Word: brained
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Reza reads a lot, especially stories about the weak using stratagems to beat the strong. An example is The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill, the tale of a battle between pushcart vendors and truck drivers that the pushcart vendors win despite apparently hopeless odds, a triumph of brain over brawn. The movie The Elephant Man brought tears to his eyes. "It reminded me of my problem. I am small, but not bad or strange." He likes Tom and Jerry cartoons. "I feel like Jerry. Tom picks on him the same way people pick on me." In a world full...
...more time scientists spend designing computers, the more they marvel at the human brain. Tasks that stump the most advanced supercomputer -- recognizing a face, reading a handwritten note -- are child's play for the 3-lb. organ. Most important, unlike any conventional computer, the brain can learn from its mistakes. Researchers have tried for years to program computers to mimic the brain's abilities, but without success. Now a growing number of designers believe they have the answer: if a computer is to function more like a person and less like an overgrown calculator, it must be built more like...
...Although very fast, their processors can perform only one task at a time. This lockstep approach works best in solving problems that can be broken down into simpler logical pieces. The processors in a neural- network computer, by contrast, form a grid, much like the nerve cells in the brain. Since these artificial neurons are interconnected, they can share information and perform tasks simultaneously. This two-dimensional approach works best at recognizing patterns...
...time and money. By experimenting with different approaches through software rather than hardware, scientists have been able to avoid costly mistakes. At last week's convention in San Diego, several firms introduced the real thing: chips that are actually wired to mimic the nerves in the brain...
Despite recent advances, neurocomputing attracts skeptics. Thomas Poggio, head of the Center for Biological Information Processing at M.I.T., insists that proponents of neural networks have exaggerated their computers' smarts. "The only thing they have in common with the human brain is the word neural," he argues. At best, neurocomputers consist of only a few thousand connections -- a very small number compared with the trillions of connections between billions of neurons found in the human brain. "Before trying to duplicate the human brain," Poggio says, "scientists will have to learn far more about the brain than they already know...