The Age of Cyborgs Begins

Computer scientist Carver Mead gave a speech in 1997. Normally you'd expect him to talk about computers, artificial intelligence, or something related to his field, but Mead, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, picks an interesting topic. Nervous systems of animals. Especially flies. In this speech, he talks about a technique he has worked on before, which he calls Neuromorphic Informatics. His proposal is an electronic problem-solving system inspired by nerve cells.

All large-scale systems consisting of integrated circuits that mimic the biological structure found in the nervous system of living things are called neuromorphic systems. These systems are also called neuromorphic chips. In a more understandable way, we can say that it is a smart processing unit.

Here, Mead said, 25 years ago, that we can design such intelligent processing units that mimic the architecture of living things. The idea was pretty cool, of course, but it was a little crazy back then to even consider the possibility of it. So it was just a frivolous idea that was talked about at a casual conference, but at this time, researchers have designed a thousand neuromorphic computers that can learn by themselves how to get out of a maze. Actually, this is an organic robot brain that we know. This work is truly revolutionary.

When we examine neuromorphic, that is, smart chips, we can see that their working logic is very similar to the living brain. When the brain learns something new, for example, neurons rearrange their connections and redesign them to communicate faster.

There is a saying in neuroscience: "Neurons working together connect to each other."

When we think of a normal robot or a machine, we naturally think of fixed electrical circuits, but when something with a neuromorphic chip learns something new, it also dynamically redesigns its electrical circuits and records this learned behavior. It's like our brain creates a memory. Yes, we can say that they have started to do this.

Computers resembling the human brain are not a new idea. This is a phenomenon that has been dreaming of humanity for a very long time. In this study, the team led by Paschalis Gkoupidenis from the polymer research department on max-planck in Germany was the first to produce this technology from organic materials.

They also used a type of polymer made up of carbon-based molecules to manufacture the chip. This polymer behaved very similarly to living tissue. They coated this organic material with a kind of ion-rich gel to enable it to carry an electrical charge like real neurons. In this way, they were able to mimic biological processes in a more specific way.

Before this study, some names who took part in the same study had proved that they could remember the old states of organic polymers in a sense by recording them. In other words, polymers were trying to remember information such as how many steps to get out of a labyrinth. In the latest study, the researchers took this organic material and produced transistors very similar to those used in computers as we know them, and built a circuit with these transistors. It turns out some kind of brain chip. This artificial brain could also adapt to its environment by perceiving the signals in the environment. When it learned which direction to go, these circuits sent very precise movement commands to the robot they were mounted on.

I think everyone has something on their minds about how serious it is. Organic transistors, circuits designed with these transistors, and robots built using these circuits.

The team also decided that a labyrinth would be the best place to try this technology. A maze is a very realistic simulation where you can get instant feedback on success or failure. If the robot can get out of the maze, it has succeeded and most importantly learned something. If he didn't come out, it means he didn't learn.

They preferred a Lego model toy, which is quite expensive, to use this organic circuit in their hands. The reason they chose this robot was that it could record signals related to touch and vision and could move on two wheels. By slightly modifying this toy, they placed their own organic chips and released them into a maze with some obstacles. The robot, who was able to find the right way by remembering the mistakes he made, managed to get out of the labyrinth in his 16th attempt. The learning process of this organic artificial brain was just like the learning process of a child.

In the next stages, it is planned to make all parts of the robot, not just the brain, organically. This could be a development that will unlock some of the revolutions that have been talked about for a very long time. A robot that is organic will also eventually be biocompatible.

So welcome to Cyborgpunck. These organic machines can become integrated into the human body. The great thing about these organic chips is that they can work with much less energy than regular chips. Standard silicon chips of similar size require as little as 10 volts to power up, while for neuromorphic chips as low as 0.5 volts is sufficient. Since power and voltage are directly proportional, the system generally requires much less energy. The researchers say these pairs are much cheaper and easier to manufacture than silicon systems. Especially with these low energy needs and their ability to adapt, we may start to see robots working on their own in a short time on the other side of the world. Perhaps in the future there will be robots on another planet doing their assigned tasks for us. A bee-sized robot, for example, might start pollinating the plants that will grow on Mars, which we plan to colonize. But it can be very difficult to fully grasp where some technologies will take us.

Thanks to the developing technology, our limit is starting to become our imagination, perhaps our most valuable treasure.