation of this computer would definitely be epic, but it would cost an unnecessary amount of money and probably take away some human jobs needed in this poor economy.
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