Talking about Carbon Silicon Artificial Intelligence 20 18- 12-23

We are used to calling humans and other creatures carbon-based, because life is made of carbohydrates; Systems such as computers or chips are collectively called silicon-based, because the basic material of chips is silicon dioxide. Because the main component of sand is also silicon dioxide, sometimes colleagues in chip companies joke that they sell sand.

Carbon and silicon belong to the same family of the chemical periodic table and are located in the middle of the table. This is no coincidence, because both are semiconductors. In the past, semiconductors were considered as useless materials because they were not pure enough, not conductive like metals, and not insulated enough. However, things are unpredictable. With its excellent interconnection ability, semiconductors can be widely combined with surrounding elements to form different states (0 and 1) through electronic control to complete the sublimation from analog to digital, so they have the ability of "storage" and "calculation", which is the premise of intelligence. In these semiconductors, carbon and silicon are both tetravalent elements, and there are four positions outside the atom that can be combined with other elements. In three-dimensional space, 4 is a magic number, because the smallest regular polyhedron in space-regular tetrahedron is the most stable structure.

In this way, with carbon as the core, by combining the surrounding elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, extremely complex organic matter can be evolved, and then carbon-based life can be formed. On the surface, carbon-based life has extraordinary advantages in physics. Long carbon chains, DNA double helix and delicate base pairs are perfect information storage tools. Scientists further speculate that because the elements and physical laws are the same in the whole universe, life mostly follows the same formula: carbon+hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen+liquid water+rocky planets. In other words, the origin of alien life is also carbon-based, and it also needs a terrestrial planet.

Silicon is far less stable than carbon, but under the package of science and technology, it has the ability of large-scale integration and fast calculation, which makes silicon-based artificial intelligence come from behind. If we admit that the essence of life lies in memory, calculation, consciousness and other things independent of the carrier, then silicon-based life has more advantages than carbon-based life. As long as the information is stored logically, there is no need to make as many physical preparations as carbon-based life, thus achieving "overtaking in corners". Even if you open a brain hole, the future life form is the most reasonable in the form of pure energy-the fastest evolution is to exist in the form of energy and create a temporary body (avatar or robot) when forced or needed.

The legend of carbon and silicon is far from over.

Previous related articles:

Time dimension of artificial intelligence rambling 2018-12-10

The story of artificial intelligence rambling about dimensions 20 18- 12-07

What's the difference between artificial intelligence rambling algorithm and our way of thinking 20 18- 12-06