Oshi Agabi envisages airports that will need no
visible security system allowing people to just walk on to planes TEDGLOBAL
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Nigerian Oshi Agabi has unveiled a computer based
not on silicon but on mice neurons at the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania.
The system has been trained to recognize the
smell of explosives and could be used to replace traditional airport security,
he said. Eventually the modem-sized device - dubbed Koniku
Kore - could provide the brain for future robots. Experts said that making such systems mass-market
was challenging.
All of the big tech firms, from Google to
Microsoft, are rushing to create artificial intelligence modelled on the human
brain. While computers are better than humans at complex
mathematical equations, there are many cognitive functions where the brain is
much better: training a computer to recognize smells would require colossal
amounts of computational power and energy, for example.
Mr Agabi is attempting to reverse-engineer
biology, which already accomplishes this function with a fraction of the power
it would take a silicon-based processor. "Biology is technology. Bio is
tech," he says. "Our deep learning networks are all copying the
brain."
He launched his start-up Koniku over a year ago,
has raised US$1m (£800,000) in funding and claims it is already making profits
of US$10m in deals with the security industry. Koniku Kore is an amalgam of living neurons and
silicon, with olfactory capabilities — basically sensors that can detect and recognize smells.
"You can give the neurons instructions about
what to do - in our case we tell it to provide a receptor that can detect
explosives."
He envisages a future where such devices can be
discreetly used at various points in airports, eliminating the need for queues
to get through airport security. As well as being used for bomb detection, the
device could be used to detect illness by sensing markers of a disease in the
air molecules that a patient gives off.
Oshiorenoya Agabi wants to create a brain-based
computer system GETTY IMAGES
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The prototype device shown off at TED - the
pictures of which cannot yet be publicly revealed - has partially solved one of
the biggest challenges of harnessing biological systems - keeping the neurons
alive, said Mr Agabi.
In a video, he showed the device being taken out
of the lab. "This device can live on a desk and we can
keep them alive for a couple of months," he told the BBC.
Ultimately though he has much bigger ambitions. "We think that the processing power that is
going to run the robots of the future will be synthetic biology-based and we
are laying the foundations for that today."
The fusion of biology and technology gained
headlines recently when Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and Space X, announced his latest venture - Neuralink - which aims to fuse the human brain with AI, using
neural lace.
Advances in neuroscience, bioengineering and
computer science means that much more is known about how the human brain works
than ever before. This is fuelling the development of
neuro-technology - devices that aim to mould the brain into computers. Much of the current work is aimed at improving
brain function, particularly for those with brain-related injuries or diseases.
Prof John Donoghue, who heads up the Wyss Centre
for bio and neuro-engineering in Geneva, has been at the forefront of work
attempting to allow people with paralysis to move limbs using their brain
waves. He believes the field is at a "tipping
point" where biological and digital systems will come together.
The idea being pursued by Mr Agabi is
interesting, he said. "Digital computers are fast and reliable but
dumb, whereas neurons are slow but smart. But they are not so good in a little dish
and the big problem will be keeping them alive and happy. That is going to be a
big challenge," he added.
"Will we have a dish of neurons computing on
our desk? I don't know."
But he added that scientists in Geneva were
already able to "keep neurons in a dish and communicate with them for a
year", adding that such systems were an "exciting tool to study brain
circuitry".
Much of AI research is focused on mimicking the
job of neurons GETTY IMAGES
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Other scientists are developing silicon chips
which mimic the way that neurons work and could ultimately prove more stable,
he said. But Mr Agabi is not convinced such systems will
win out over his. "The idea of mimicking
silicon is very hard and we don't think it can be scaled," he told the
BBC.
Originally published on BBC
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