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VTV.vn - Leading a study on cultivating human brain cells on silicon chips capable of continuous learning to transform machine learning techniques is Monash University (Australia).
This research project, spearheaded by Associate Professor Adeel Razi from the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health (Monash University), in collaboration with Melbourne-based start-up Cortical Labs, has just secured nearly AUD 600,000 in funding (approximately VND 9.6 billion).
Scientists cultivate around 800,000 living brain cells in a dish, then instruct them to perform specific tasks. Last year, the research team drew global attention when the cultivated brain cells successfully played a simple game of Pong on a computer.
According to Associate Professor Adeel Razi, the research program utilizes cultivated brain cells in the laboratory attached to silicon chips to merge the fields of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, creating programmable biological computing platforms.
'The potential of this new technology in the future may surpass the performance of current silicon-based hardware. The results of this research are significant for various fields such as planning, robotics, advanced automation, brain-computer interfaces, and drug development research...' - Associate Professor Razi stated.
According to the associate professor, new machine learning applications such as self-driving cars and trucks, unmanned aerial vehicles, delivery robots, handheld devices, and wearable devices in the future will require a new type of artificial intelligence to continuously learn throughout their lifecycle.
'Lifelong learning' means machines can acquire new skills without compromising old ones, adapt to changes, and apply previously learned knowledge to new tasks. They do all of this while preserving limited resources such as computing power, memory, and energy. Current AI cannot do this because they suffer from the problem of forgetting. Meanwhile, the human brain excels at lifelong continuous learning.
The purpose of the project is to cultivate human brain cells in a laboratory dish system called DishBrain, to understand the diverse biological mechanisms of lifelong continuous learning.
'We will use this funding to develop AI machines capable of emulating the learning ability of biological neural networks. This will help us enhance the structure and capabilities of hardware until they are capable enough to replace computer-based analysis methods' - Associate Professor Adeel Razi said.
