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My initial thought was: high density, asynchronous cores -> brain modeling. You treat each asynchronous core as a neuron. Reading up on Charles Moore this may

My initial thought was: high density, asynchronous cores -> brain modeling. You treat each asynchronous core as a neuron. Reading up on Charles Moore this may indeed be the intended case: http://www.pcai.com/web/ai_info/pcai_forth.html http://www.pcai.com/web/ai_info/pcai_forth.html > Charles Moore created Forth in the 1960s and 1970s to give computers real-time control over astronomical equipment. A number of Forth's features (such as its interactive style) make it a useful language for AI programming, and devoted adherents have developed Forth-based expert systems and neural networks. Still, 100 billion neurons in brain / 144 cores * $20 per chip = ~$13 billion . Also I would guess most modern researchers in this area don't know Forth and are doing high-level programming and virtualizing neurons rather than taking a low-level hardware approach.

thesz 16y ago
Forth was used in AI in a pretty non-linear way. I have a book where authors developed Lisp on Forth and then proceed developing Prolog on newly created Lisp. Then they demonstrated how to use that Prolog in the development of rule-based expert system. There was a saying that Forth amplify programmers' ability to develop programs and to make mistakes. If you a need an AI tool, but do not need your mistakes to be amplified, stay away from Forth. I think that apply to other areas of domain-specific development as well. While I adore Forth, I cannot recommend it to anyone. Especially to simulate brain - what if you introduce an error, Forth amplifies it and we'll get a hidden psychopath? ;)
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  What book is it? You can't just mention a book that has Forth, Lisp, AND Prolog and not give the title. :) PAIP and a couple others have Lisp and Prolog, LOL has Lisp and Forth, HOPL 2 has all three (but separately), but it doesn't sound like any of those.
  - TY 16y ago
    I think he probably spoke about "Designing and Programming Personal Expert Systems" by Carl Townsend that dates back to 1986. From http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-lang/forth-faq/part5/ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-lang/forth-faq/part5/ Contains LISP and Prolog emulations in Forth, including a unification algorithm. It also has some minimum distance classifier code. The application is fault diagnosis in locomotives.
    - silentbicycle 16y ago
      Salute!
- metamemetics 16y ago
  Yep pretty much all simulation is currently being done with Phil Goodman's Neocortical Simulator (Matlab/C) and NEURON (C + recently a python api) on Blue Gene super computers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project . So the mystery of who will use this chip continues.
  - dmm 16y ago
    Moore has been building chips like this for years. Someone must be buying them.
    - metamemetics 16y ago
      Perhaps the military? Small embedded neural nets could be highly useful for visual recognition algos on missiles and drones [ the majority of military planes now being built are unmanned ]. However I believe the military is now trying to move all drone tech code to a common operating system\language to increase code portability between platforms.
unwind 16y ago
If you call them up and ask for a quote on 694,444,444 chips, I would kind of expect them to offer you a discount. But remember to ask, just in case.
maushu 16y ago
It would also occupy a plane with the area of 12500 m^2. According to wolfram|alpha equivalent to 1.7 times the area of a FIFA-sanctioned international match soccer field.
- cullenking 16y ago
  Yeah, however, if someone were to buy $1 billion of them, they may have the ability to shrink it down to a 30-40 nm design, significantly reducing the footprint. Further conceptualize it by thinking of the footprint of a decent cluster, with all the 1u blades spread out over a certain area. Definitely feasible, though i recognize your computations are die size, not total computer size.
GregBuchholz 16y ago
Don't forget that these chips are a couple of million times faster than a neuron running at 200Hz. If we forget that the brain has more interconnect, you'd only need about $7,000 dollars worth of chips.

thesz 16y ago

Forth was used in AI in a pretty non-linear way. I have a book where authors developed Lisp on Forth and then proceed developing Prolog on newly created Lisp. Then they demonstrated how to use that Prolog in the development of rule-based expert system. There was a saying that Forth amplify programmers' ability to develop programs and to make mistakes. If you a need an AI tool, but do not need your mistakes to be amplified, stay away from Forth. I think that apply to other areas of domain-specific development as well. While I adore Forth, I cannot recommend it to anyone. Especially to simulate brain - what if you introduce an error, Forth amplifies it and we'll get a hidden psychopath? ;)

silentbicycle 16y ago
What book is it? You can't just mention a book that has Forth, Lisp, AND Prolog and not give the title. :) PAIP and a couple others have Lisp and Prolog, LOL has Lisp and Forth, HOPL 2 has all three (but separately), but it doesn't sound like any of those.
- TY 16y ago
  I think he probably spoke about "Designing and Programming Personal Expert Systems" by Carl Townsend that dates back to 1986. From http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-lang/forth-faq/part5/ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-lang/forth-faq/part5/ Contains LISP and Prolog emulations in Forth, including a unification algorithm. It also has some minimum distance classifier code. The application is fault diagnosis in locomotives.
  - silentbicycle 16y ago
    Salute!
metamemetics 16y ago
Yep pretty much all simulation is currently being done with Phil Goodman's Neocortical Simulator (Matlab/C) and NEURON (C + recently a python api) on Blue Gene super computers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project . So the mystery of who will use this chip continues.
- dmm 16y ago
  Moore has been building chips like this for years. Someone must be buying them.
  - metamemetics 16y ago
    Perhaps the military? Small embedded neural nets could be highly useful for visual recognition algos on missiles and drones [ the majority of military planes now being built are unmanned ]. However I believe the military is now trying to move all drone tech code to a common operating system\language to increase code portability between platforms.

unwind 16y ago

If you call them up and ask for a quote on 694,444,444 chips, I would kind of expect them to offer you a discount. But remember to ask, just in case.

maushu 16y ago

It would also occupy a plane with the area of 12500 m^2. According to wolfram|alpha equivalent to 1.7 times the area of a FIFA-sanctioned international match soccer field.

cullenking 16y ago
Yeah, however, if someone were to buy $1 billion of them, they may have the ability to shrink it down to a 30-40 nm design, significantly reducing the footprint. Further conceptualize it by thinking of the footprint of a decent cluster, with all the 1u blades spread out over a certain area. Definitely feasible, though i recognize your computations are die size, not total computer size.

GregBuchholz 16y ago

Don't forget that these chips are a couple of million times faster than a neuron running at 200Hz. If we forget that the brain has more interconnect, you'd only need about $7,000 dollars worth of chips.