Brainmakers : How Scientists Moving Beyond Computers Create Rival to Humn Brain
Overview
Join David Freedman as he takes you on a fascinating tour behind the scenes at laboratories around the world as top researchers race to create revolutionary "thinking machines" that may one day lead to a new form of intelligence. The subject of fantasy and skepticism for centuries--from William James's mechanical bride to 2001's Hal to Star Wars' R2D2--artificial intelligence has been limited to number-crunching computers that are "smart" only in highly specific domains like chess--until now. Brainmakers is an eye-opening, mind-expanding, and mind-blowing journey through laboratories engaged in cutting-edge research into neuroscience and robotics. Inside, you'll discover: MIT's Attila, a 3.6-pound, six-legged robot that learns as it interacts with its surroundings. Japan's efforts to grow brain cells on chips and construct a "wiring diagram" of the human brain. UCLA's "robot farm," where robots will be "bred" for intelligence. In exciting yet accessible detail, Freedman shows how this research has moved into a new realm that transcends computer science, combining neuroscience, microbiology, evolutionary biology, and zoology. Modeled after natural rather than artificial intelligence, thinking machines may soon develop powers that rival--or exceed--those of the human brain.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780671510558
- ISBN-10: 067151055X
- Publisher: Touchstone Books
- Publish Date: April 1995
- Dimensions: 8.54 x 5.64 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.7 pounds
- Page Count: 224
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