prof. steve furber, university of manchester, principal designer of the bbc micro & the arm...

May 8, 2016 1

Towards intelligent machines

Steve FurberICL Professor of Computer

EngineeringThe University of Manchester

May 8, 2016 2

65 years ago…

May 8, 2016 3

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/513696/deep-learning/

May 8, 2016 4

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2455758/google-alphago-victory-paves-way-for-an-ai-first-world

May 8, 2016 5

http://observer.com/2015/08/stephen-hawking-elon-musk-and-bill-gates-warn-about-artificial-intelligence/

May 8, 2016 6

http://futureoflife.org/2015/12/15/pentagon-seeks-12-15-billion-for-ai-weapons-research/

May 8, 2016 7

The Human Brain ProjectA €1B EU ICT FlagshipResearch areas:

•Neuroscience•neuroinformatics•brain simulation

•Medicine•medical informatics

•early diagnosis•personalized treatment

•Future computing•interactive supercomputing•neuromorphic computing

May 8, 2016 8

SpiNNaker machine

• HBP platform– 500,000 cores– 6 cabinets

(including server)

• 500M neurons– 500B synapses

• Launch– 30 March 2016

May 8, 2016 9

The dawn of Cognition•Machines are beginning to

sense and make sense of their environment

–driverless cars–robot vacuum cleaners

–?…•Understanding the brain

will accelerate this trend•What are the

consequences?

May 8, 2016 10

Conclusions•Turing’s vision of machines with human-like

intelligence has yet to be realised•he would be surprised by this!

•AI is seen as an “existential threat?”•but ‘strong’ AI is still far from a reality

•Deep Networks have transformed machine learning•speech recognition, computer vision ,…•but currently require very large machines

•Cognitive systems are a reality•autonomous sensing and acting