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Great blog post on great research. Worth reading in its entirety. Summarizing at a very high level abstraction: This work compares a mechanism used for learni
by cs702 7y ago
Great blog post on great research. Worth reading in its entirety.
Summarizing at a very high level abstraction: This work compares a mechanism used for learning probability distributions of expected rewards in deep reinforcement learning systems to the dopamine reward mechanism in mice brains.
This passage near the end, in particular, caught my eye :
> ...our final question was if we could decode the reward distribution from the firing rates of dopamine cells [in mice brains]. As shown in Figure 5, we found that it was indeed possible, using only the firing rates of dopamine cells, to reconstruct a reward distribution (blue trace) which was a very close match to the actual distribution of rewards (grey area) in the task that the mice were engaged in. This reconstruction relied on interpreting the firing rates of dopamine cells as the reward prediction errors of a distributional TD model, and performing inference to determine what distribution that model had learned about.
In other words, mice brains seem to be using the same mechanism, and it appears we can decode the probability distribution of expected rewards learned by those brains by measuring only the firing rate of dopamine cells.
Very exciting!
- keenmaster 7y agoCan we use brain scanners and ML to A/B test online lectures to perfection? For example, you can show the top 20 Calculus 2 courses to groups of 50 people each, all dawning brain scanners, and create a “brain activation map” for each class from each professor. Among students of the top 10% of professors (as measured by exam results and brain activation), we can analyze the most engaging moments in each course, and hybridize them into a master course. Furthermore, we can analyze differential learning outcomes in males, females, students of different races, and K-clustered psychographic profiles (based on DMN activity and other neurological measures taken before the course). If the learning outcomes are significantly different, then it may be more appropriate to create several different master courses for the people that showed different learning outcomes. A class can be recommended, Netflix style, based on your demographics, neural activation patterns, and learning velocity from past coursework. Everyone would have the best Calculus 2 class, into perpetuity, after one cycle of experimentation and master class creation. The same can be done for all canonical coursework, from Kindergarten through the top undergrad majors to Med/Law/MBAs. The aforementioned learning outcome differentials would be lessened by the “no child left behind” effect of each kid getting a solid grasp of math and science early on with neurologically tailored coursework.
- sjg007 7y agoYou could probably just scan facial or eye movement reactions.
- taurath 7y agoWhy not brain scanners to optimize ads? Oh right they are :(
- keenmaster 7y agoNeural marketing uses EEG headsets and eye tracking. I searched for EEG + focus detection, and found the 2018 study linked below. Excerpt: “ the best obtained classification accuracies were 77% and 83%, respectively, using SVM binary classifiers.” They used ML for attentiveness classification. I’m sure greater accuracy can be achieved with time, but that’s a good start. It would be even better if we had wearable MRIs. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6263653/#!po=0.675676 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6263653/#!po=0....
- taurath 7y agoMaybe instead, we just freaking shouldn’t allow applications of this sort of research at all. This is stuff that would have been a scandal if the CIA did it, just because it makes money doesn’t mean it’s okay.
- keenmaster 7y agoDon’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of neural marketing. I just mentioned it in response to your comment, and only to indicate that the same scanning hardware can be used in the education space.
- zeristor 7y agoWill this end up with Max Headroom's blipverts?
- 7y ago