@Balrog:
A PC computer is not a neural net, I often find educated programmers making this error. Your PC is an evolved Turing machine. A neural net is a neural network.
A neural network is a collection of electronic neurons which mimic the behavior of the brain. Each time a neural network makes a correct choice, the circuits are reinforced by changing the "weights" of each neuron. Each time it makes an error, the connections are deemphasized.
Neural networks still have a long way to go before they can model the human brain.
At MIT, Hopfield found that where the atoms are tightly bound in a lattice structure, there are simple organizing priciples given by the quantum theory. Hopfield asked himself whether the array of atoms found in a solid are smiliar to the neurons in the brain. Can a neuron in the brain be treated like an atom in a lattice? Hopfield when on to refute the top-down school that the "mind" was an incredibly complicated program inserted into a large computer. Hopfield suggested that intelligence might arise from the quantum theory of mindless atoms, without any programs whatsoever!
Hopfield's research showed that each atom in a solid is spinning and can exist in a few discrete states, such as spin up or down. Similarly, the neuron also exists in discrete states: it can fire or not fire. In a quantum solid, there is a universal principle that determines which state the system prefers--i.e. the atoms arrange themselves so that the energy is minimized. Hopfield's discovered that a neural network circuit must also minimize its energy.
Hopfield, using the broad principles of the quantum theory, found that all neurons in the brain would fire in such a way as to minimize the "energy" of the net. "Learning" is the process of finding the lowest energy.
Hopfield went on to find that his neural nets exhibited unexpected behavior which mimicked actual brain functions. He found, for example, that even after the removal of many neurons, the neural network behaved pretty much the same.
Another by-product was that it neural nets gave an interpretation for obsessions. Sometimes, if you weren't careful in preparing a neural net, a particular valley might become so large that it ate up all the neighboring valleys. Then the signal would inevitably fall into this gaping hole. This may be just what happens in the case of an obsession.
The strangest by-product of neural nets was totally unexpected. He found that his neural nets began to dream.
To Hopfield, dreams are fluctuating energy states in a quantum mechanical system. Hopfield discovered that his neural networks reproduced many of the properties of dreams identified long ago be psychologists, who found that we need to sleep and dream after a series of exhausting experiences. He foudn that if he filled a neural net with too many overload i.e, (valleys), then the system began to malfunction from overload-- i.e, the amount of time it took to access different memories began to become increasingly unequal. It began to malfunction in recalling previously learned memories. In fact, unwanted ripples began to form on the surface of the terrain that did not correspond to any real memories at all. These ripples are called "spurious memories" and correspond to dreams.
One of the first commercial applications of neural network theory is a bomb detector for airlines that can seek out certain chemicals, like plastic explosives, which are usually invisible to X-rays. Luggage is first flooded with neutron radiation, which is absorbed by the explosive. When the explosive then emits a distinctive gamma ray, the neural network machine can recognize that pattern and sound an alarm.
In contrast to the traditional top-down computers (i.e., using IF statements) you do not program these machines. "You train the system rather than program it" says Barbara Yoon, program manager for artificial neural network technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Mead was the first to put a Hopfield neural net on a silicon chip. Using transistors and standard chip-making devices, he crafted a 22 neuron chip that demonstrated Hopfields ideas.
At MIT, what is done with those green to the study of A.I. (i.e. Top Down versus Down UP), is that the instructor gives students 1 week to debate the different approaches.
There are always a few students who refuse to except that a PC (evolved turing machine) with it's 0 and 1's can't simulate a neural network. Grounded in their own individuality and desire to be unique, with their almost religious belief that a computer can simulate with 0 and 1's anything reality has to offer, they are humiliated when forced to put up or shut up as the instructor now desires to move the class forward into the advanced studies of top down, bottom up schools of thought, complete with a tour of the MIT "Things that Think" lab. The instructors achieve this by simply asking these delusional students to create a program that learns without any IF statements. Some stay stubborn and drop the class and start their own web sites claiming to have code that perfectly emulates a neural net, of course using IF statements..lol..
Suffice to say, you don't need a neural net to have A.I. like responses in your game/program. As long as a language allows you to manipulate GATES (AND,IF,OR,NOT,NOR,etc..) you should be able to create some great A.I. programs.
We must be correct when we use the term neural net that we do not use it interchangeably with the term A.I., for while few on this web site would notice, should you produce a commercial program and advertise it as a neural net, you will surely be scorned to death, and probably sued if you were not to refund your customers.
As far as purchasing Neural Net chip sets, check this out:
www.citi.qut.edu.au/research/sdl/projects/lcnn_chip.jsp
This is cool as well:
www.musicindustries.com/axon/neuralnet.htm
And please, no flames. You probably need to read this message at least 3 times before you even think of responding to it. Remember, neural nets learn without any programming at all. How? Atoms are tightly bound in a lattice structure and their behaviours are simple organizing priciples given by the quantum theory without any programs whatsoever! (This is the "bottom up" approach to AI theory.)