“Spaghetti Code”: Complexity and Artificial Intelligence | NEUROMORPHIC TECHNOLOGIES

The “spaghetti code” is a pejorative term to refer to computer programs that have a complex and incomprehensible flow control structure. Its name derives from the fact that this type of code seems to resemble a plate of spaghetti, that is, a pile of intricate and knotted threads.

Traditionally this style of programming is usually associated with basic and ancient languages, where the flow was controlled by very primitive control statements such as GO TO and using line numbers. An example of language that invited the use of spaghetti code is Microsoft’s QBasic in its first versions.

Throughout these decades programming has been evolving, from spaghetti code to functional programming and from functional programming to object-oriented programming with modularity, abstraction, encapsulation, decoupling capacity.

Other variations on the Programming Theory of Pasta include the Lasagna Code, which resembles structured programming, and the Ravioli Code, which is favored by comparison with object-oriented programming (OOP).

As I mentioned in the special edition No88 of IT / USERS about my participation in the Microsoft Research Regional Summit organized in Brazil and Colombia, the universal language of the 21st century is the computational science with which this intricate conglomerate of “sphaghetti codes” is being prepared. in which practically, all human activity is being driven by the rapid growth of computing.

Given the exponential growth in the volume and complexity of information, computer science is the universal language that drives humanity to continue our evolution. We are talking about a new information management scenario that is hyper-dimensional structured and with the structure of the data, conceptualized at the level of the pepta scale and that as we move forward as a civilization, we could be talking about structures which scale is measured with prefixes like kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, Exa, Zetta, Yotta, Xona, weka, Vundo, uda, Tred, sorta, Rinta, Quex, pepta, ocha, minga, etc ….

The Internet is becoming a zetabyte information system, where a zetabyte is equivalent to 1 trillion terabytes. This scenario implies an increasingly complex management of information and is characterized by having N dimensional structures (1000, 2000, 3000 … 10000 information objects of three-dimensional chemistry, genetics, astrobiological, biological objects, etc.), which requires the management of increasingly complex vectors and larger storage spaces. Cyberspace is characterized by the appearance of Artificial Intelligence (“Artificial Intelligence”), machine intelligence (“Machine Intelligence”), immersion in virtual reality, fusion of 3D data, data mining, complexity, coding of information in 3D objects, etc … The final goal of all this evolution will be the structuring of knowledge from data (Knowledge Management).

The next advent of Web 4.0 is accompanied by the promotion of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems powered by the following axes:

Exponential increase of the computational capacity of the PCs.

Scaling of science to the cloud. (“Cloud Computing”).

As Artificial Intelligence emerges, 21st Century engineering incorporates “building blocks” that seek to resemble, by isomorphism, the structure of the Neural Network and the computational capacity of the human brain and the brain of living beings.

An Artificial Neural Network is an information processing system or Processing Element (PE) in the case of a neuron, which has performance characteristics in common with biological neural networks. They have been developed through generalizations of mathematical models (Neurobiological Mathematics) based on human cognition or neuronal biology. Information processing occurs in many simple elements called neurons. The signals are sent between neurons through connections or LINKS.

In the last Microsoft events where I participated as a speaker; Microsoft Developers Technet Summit and as Jury in the national final of the Microsoft Imagine Cup, presented advanced topics of Artificial Intelligence that are already being launched to the world market by Microsoft Research as applications for Pattern Recognition (Pattern Recognition), Recognition of Gestures (” Gesture Recognition “), Recognition of and voice ( “Voice Recognition”) or for example an application that allows simultaneous translation from English to Chinese (Speech recognition breakthrough via machine translation) virtually sets a new paradigm in what will be simultaneous translation of assisted languages ​​by Artificial Intelligence .

As this great explosion of Artificial Intelligence wrapped in “code sphaguetti” emerges on the global networks and engineering and technology on the planet, we wonder where this road will lead our civilización. In one hand, the creation of an artificial brain or Positronic Neural Network (“Positronic Brain”), envisioned by the great Russian-born Guru and nationalized American (USA), Dr. Isaac Asimov; brain that will be placed in humanoid robot structures and bio robots. But on the other hand it invites us to think as humanity about what John Locke, a great thinker of the XVII Century or Century of Reason, had already mentioned in relation to complexity: of what gratitude is, beauty, a person, an army, the universe:

“Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put together, I call complex;- such as are beauty, gratitude, a man, an army, the universe; which, though complicated of various simple ideas, or complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when the mind pleases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing, and signified by one name.” John Locke (29 Aug 1632 – 28 Oct 1704)

2. John Locke (29 Aug 1632 – 28 Oct 1704). English philosopher, one of the most important of the Age of Reason.

3. The genetic code is the set of rules by which the information encoded in the genetic material (DNA or mRNA sequences) is translated into proteins (amino acid sequences) by living cells.

5. Software Systems based on Neural Networks and the State of the Art in Global Technology, Microsoft Developers Technet Summit MSDN 2013, Fernando Jiménez Motte.