[HN Gopher] Transistor first reported as "little brain cell"
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Transistor first reported as "little brain cell"
Author : kaycebasques
Score : 70 points
Date : 2023-11-28 20:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.biodigitaljazz.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.biodigitaljazz.net)
| medler wrote:
| Enjoyed this post. It's interesting to me that they actually
| refer to vacuum tubes as little brain cells as well.
|
| It's not clear to me how far back the computer-as-brain analogy
| goes, but as far back as 1833 you have Babbage's difference
| engine being described as a "thinking machine"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
| detourdog wrote:
| I have some Autonetics documentation for D17-B that disscusses
| running all the inputs and all the outputs to a single module
| called the central processing unit.
| anyfoo wrote:
| In old German movies and documentaries, "Elektronengehirn"
| (literally "electron brain") is a term I've encountered a lot.
|
| It is unknown nowadays.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| Also the memristor was expected to be the component that in the
| future would work as an artificial neuron.
| rishav_sharan wrote:
| What's up with memristors now? I remember there being so much
| hype around it some years ago. Are they coming to computers any
| time soon?
| rzzzt wrote:
| HP partnered with SK hynix in 2010:
| https://news.skhynix.com/hynix-collaborates-with-hp-on-
| next-...
|
| These ReRAM products did not seem to emerge however.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I wonder how much of the ideas for applications of
| memristors could be implemented in more normal hardware
| applied in non-traditional ways, such as matching slower
| (non-central!) processors with flash etc. Putting the
| compute nearer the storage, instead of putting the storage
| in the periphery.
| monitron wrote:
| I love that. It's funny, though - I know the transistor is
| "little" compared to the vacuum tube, but look at it next to an
| _actual_ brain cell and it's enormous!
| ravenstine wrote:
| Today there are transistors on the nanometer scale, whereas
| brain cells are on the micrometer scale.
| connicpu wrote:
| Of course a single brain cell performs a more complex
| operation than a single transistor
| bbor wrote:
| This is a funny offhand comment, but I think indicates a
| common mistake in this kind of computer-as-brain thinking
| that has lead to most modern thinkers (or at least most
| modern HNers) dismissing it: being lazy with the scales.
| Just because the brain is composed of connected cells
| doesn't mean that those individual cells are the right
| place to start any analysis. Real neuroscience, AFAICT, has
| been pointing away from "each neuron is a step in a
| process" and pointing towards "each neuron is a small part
| of many different structures" for a while now
| anyfoo wrote:
| Isn't that true for transistors as well?
| connicpu wrote:
| Transistors have some nuance to them, but a transistor
| can in theory be scaled all the way down to being made
| out of only a handful of atoms if it was made perfectly
| with no impurities, and it would still function nearly
| identically to the slightly larger versions. Of course,
| packing them tighter still has some problems due to
| quantum tunneling at the scale of handfuls-of-atoms, but
| that's a separate issue.
|
| Meanwhile a brain cell is still a lot more complicated
| and has a place in an entire network of cells and the
| connections between them that cannot be described by the
| comparatively simpler equations one can use for a
| transistor.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Yes, for instance, there's a lot more going on in the
| axons and dendrites than was even initially thought.
| monitron wrote:
| Wow, that's mind-blowing. Imagine if the folks back at Bell
| Labs could have known that was coming.
| tantalor wrote:
| Not so: the neurons in the sciatic nerve (from your lower back
| to foot) can be up to a meter in length.
| rzzzt wrote:
| No vacuum and glass envelope? I'll believe it when I see one.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| LLM first reported as "intelligent".
| sandworm101 wrote:
| First LLM diagnosed as sociopathic. First identified as
| bigoted. First as just being a jerk. First to be denied a
| government permit. First refused entry at a national border.
| First not to be invited back to the Oscars. There are plenty of
| interesting hurdles yet to come
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I was expecting the article to mention a fact I just looked up:
| Nvidia's newest H100 GPU has roughly 80 billion transistors which
| is roughly equivalent to the number of neuron cells in the human
| brain. I would be surprised if transistors are as flexible as
| human neurons, but it's interesting that we're just getting to
| the right order of magnitude in terms of quantity assuming they
| can fill a similar role.
| baz00 wrote:
| Perhaps I see this as naivety but it feels wrong reading it. A
| transistor is a really simple functional unit. A neuron is a
| hugely complex system on its own which is 3 orders of magnitude
| the size or more and 3d to boot. They are nowhere near
| functionally equivalent in any way, shape or form. Rationally
| comparing them is difficult.
|
| It's like comparing a light switch to an M3 SoC.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I mean, I'm not a doctor... or, a roboticist, but 80 billion
| sounds like a really low number. The brain is physically much
| bigger than a GPU, even a fat one
| xg15 wrote:
| Not sure if there is an equivalent in English, but I know that an
| "archaic" German term for computers from the 1940s and 50s is
| "Elektronengehirn". So the connection has always been always
| there.
|
| Edit: An article about the origin of the term and historic
| connections/comparisons being made between brains and computers:
| https://www.nzz.ch/digital/computer-wie-die-elektronenhirne-...
| (in German)
| pxeger1 wrote:
| (Gehirn = brain)
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