Take a look at this recent Popular Science piece by Andrew Paul.
When this article hit cyberspace and found its way to me, yes … a reflective pause and subtle grin ensued. Careful of spoilers mind you, part of DUST’s central plot involves technology created as the result of the eventual end to Moore’s Law. It’s the maxim predicting the evolution of computational processing power — particularly the maximum number of transistors on a silicon processor chip — as doubling every year. Empirical data indicates Moore’s Law to hold largely true. I won’t get into political debates and conspiracies over programmed development and release; Moore’s historical graph is an established fact, loose as it may be. Problem is, even back in 2008, silicon engineers recognized Moore’s demise. Silicon can only go so thin and so densely packed with transistors before incurring cross-talk issues and other problems that negate further development.
“What if …”
Knowing transistors were, and still are, limited to binary processing, I wondered when and if multi-state transistors would ever take the stage. Without a dissertation on neurons and their connections, just know that our brains pack far more complex, constantly evolving processing power in a minuscule space that any currently-conceivable silicon processor. And therein lies the engine for an intriguing narrative. What if a cutting-edge biomechanics lab succeeded with full axon terminalization, connecting human brain tissue with an external computing framework? What would that mean for science? What could go wrong?
Now, there is a <cough> slight difference with PopSci’s presentation in that the referenced brain tissue, AKA “organoid”, is lab-grown as opposed to human-sourced. Other than that …
Those who’ve read DUST will experience an AHA! towards the end of the article.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
/T
