Scientists make a pocket-sized AI brain with help from monkey neurons

"That is incredibly small. This is something we could send in a tweet or an email. The compact model also appears to work more like a living brain, which could help scientists study what goes wrong in diseases like Alzheimer's."

"Compact, biology-inspired models of the brain could also lead to more powerful and more humanlike artificial intelligence. If the AI model really does replicate strategies found in nature, it could help scientists understand the inner workings of human brains."

"A human brain consumes less power than a light bulb, while artificial intelligence systems guzzle electricity to do the same tasks. Now, scientists have created a highly efficient AI model that hints at how living brains are able to do so much with so little."

Researchers developed a highly efficient AI model mimicking the brain's visual system, reducing it from 60 million variables to just 10,000 while preserving near-equivalent performance. This dramatic compression demonstrates principles underlying biological efficiency and could revolutionize understanding of neural processes. The compact model operates more similarly to living brains, offering insights into neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. By studying how AI systems accomplish visual recognition tasks comparable to human cognition, scientists gain understanding of both artificial and biological intelligence. Biology-inspired AI models could lead to more powerful, humanlike artificial intelligence while simultaneously revealing mechanisms of human brain function and visual perception.

Read at www.npr.org