Why the "Dreams" of Google's Neural Nets Are the Closest Thing to Reality

Neural networks have a long history. In 1943 two pioneers of cybernetics, the neurophysiologist Warren S. McCulloch and the logician Walter Pitts, demonstrated that neurons could be equivalent to running programs on Turing machines. In other words, they showed that the human brain could be simulated by a computer. Since then one of the most promising approaches to Artificial Intelligence has been the design and development of "artificial neural networks" that try to mimic how the brain functions. We know from brain science that the biological neurons in our brain are organised in hierarchies as well as in groups of various specialisations.