IBM has started a project to create a computer that is
structured and acts like the brain. Because of the complexity of
this goal, IBM will draw from the field of cognitive computing
and bank on the collective skills of neurobiologists, computer
and materials scientists and psychologists. I've always felt
that this kind of breakthrough needs to occur before we have a
great leap forward in computers, due to the limitations of the
Von Neumann computer architecture, an architecture we have
relied on since the dawn of the computer. As humans, we're also
limited by our work environment; we model and become like our
tools. In the early 1980s Craid Boyd coined the term
technostress and wrote a book with the same title, describing
how we unwittingly model the computer — binary (Yes/No)
thinking, internalizing the speed of the computer... Back to our
motivated dream weavers at IBM. Dharmendra Modha, the chief IBM
scientist for this project, says the time is just right for a
cross-disciplinary project; the disparate di