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Artificial intelligence

An artificial synapse could make brain-on-a-chip hardware a reality

January 22, 2018

Background: Neuromorphic computer chips are designed to work like the human brain. Instead of being controlled by binary, on-or-off signals like most current chips, neuromorphic chips weight their outputs, mimicking the way different neurons fire at different strengths through their synapses.

What’s new: Artificial synapses have proved tricky to create. But MIT researchers now say they can precisely control one that can be used to train neural networks. What’s more, they’ve used the design to build a chip of synapses, and they’ve found that it’s able to recognize handwriting samples with 95 percent accuracy.

What it means: Artificial neural networks are already loosely modeled on the brain. The combination of neural nets and neuromorphic chips could let AI systems be packed into smaller devices and run a lot more efficiently.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

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The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch

Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.

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Illustration by Rose Wong

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