A computing visionary looks beyond today’s AI
For decades, Hava Siegelmann has explored the outer reaches of computing with great curiosity and great conviction.
The conviction shows up in a belief that there are forms of computing that go beyond the one that has dominated for seventy years, the so-called von Neumann machine, based on the principles laid down by Alan Turing in the 1930s. She has long championed the notion of "Super-Turing" computers with novel capabilities.
And curiosity shows up in various forms, including her most recent work, on "neuromorphic computing," a form of computing that may more closely approximate the way that the brain functions. Siegelmann, who holds two appointments, one with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as professor of computer science, and one as a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, sat down with ZDNet to discuss where neuromorphic computing goes next, and the insights it can bring about artificial intelligence, especially why AI succeeds and fails.
