Russian scientists have approached the creation of an analogue of the human brain. MIPT presented a device - a memristor, which can remember information and naturally forget.

The living brain is designed so that with a rare activation of “memory cells” their strength decreases, and with frequent activation, on the contrary, it increases. In order to create a similar brain for artificial intelligence, which could be considered an analogue of human, in 2015 in the West they proposed an artificial synapse that reproduces the strengthening and weakening of the connections between brain neurons.

The "bridges" for transmitting information in the first memristor consisted of nanoparticles. However, they showed a flaw. As “MK” explained, the lead author of the study, Anastasia Chuprik from the Laboratory of Neuro Computing Systems, at some point, a device based on nanoparticles does not withstand and collapses. This happens after about a million cycles. At MIPT, a more reliable mechanism based on a ferroelectric was used. This is a substance that under the influence of an external electric field changes and then retains its electric polarization, like a magnetized iron. It also “knows” to remember and forget information, like the previous one, but for a fairly long period of time. The device showed an impressive margin of safety: after testing for 100 billion switching cycles, the system barely changed its properties.

Machines or robots equipped with such memristors could perform calculations faster than existing ones and spend incomparably less power. Moreover, they could be called more “human” for the ability to forget the unnecessary.

onauke.info