I'm curious about the progress of neuromorphic systems and whether we're close to developing practical neuromorphic computers. It seems like we have a solid understanding of binary systems, so what's stopping us from implementing Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) as the next big step? Even if we can't pinpoint when to trigger these systems accurately, wouldn't starting basic experiments yield results that could enhance our overall understanding? Additionally, since we can reverse engineer emotional or visual signals from neurons, shouldn't we begin conducting experiments aimed at generating specific signals for specific outputs? Or is the main hesitation about ethical considerations? Perhaps we're confident in our capabilities but hesitant about whether we should pursue this technology? I'm new to this area, so any corrections on my understanding would be appreciated!
1 Answer
Totally, there are definitely people working on this right now! Ray Kurzweil, for example, has speculated that we might see significant breakthroughs in the 2030s. While current brain-computer interfaces exist, they’re still pretty basic. A major hurdle is creating a comprehensive map of the human brain. Some experts suggest we might be a decade away from really mapping it out fully, which is critical for achieving the potential of neuromorphic computing.
That’s compelling! But what about the timeline? Are we really making progress, or are we just speculating?