Million Module Neural Systems Evolution - The Next Step in ATR's Billion Neuron Artificial Brain ("CAM-Brain") Project

This position paper discusses the evolution of multi-module neural net systems, where the number of neural net modules is up to ten million (i.e. an "artificial brain"). ATR's "CAM-Brain" Project [de Garis 1993, 1996] has progressed to the point where it is technically possible (using a new FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based evolvable hardware (EHW or E-Hard) system to be completed by the spring of 1998 [Korkin & de Garis 1997]) to begin to evolve and build an artificial brain containing 10,000 neural net modules. This development raises the prospect that within a few years these numbers will rapidly increase. This paper introduces some issues that such massive systembuilding will generate. The immediate question is "What should we evolve?" This paper presents some suggested evolvable system targets containing N neural net modules, where N = 100; 1000; 10,000; 100,000; 1,000,000; 10,000,000 with an emphasis on the N = 100 case, for purposes of illustration. The issues involved are not only of a conceptual and evolutionary engineering nature, but (when N is large) economic, managerial and even political as well.