Brainmakers: How Scientists Are Moving Beyond Computers to Create a Rival to the Human Brain

Freelance science writer Freedman's compelling state-of-the-art report on the quest to build human-like thinking machines explores how the field of artificial intelligence is being reinvigorated through AI researchers' interface with neuroscience, biology and robotics. At MIT, Attila, a six-legged robot, crawls around, learning new skills by interacting with its environment. In Japan, scientists are making movies of the neuron-to-neuron flow of signals inside the brains of live rats; their ultimate goal is a ``wiring diagram'' illustrating how the human brain works. At UCLA, computer scientists have designed a ``robot farm'' where robots will ``mate'' by merging their programs; an occasional mutation will be added to imitate biological evolution. Even more science fiction-like are biophysicists' and AI experts' efforts to harness the self-organizing and memory capabilities of biomolecules (e.g., bacterial protein or RNA) which may one day replace transistors on microchips or even serve as the basis for ``biomolecular computers.'' (Apr.)