| > But, do those terms they use, e.g. neuron, synapse mean the same thing they do for biologists They are not meant to. This is not "brain simulation" or similar - which exists, but is a different matter. This context is instead about neuromorphic computing, as hardware implementation of components for Artificial Neural Networks. And results seem to be remarkable: > They calculated that the synapses are capable of spike rates exceeding 10 million hertz while consuming roughly 33 attojoules of power per synaptic event (an attojoule is 10-18 of a joule) The comparison with biological neuro-transmission is just indicative - for trivia, for curiosity. -- Edit: on the contrary, these devices aim to be in a way simpler than ANN's neurons (far from aiming to be as complex as cerebral neurons): > By only rarely firing spikes, these devices shuffle around much less data than typical artificial neural networks and, in principle, require much less power and communication bandwidth That is because the underlying aim is to achieve using a single photon for communication, with an immediate potential practical use in ANNs. |