Computers That Can Think Like Humans

By seeking inspiration from the structure, dynamics, function, and behavior of the brain, the IBM-led cognitive computing research team aims to break the conventional programmable machine paradigm. This team led by Dr. Dharmendra Modha, manager of IBM's cognitive computing initiative, hopes to rival the brain's low power consumption and small size by using nanoscale devices for synapses and neurons. This technology stands to bring about entirely new computing architectures and programming paradigms.

Cognitive computing offers the promise of systems that can integrate and analyze vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an eye, allowing businesses or individuals to make rapid decisions in time to have a significant impact. For example, bankers must make split-second decisions based on constantly changing data that flows at an ever-dizzying rate. And in the business of monitoring the world's water supply, a network of sensors and actuators constantly records and reports metrics such as temperature, pressure, wave height, acoustics and ocean tide.

In such cases, making sense of all the input would be a Herculean task for one person, or even for 100. A cognitive computer, acting as a global brain, could quickly and accurately put together the disparate pieces of this complex puzzle and help people make good decisions rapidly. The end result of this research is to ubiquitously deploy computers imbued with a new intelligence that can integrate information from a variety of sensors and sources, deal with ambiguity, respond in a context-dependent way, learn over time and carry out pattern recognition to solve difficult problems based on perception, action and cognition in complex, real-world environments.

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