Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"The trouble with too much genre SF is that it's so obviously the product of the conscious mind."
- William Gibson
 |
| Artificial Brain | ||
| A non-organic device structured like a human brain. |
This is a very early use of this idea. Note that the "brain-stuff" is structured like the brain.
| No doubt it was a startling proposition, to construct an artificial brain that would possess consciousness, memory, reasoning power...
...Detmold had attacked the problem from a different standpoint. It was his theory that the sensations of the nervous system are flashed to the brain as electric currents, or vibrations, and that it was the action of these vibratory currents on the brain-stuff that caused consciousness and thought. Thus, instead of trying to make simple, living cells and from them work up the complicated structure of the brain, he had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless, yet whose atomic structure he claimed was analogous to the atomic structure of a living brain. He had then applied countless different electrical vibrations to this metallic brain-stuff, and finally announced that under vibrations of certain frequencies the organ had showed faint signs of consciousness. |
| From The Metal Giants,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1926 Additional resources -
|
Here are more details:
It was very simple in appearance, resembling an egg of black metal, some ten inches in length. Inset in its jupper surface was a small lens of glass, and leading into each end of the thing were three wires, which were connected to a complicated tangle of electrical apparatus on the other side of the room.
Compare to the neuristor brain from Home is the Hangman, a 1976 novella by Roger Zelazny, and of course neuristors from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the 1966 novel by Robert Heinlein.
...he turned to a table on which rested the artificial brain.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Metal Giants
More Ideas
and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
Tech news articles related to The Metal Giants
Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
Artificial Brain-related
news articles:
- 'Neuristor' Acts Like Your Brain's Neurons
- Nanowire Memristor Networks Form 'Brains'
- First Commercial Artificial Brain?
| Tetraplegics Dominate Avatar Races |
| IBM's Grain Of Sand Computer |
| Can An Entire Brain Be Simulated In A Computer? |
| Illustris: The Next Generation Of Universe Simulation |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
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.
|
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
There's a lesson in this for neural net AI engineers everywhere.
