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ai

Quantum Artificial Intelligence

DWave_Quantum_Computers

It was announced earlier today that Google and NASA have formed a joint lab called “Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab” to research machine learning applications of quantum computers provided by D-Wave. From the press release:

Researchers at Google, NASA and USRA expect to use the D-Wave system to develop applications for a broad range of complex problems such as machine learning, web search, speech recognition, planning and scheduling, search for exoplanets, and support operations in mission control centers.

Although Lockheed Martin recently decided to upgrade their D-Wave system (after testing an earlier version for 2 years), there is still some skepticism from Quantum Computing experts (for example, claims that the D-Wave implementation does not provide actual speedup compared  to classical computing). In any case, exciting stuff…

Spaun (Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network)

 

The SPA Unified Network (Spaun) model demonstrates how a wide variety of cognitive and non-cognitive tasks can be integrated in a single large-scale, spiking neuron model. Spaun switches tasks and provides all responses without any manual change in parameters from a programmer. Essentially, it is a fixed model that integrates perception, cognition, and action across several different tasks.

Impressive work! The singularity must be near…  although it is not quite as fast as the brain yet: According to the website of the project, it takes about 2.5h of computer time for one second of simulation. Nengo, the software used to implement the brain model, is open source and is available here.