From: Yahoo! Hong Kong - Technology News

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Sunday, April 15 6:05 PM SGT
You know I gotta put in the big bold "Weekly World News" headline -pm

Russia hails breakthrough in building artificial brain

MOSCOW, April 15 (AFP) -
Russian scientists claimed Sunday to have developed the first artificial brain, a "neuro-computer" with the same intellectual potential as its human counterpart, Interfax reported.

The new Russian computer is based on the brain cell, or neuron, and outstrips previous brain models by using state-of-the-art findings in neurophysiology and neuromorphology to produce a truly thinking machine, scientist Vitaly Valtsev said.

But he warned of the potential hazards of the scientific breakthrough, saying the brand new brain could turn into a Frankenstein's monster if it was mistreated.

"This machine needs to be trained like a newborn child. It's extremely important for us to make it a friend, not a criminal or an enemy," Valtsev said.

Valtsev, a member of the International Academy of Information Science, told Interfax that Russian scientists succeeded where others had failed because they used a model of the neuron of the brain in building the computer.

Earlier attempts to create an artificial intelligence had failed because scientists had tried to create a smart machine using a model of the neuron of the spinal cord developed back in the 1940s.


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