A computer smarter than a cat?
Ars Technica has a post entitled “IBM makes supercomputer significantly smarter than cat”. However, this is one of those misleading titles designed to catch readers. There isn’t really any evidence that this computer could outwit any half-way intelligent cat. What the computer does is run a brain simulation that is described:
IBM has announced a software simulation of a mammalian cerebral cortex that’s significantly more complex than the cortex of a cat. And, just like the actual brain that it simulates, they still have to figure out how it works.
At least that last phrase is honest. Simulating neurons and synapses with computer components doesn’t mean you know how a brain works. As the post goes on to say:
In a nutshell, when a simulation of a complex phenomenon (brains, weather systems) reaches a certain level of fidelity, it becomes just as difficult to figure out what’s actually going on in the model—how it’s organized, or how it will respond to a set of inputs—as it is to answer the same questions about a live version of the phenomenon that the simulation is modeling. So building a highly accurate simulation of a complex, nondeterministic system doesn’t mean that you’ll immediately understand how that system works—it just means that instead of having one thing you don’t understand (at whatever level of abstraction), you now have two things you don’t understand: the real system, and a simulation of the system that has all of the complexities of the original plus an additional layer of complexity associated with the models implementation in hardware and software.
Not really related but gleaned from one of the comments to the post is a link to software designed to catproof your computer:
When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer. This can happen whether you are near the computer or have suddenly been called away from it.
PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks cat typing, and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard.
I wonder if it works for three-year-old humans?
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