Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Google Now Expects Chips To Design Themselves
Chip floor planning, packing chips and wiring into the smallest and most efficient configuration, is tedious and difficult for humans.
Goldie and Mirhoseini applied the concept of reinforcement learning to the new algorithm. The system generates "rewards" and "punishments" for each proposed design until the algorithm better recognizes the best approaches.
The notion of such reinforcement has roots in the school of psychology known as behaviorism. Its founder, John Watson, famously suggested all animals, including humans, were basically complex machines that "learned" by responding to positive and negative responses. How surprised Watson would be to learn that principles he first articulated in 1913 are more than a century later being applied to "intelligent" machines as well.
Google researchers said that after extensive testing, they found their new approach to artificial intelligent assembly line production to be superior to designs created by human engineers.
"We believe that it is AI itself that will provide the means to shorten the chip design cycle, creating a symbiotic relationship between hardware and AI, with each fueling advances in the other," the designers said in a statement published on arxiv.org, a repository of scientific research managed by Cornell University.
Philip K. Dick fans (i.e., most Technovelgy readers) are probably thinking about the Vulcan 3 self-modifying computer in his 1960 novel Vulcan's Hammer:
Beneath his feet the floor vibrated... What lay down there? Energy, tubes and pipes, wiring, transformers, self-contained machinery... He had a mental image of relentless activity... worn-out parts replaced, new parts invented; superior designs replaced obsolete designs. And how far had it spread? Miles?
Update 20-Apr-2024: An earlier reference to the idea of computers that design, improve and upgrade themselves can be found in The Machines That Think, a 1939 short story by Raymond Z. Gallun writing as William Callahan. See the article for synthetic intellects.
End update.
Via TechXplore.
Google researchers have just taken a giant leap in floor planning design. In a recent announcement, senior Google research engineers Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini said they have designed an algorithm that "learns" how to achieve optimum circuitry placement. It can do so in a fraction of the time currently required for such designing, analyzing potentially millions of possibilities instead of thousands, which is currently the norm. In doing so, it can provide chips that take advantage of the latest developments faster, cheaper and smaller.
Very little of the computer was visible; its bulk disappeared into regions which he had never seen, which in fact no human had ever seen... Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface, to be carted off, and the variety, amount, and nature of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.
(Read more about Philip K. Dick's Vulcan 3 self-modifying computer)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/17/2020)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Computer ")
Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...' - Clifford Simak, 1949.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.' - Isaac Asimov, 1975.
Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.' - Bruce Bethke, 1983.
Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...' - John Brunner, 1975
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
AIs Turn Marxist Under Bad Management
'It was a general strike of the robots...'
Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
Nifty Folding Electric Bicycles!
'Separate paths were provided for them...'
FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers
'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.'
Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million
'The population of Castle Hagedorn was fixed...'
Project Silica Offers 'Long-Term' Digital Storage
'... folios and tapes and playable discs of platinum alloy.'
Can 'Tactical Umbrellas' Shield One From Drones
'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.'
Crystalline Structures In Space, You Say?
A massive space borne lifeform from ST:TNG.
Garçon! A Menu For Artemis II, S'il Vous Plaît
'Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.'
