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I'm glad people are talking about this, and the similarity between predictive coding and the action of biological neurons is interesting. But we shouldn't fetis

I'm glad people are talking about this, and the similarity between predictive coding and the action of biological neurons is interesting. But we shouldn't fetishize predictive coding. There's a wider discussion going on, and several theories as to how back propagation might work in the brain. https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-66131930012-9 https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S136... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-0277-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-0277-3

andyxor 6y ago
there is no evidence of back-propagation in the brain. See Professor Edmund T. Rolls books on biologically plausible neural networks: "Brain Computations: What and How" (2020) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198871104 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198871104 "Cerebral Cortex: Principles of Operation" (2018) https://www.oxcns.org/b12text.html https://www.oxcns.org/b12text.html "Neural Networks and Brain Function" (1997) https://www.oxcns.org/b3_text.html https://www.oxcns.org/b3_text.html
- ShamelessC 6y ago
  "There is just one problem: [biological neural networks] are physically incapable of running the backpropagation algorithm." From the linked article.
  - blueyes 6y ago
    I read that sentence. The article is not the only source of truth in brain function, and its author may be too certain about the brain. In any case, there will always be dissimilarities between biological neurons and computations on silicon, which probably shouldn't be called neurons, in order to avoid confusion.
    - ShamelessC 6y ago
      I agree. Really don't appreciate the level at which researchers are willing to make these comparisons right now. They're moving fast and publishing things. It's probably far too late to change the name for computational neural nets - but I agree. Something like a "differentiable learning graph" or something would be better.

andyxor 6y ago

there is no evidence of back-propagation in the brain. See Professor Edmund T. Rolls books on biologically plausible neural networks: "Brain Computations: What and How" (2020) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198871104 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198871104 "Cerebral Cortex: Principles of Operation" (2018) https://www.oxcns.org/b12text.html https://www.oxcns.org/b12text.html "Neural Networks and Brain Function" (1997) https://www.oxcns.org/b3_text.html https://www.oxcns.org/b3_text.html

ShamelessC 6y ago
"There is just one problem: [biological neural networks] are physically incapable of running the backpropagation algorithm." From the linked article.
- blueyes 6y ago
  I read that sentence. The article is not the only source of truth in brain function, and its author may be too certain about the brain. In any case, there will always be dissimilarities between biological neurons and computations on silicon, which probably shouldn't be called neurons, in order to avoid confusion.
  - ShamelessC 6y ago
    I agree. Really don't appreciate the level at which researchers are willing to make these comparisons right now. They're moving fast and publishing things. It's probably far too late to change the name for computational neural nets - but I agree. Something like a "differentiable learning graph" or something would be better.