DARPA-Funded Researchers Have Tested a Drone That Can Learn
DARPA-Funded Researchers Have Tested a Drone That Can
Learn
Today 10:23am
Almost seven years ago, we learned that DARPA was
investing millions of dollars in neuromorphic chips. That's a fancy term for a
computer chip that mimics a biological cortex—a brain chip. Today, researchers
are getting closer. And of course, they're putting those brain chips in drones.
Responding to DARPA's challenge, HRL Laboratories' Center
for Neural and Emergent Systems just tested a tiny drone with a prototype
neuromorphic chip. The drone packs 576 silicon neurons that communicate through
spikes in electricity and respond to data from optical, ultrasound, and
infrared sensors. And thanks to that brain-like chip, the little robot doesn't
necessarily need a human to tell it what to do. It can learn and act on its
own.
It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie,
a tiny aircraft that flies around deciding what to surveil or, more
frighteningly, what to shoot. MIT's Technology Review explains how the test
worked:
The first time the drone was flown into each room, the
unique pattern of incoming sensor data from the walls, furniture, and other
objects caused a pattern of electrical activity in the neurons that the chip
had never experienced before. That triggered it to report that it was in a new
space, and also caused the ways its neurons connected to one another to change,
in a crude mimic of learning in a real brain. Those changes meant that next
time the craft entered the same room, it recognized it and signaled as such.
So that's pretty cool. No seriously, that kind of
technological prowess is nothing short of astonishing. However, it's hard to
deny that a future full of drones with tiny electronic brians is a little bit
frightening. They'll surely do lots of good.
But that conversation about the ethics of artificial
intelligence will only escalate as AI takes to the skies.
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