A magnetic personality, maybe not. But magnets can help AI get closer to the efficiency of the human brain

New brain-like networks could help robots approach human-like efficiency at object recognition tasks Purdue University researchers have developed a process to use magnetics with brain-like networks to program and teach devices to better generalize about different objects. (Image provided) Download image WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Computers and artificial intelligence continue to usher in major changes in the way people shop. It is relatively easy to train a robot’s brain to create a shopping list, but what about ensuring that the robotic shopper can easily tell the difference between the thousands of products in the store? Purdue University researchers and experts in brain-inspired computing think part of the answer may be found in magnets. The researchers have developed a process to use magnetics with brain-like networks to program and teach devices such as personal robots, self-driving cars and drones to better generalize about different objects. “Our stochastic neural networks try to mimic certain activities of the human brain and compute through a connection of neurons and synapses,” said Kaushik Roy, Purdue’s Edward G. Tiedemann Jr. Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering . “This allows the computer brain to not only store information but also to generalize well about objects and then make inferences to perform better at distinguishing between objects.” Magnetic tunnel junction devices show switching behavior, which is stochastic in nature. (Image provided) Roy presented the technology during the annual German Physical Sciences Conference earlier this month in Germany. The work also appeared in the Frontiers in Neuroscience . The switching dynamics of a nano-magnet are similar to the electrical dynamics of neurons. Magnetic tunnel junction devices show switching behavior, which is stochastic in nature. The stochastic switching behavior is representative of a sigmoid switching behavior of a neuron. Such magnetic tunnel junctions can be also used to […]

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