Machines Like Us

"We're on the verge of having computers with densities approaching a monkey's brain, and it won't be long before we'll have a computer with the density of transistors, or equivalent to neurons and almost human. What we're missing is the architecture. So it seemed like it was time. We had great advances in algorithms for reasoning and in algorithms that learned in general. At the same time, the computers, the actual intrinsic hardware, was really approaching the density of a human brain. And so it seemed like it was time to try again. We've had some great success. This cognitive program I told you about is actually showing that it is learning, and it is learning in a very difficult environment. This is the program Stanford Research runs for us."

~ TONY TETHER, Director, DARPA -- From an interview in Wired.