Last year, Google completed what was then the world’s largest neural network, advancing technology so far as to give computers human capabilities: The robots they created were able to recognize cats in YouTube videos (a slight slap in the face to our intelligence? I do love my cat videos though…).

But today, Stanford announced the completion of a neural network 6.5 times the size of Google’s impressive  network. I’m no neuroscientist, but even I know 11 billion neural connections is a huge advancement. Though robots are still quite a ways from approaching the amount of neural connections in a our brains, their intelligence is increasing rapidly.

For those of us who can’t quite grasp the implications of neural networks, this powerful video of 17-year old Google Science fair winner Brittany Wenger, who created a neural network in her bedroom by watching YouTube videos, is a perfect example. Her completed network, Cloud4Cancer, detects the severity of breast cancer with a success rate of 99.11 percent:

 

[CC photo by epsos.de]