A joint paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers from Intel Labs and Cornell University demonstrated the ability of Intel’s neuromorphic research chip, Loihi, to learn and recogni... Intel Says its Loihi Computer Chip Can Smell Without a Nose
As a robotics enthusiast, I find this to be amazing. I can't imagine this will be very affordable and I'm curious how capable this will be, but this is a seriously useful technology. I'm interested to see further progress on this. Makes me wonder if this could be used for people with anosmia. So far, there has been success in synthesizing other senses. The sense of smell is an interesting one because it has a lot of "low-level" and instinctual functionality. For example, smell often has one of the strongest impacts on memory, and we're biologically programmed to find certain smells repulsive or appealing. So, what would our instincts do if we synthetically smelled something rotting? If someone used to be able to smell, their brain would still [likely] be able to identify such smells, so what would happen if the "synthetic nose" sent the wrong signal? Could a corpse smell like roses to them? Could fresh baked bread smell like farts? Meanwhile, if someone was born with anosmia, would they ever be able to identify what a good smell or a bad smell is? So even if the signal for cadaverine was accurately produced to their brain, would they know it's supposed to be putrid?
This smells fantastic, at least Intel being a gigantic enterprise have some parts of it forwarding to interesting stuff
