Artificial intelligence (AI) could soon get a boost from a new type of computer chip inspired by the human brain.
Brain-inspired hardware and algorithm co-design with Melika Payvand – #585
Researchers at Purdue University have built a new piece of hardware that can be reprogrammed on demand via electrical pulses. The team claims that this adaptability would allow the device to take on all the functions needed to build a brain-inspired computer. It’s part of an ongoing effort to build AI systems that can continuously learn.
“When AI systems are continuously learning about their environment, they can adapt to a world that is changing over time,” Stevens Institute of Technology AI expert Jordan Suchow told Lifewire in an email interview. “We see this, for example, when a fraud detection system picks up on a previously unobserved pattern of fraudulent purchases, or when a facial recognition system encounters a person it has never seen before.”
The Purdue researchers recently published the paper in the journal Science. It describes how computer chips can dynamically rewire themselves to take in new data, much like the brain does. The approach could help AI continue to learn over time.
