Venix:

Even if carbon is viable then there is a matter of production to my understanding the silicon fabs cost billions to make making a new fab to make carbon transiators it is not something samsung or glofo or tsmc or intel will invest if the resault is not vastly superior and they have to be sure it will work !

I figure carbon must be vastly superior, but there are a lot of complications involved beyond cost (I hear carbon transistors degrade much faster) and right now everything is just theoretical. Theory isn't good enough for companies to invest in, when reliability is so uncertain. Carbon-based research has been going on for roughly 2 decades; it wouldn't go on this long if the yield wasn't promising. There must really be something special about carbon if people are dumping this much time and money into making it a reality. After all, people have largely given up on researching germanium transistors, despite the potential advantages. Meanwhile silicon transistors seem to be pretty much as good as they're going to get, where all we can do is continue to shrink them. We're reaching a point where these die shrinks don't seem to be paying off, but manufacturers aren't really left with another option. I'm sure a brand new architecture could be designed that would carry silicon transistors very far (after all, x86 is I think about 40 years old - software has changed a lot in that amount of time) but the problem becomes software compatibility. There's so much potential out there, but the obstacles are too great to overcome.

schmidtbag:

So, that just leaves us with carbon. Carbon is being investigated for use with transistors, and it is thought to maybe be the successor to silicon.

One only needs to look in the mirror, and that will tell that carbon is really the future of computing. Why ? We're made of carbon. So is every other living thing on the planet, down to the simplest microbe or virus. Nature had billions of years of evolution to design carbon-based computers (neurons), we're just catching up. It is also probable that A.I. will not really take off until we reach full scale carbon-based computer production with three-dimensional interconnected layers (just like neurons inside brains). But we're close... it's just a matter of time until smart people figure out how.

wavetrex:

Why ? We're made of carbon. So is every other living thing on the planet, down to the simplest microbe or virus. Nature had billions of years of evolution to design carbon-based computers (neurons), we're just catching up.

That's sort of comparing apples to oranges, though. I don't think carbon really has much to do with what makes neurons so powerful. They're just a totally different machine. Keep in mind - the compounds in neurons involving carbon are utterly useless to transistors. Carbon is a very diverse element. Neurons are also significantly larger than modern-day transistors. What makes neurons so efficient is their ability to "re-purpose" themselves (known as neural plasticity) to optimize tasks that the brain deems important. That, and it doesn't seem neurons are constrained to any specific rules, which is why they're so error-prone. FPGAs are probably the closest resemblance to brains that humans have created, since they're basically logic chips that can be re-programmed to fulfill a different purpose. Due to the functional and structural differences between brains and CPUs, each is good at doing something that the other is bad at. Brains are excellent at interpretation, approximation, noise filtering, and adaptability. However, they're terrible at precision, calculations, impartiality, recollection/memorization, and prediction. CPUs are the exact opposite. This is why even a brain as small as a raven's can identify a specific person by sight in an instant, whereas it takes an incredibly power-hungry computer to accomplish the same task relatively slowly. Meanwhile, a computer can solve complex algebra equations in a matter of milliseconds, whereas it could take a human several minutes. Brains are a product of trial and error, where the successes were either coincidence or contributed toward survival (remember, evolution doesn't decide anything). Computers are a deliberate product of logic and reason. So, I don't think they can be compared. What I think would be an interesting idea is using selective breeding to create a processor (not necessarily humans...). That way, you get the best of both words: a highly efficient processor created by nature, where it was deliberately evolved via logic and reason.

It is also probable that A.I. will not really take off until we reach full scale carbon-based computer production with three-dimensional interconnected layers (just like neurons inside brains). But we're close... it's just a matter of time until smart people figure out how.

Interesting thought, and I'm sure you're right about that.

It would be even more interesting to merge live neurons (those that we already have, from evolution), with carbon-based digital structures that can be powered by the energy transmitted by the living neurons (aka, not require special electrical power source). Basically, a hybrid brain, that can do both.... filter noise, adapt, interpret... but also compute numbers very fast and have huge near-instantly accessible precision memory. Instead of AI, we could just enhance ourselves to be much, much smarter than just with our limited 100% natural brains. Imagine if you could simply "know" anything anytime, without having to google for it... or dig for years into books. That is very likely a future evolution of intelligence... becoming cyborgs. (And soon... !)

wavetrex:

It would be even more interesting to merge live neurons (those that we already have, from evolution), with carbon-based digital structures that can be powered by the energy transmitted by the living neurons (aka, not require special electrical power source). Basically, a hybrid brain, that can do both.... filter noise, adapt, interpret... but also compute numbers very fast and have huge near-instantly accessible precision memory. Instead of AI, we could just enhance ourselves to be much, much smarter than just with our limited 100% natural brains. Imagine if you could simply "know" anything anytime, without having to google for it... or dig for years into books. That is very likely a future evolution of intelligence... becoming cyborgs. (And soon... !)

That is something that had occurred to me. I personally don't really understand the point of humans trying to create a machine to compete with the human brain - why not complement it? Like I said, CPUs can do what we can't and vise versa. Why not use this to our advantage? Why not give humans the ability to solve math equations in an instant, or precisely measure something just by looking at it, or have perfectly accurate, clear (or even shareable) memories? And then there's your ideas, like having the world's information just implanted into your mind. Such bionics could allow humans to skip through so many years of schooling. People would be far more proficient at their jobs (and keep in mind, it's people doing the jobs, not machines taking their place). We would have more freedom to do more things we care about, and, we'd be better at doing them. This could be due to either having more brain power concentrated toward our hobbies, or, it could be due to the bionic assistance. To me, that sounds like real progress, all while retaining what makes us human. As a side note, it could also put an end to political debates. With everyone having full and immediate knowledge of politics, we would all learn to agree to a single system that works for everyone.