Artificial Synapses for Artificial Intelligence

Prof. Salleo Developing Artificial Synapse
As remarkable as implanted brain devices are in restoring some forms of normal neural activity, they remain inorganic machines. A more efficient and capable approach would be to create an organic machine, and Stanford researchers have taken a step in that direction by developing artificial synapses which process and store information simultaneously. According to this piece: “Based on a battery and working like a transistor, the device is made up of two thin films and three terminals, with salty water acting as an electrolyte between them. Electrical signals jump between two of the three terminals at a time, controlled by the third. . . . . Digital transistors have two states – zero and one – but with its three terminal layout, the artificial synapse is capable of having up to 500 different states programmed in, exponentially expanding the computational power it could be capable of. Better still, switching between states takes a fraction of the energy of other systems. That’s still not in the ballpark of a brain – the artificial synapse uses 10,000 times the energy of a biological one – but it’s a step in the right direction, and with further testing in smaller devices, the researchers hope to eventually improve that efficiency.” The ultimate aim is to integrate artificial and natural systems for biological functions. MORE
Image Credit: L.A. Cicero and Stanford News