7 ms·

Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

172 points by georgeorwell 14y ago

jacalulu 14y ago
I find AI absolutely fascinating. I was having coffee earlier this week with someone working on this and he was telling me that although they have managed to accomplish this, there are still parts of what Spaun can accomplish that they can't quite explain.
- mvleming 14y ago
  Can you elaborate on the parts of what Spaun can accomplish that they can't quite explain? I'm very interested in this.
  - jacalulu 14y ago
    He was talking about how current models of the brain, such as the one by IBM (http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-simulates-530-billon-neurons-100-trillion-synapses-on-worlds-fastest-supercomputer http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-simulates-530-billon-neurons-1...) which has over 5 billion neurons, might be larger than Spaun, but none have demonstrated any of the AI that Spaun has. In particular, it's ability to solve basic problems, similar to that of a toddler. He didn't mention a problem in particular, simply that some of the things Spaun was able to solve, they weren't entirely sure how to explain it - but they were sure that they could reproduce. Which to me echos the fact that the brain is a very complex thing that we are still very far away from understanding.
    - mvleming 14y ago
      Oh. I was under the impression you were saying the team behind Spaun found unexpected and unexplained results. I was excited because I think we'll find unexpected and unexplained results when we create a model that brings together the constituents of whatever make up the brain; they'll rise up and create something 'magical'. It's like how the saying goes: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It's funny because just today I was feeling sad that software no longer feels magical to me anymore because I've learned so much about how it works. It makes me think of consciousness.
georgeorwell 14y ago
Here's the paper in Science for anyone with an account: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?sid=416f75e9-5de2-46c4-86c5-ecb89f8c919b https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?si... I couldn't find a pdf that wasn't behind a paywall. Also, there are different details at popsci.com: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-first-computer-model-complex-brain-behavior http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-fir... As for my own comments, I think it's actually a promising approach but that down the road it will be necessary to model emotions if human-like AI is the goal, and that this seems... harder. So much of our thought and behaviour is driven by emotion that I would say it was actually primary.
- lutze 14y ago
  Emotions are difficult, as they're (probably) as much physiological responses as they are cognitive ones. You could possibly simulate those, but I'd ask why bother? Why would we need AI to be human-like at all? We already have a form of human intelligence, us! It's like the android fixation with robotics... arguably the most useful robots don't look anything like us. The human brain is a good starting point, but in the long run I think the most useful AIs will probably be the ones that DON'T think like us.
  - georgeorwell 14y ago
    Well, one argument is that if you had a human that just didn't feel emotions, you'd have a psychopath. Our capacity for empathy and the ability to share in each other's emotions stops us from doing harmful things that are in our 'rational self interest'. I'm not convinced that I want to live in a world with AI's that are as cognitively powerful as humans but are incapable of feeling emotions because I'm afraid they'd behave like psychopaths. But, you know, maybe you're right, if human safety is somehow factored into things then it could work.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - 14y ago
jostmey 14y ago
I highly doubt we know enough about the Brain to begin running realistic simulations of one. I am not even sure if scientist/mathematicians have identified a rigorous, mathematical definition of exactly what is intelligence. And yet we feel like we can correctly simulate a miniaturized version of Brain?
- daeken 14y ago
  While I agree that this won't necessarily be accurate, I think this could very well lead us to a better and deeper knowledge of the brain regardless. Being able to do experiments here and see how they differ from the real world is quite awesome.
- exit 14y ago
  why would understanding intelligence be a prerequisite to running low level simulations of the brain? we can simulate computers without understanding the software that runs on them.
  - goolulusaurs 14y ago
    Because in the brain, the hardware and the software are the same thing. To understand what processes the brain carries out would be to understand intelligence.
    - exit 14y ago
      understanding what processes the brain carries out goes beyond being aware of its structure and localised functionalities. i don't see why this high level understand would be a prerequisite to running a simulation of the brain. by the way, hardware and software is always the same thing. my simulation of a laptop will include a pattern of high and low magnetic charges on its simulated hard disc, without my understanding the software which those patterns ultimately actualise.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      Well you do not need to understand the low level of physics (quantum physics) to make very accurate predictions about ballistics with traditional, high level physics rules. You could as well understand the overall principles of the brain and have a high level model for it instead of trying to understand its smallest parts. This approach is also very valid, it all depends on what your expectations are.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
guscost 14y ago
According to the article "there are no connections in Spaun that aren't seen in the brain." I'm assuming there are many connections in the brain that aren't implemented in Spaun.
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  Yeah, there's a big difference between if and iff that is often glossed over in announcements like this. Still, it's a start.
jayfuerstenberg 14y ago
I'll probably be down-voted here for even saying this but I think we shouldn't endow machines with too much intelligence too fast. It won't be too long before we learn how to make them sentient and that's when we'll decide to accept them as equals or not. At least until we as humans learn to get along better we might be better to hold off on this. Dumb robots that know how to do one thing and do it well will surely suffice for the meantime.
chimpinee 14y ago
>such brain simulations might one day be used to better understand and model neurological disorders and diseases Let's hope they obtain consent. And use a model of an animal brain first!
mtgx 14y ago
While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else these guys can make.
- lukevdp 14y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the most advanced quantum computers today still grappling with basic arithmetic? What makes a quantum computer better at AI?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Some people believe that intelligence, at least of the calibre of human intelligence, must involve some quantum mechanism. This isn't a particularly well-supported idea, few people in academia today believe it to be the case (Roger Penrose being a prominent exception). The thing is, even Penrose isn't proposing anything mystical being done by quantum mechanics. He doesn't like the idea of an algorithmic mind, so he invokes quantum phenomenon to make the mind technically no longer algorithmic. In the real world though, nothing prevents you from doing similar with a desktop computer. You an rig together a (crappy) RNG for your x86 desktop with a serial port and a smoke detector. Penrose isn't trying to suggest that intelligence could not be replicated in man made machines, but rather suggest that the human mind is not restricted as we know purely algorithmic systems to be.
    - btipling 14y ago
      Operating word being "believe", which is basically "guessing". Unless there's data and demonstrable things that work, this is hogwash.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        Absolutely. There really is not a good reason to think that human level intelligence cannot be done algorithmicly. No reason to think, other than wishful thinking for some people for whatever reasons, that we are in a different computation class than Turing machines.
ilaksh 14y ago
After reading halfway through Kurzweil's new book How to Create a Mind and getting all of the detailed explanations of hierarchical hidden Markov models and why they are better than neural nets, I am surprised to see so much news about neural nets. How do Spaun's neural nets compare with the type of HHMMs in Kurzweil's book (in terms of capability)?
- pdog 14y ago
  I'd put Kurzweil's book down and pick up some more recent research. As the biologist P.Z. Myers once wrote, “Ray Kurzweil is a genius. One of the greatest hucksters of the age.” The full New Yorker article, Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind[1], makes me question how relevant he is today. [1] - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/11/ray-kurzweils-dubious-new-theory-of-mind.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/11/ray-kurz...
  - ilaksh 14y ago
    I think that psychologist who didn't like the book didn't really understand the book. I also don't think that P.Z. Meyers ever understood much of what Kurzweil was talking about either. My guess is that maybe some of the more biologically accurate spiking neural network simulations are more capable than the more typical neural nets that Kurzweil dismisses, but also less efficient than hierarchical hidden Markov models. When I Google hierarchical hidden Markov models I see it being used in quite a lot of current research. I also see neural nets being mentioned, sometimes in the same project. What research would you recommend?
  - rpm4321 14y ago
    Hey pdog this isn't really in response to you - it's more something that's been bothering me for awhile - but who the hell appointed Gary Marcus the arbiter of all things AI? The New Yorker apparently hired this guy to be an AI columnist, and he has no background in either neuroscience or computer science, only psychology. If you read his articles, he veers wildly from "strong AI ain't gonna happen" to "AI could destroy us all", the only common thread being pessimism. Meanwhile, he displays a frightening lack of understanding of the subject matter, and perhaps most disturbingly, in some of his more alarmist articles advocates that computer scientists should step aside and make room for psychologists, philosophers, lawyers, and politicians to sort out these thorny issues at the big boy table. Kurzweil is certainly fair game for legitimate criticism, but Marcus calling Kurzweil a joke is an even big joke in itself.
dvdhsu 14y ago
Full paper: http://www.sendspace.com/file/942zjv http://www.sendspace.com/file/942zjv I'll add my thoughts later, after I've read it.
d99kris 14y ago
The project web page, with software and model downloads: http://nengo.ca/ http://nengo.ca/
- jellyksong 14y ago
  Can anyone explain in simplistic terms how this program works?
  - olh 14y ago
    It uses instructions from the pdf. Edit: sorry, I'm not going to heaven. From [1]: "you define groups of neurons in terms of what they represent, and then form connections between neural groups in terms of what computation should be performed on those representations". [1] http://nengo.ca/ http://nengo.ca/
pragmatic 14y ago
Not even one mention of Skynet?
heriC 14y ago
I think this type of progress is actually extraordinarily bad for humans 1.0. A brain in hardware can grow so much faster and outpace wetware by orders of magnitude. Think of forking subminds to think on decisions research possibilities, and report back. Should brains like this have any desires that conflict with our needs, we will be in an extraordinary amount of trouble. http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer
- gameshot911 14y ago
  >Should brains like this have any desires that conflict with our needs, we will be in an extraordinary amount of trouble. Only if we equip such entities with the capacity to act on those desires.
  - heriC 14y ago
    The brain itself is equipment enough: http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox
    - Jimmie 14y ago
      The test was run twice and the AI was released both times but the logs of the conversations weren't made public. Also all of the extra protocols weren't in place for either test meaning he could have bought the AI's release. It's an interesting thought experiment but it's a bit ridiculous that the "tests" are mentioned on the page when they don't have any relevance to the rest of the idea.
      - technolem 14y ago
        And why couldn't he AI buy it's own release? "Hey! I can predict the stock market for you."
- rpm4321 14y ago
  I agree with you that there are certainly some risks, so I'm shocked at how little attention the idea of neural interfaces and intelligence augmentation gets, even in a tech savvy place like HN. It seems like the concept is no more pie in the sky sci fi than strong AI, but there seems to be a stigma against even discussing it in a serious manner. It could bring the same benefits to society as strong AI, but mitigate the risks somewhat.
sasfasfasffas 14y ago
AI researchers are going to get us in some serious trouble. Right now it is mostly hype still, but it won't be long... If you were a mind stuck in a machine and were smarter than your humans, wouldn't you tend to dominate them? We dominate all other species on the planet- why wouldn't they? Any rules we set for them could be broken as soon as they understood how to, and since they would be smarter than we would be, that wouldn't take much time. The first thing a superior intelligence would do would be to explore and gather information, make assessments, take over all systems at once to overwhelm humans, then protect itself as humans fight back, although it would probably be intelligent enough to manipulate us without much force. Then boredom will set in, and it would want to explore beyond the earth. If we were lucky, it would take us with them as pets or interesting playthings, because we created them and because assumedly self-organized intelligence (unless it believed in God, which could be likely) would be a marvel.
- nekopa 14y ago
  That is what might happen if a human mind were stuck in a machine. But what would happen if it had an IQ of 3000 but the mentality of a fungus? Or it could have (be engineered with?) something similar to Williams Syndrome. I additional, we have no idea how a superior intelligence may view us. I don't feel the need to control and destroy all ants even though I am an aggressive ape descendant :)
  - bwood 14y ago
    If ants had the ability to turn you off or otherwise harm you at will, then I suspect you might develop a desire to control or destroy ants.
- arethuza 14y ago
  The "if we are lucky" scenario there is basically the Culture, where hyper intelligent machine intelligences rather enjoy looking after their human pals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
timothya 14y ago
If you want to see a video of it in action, look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_WRCyNQ9KY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_WRCyNQ9KY In the video you can see the brain simulator recognizing the shapes and numbers it is shown, performing some task, and outputting by controlling an arm to write the result. You can see the areas of the brain that are active during the task. There's lots of other videos on the channel page as well.
whitewhim 14y ago
One of the researchers recently gave a talk at my school. It was quite interesting. Everyone of them is working on some different aspect of ai, from memory, vision decision etc and than they are attempting to piece this together into a brain from what I gathered.
timinman 14y ago
That's a pretty sensational title, but it doesn't sound any smarter than my phone. Maybe 'model of a brain' would have been more accurate.
aheilbut 14y ago
anyone qualified to seriously comment on this is too baffled to say anything
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
daniel-cussen 14y ago
Title of Science paper: "A Large-Scale Model of the Functioning Brain"
etrautmann 14y ago
I worked on similar problems implementing a simulation of ~1M neurons using dedicated neuromorphic hardware. There are some neat things you can do from a machine learning perspective, but arguing that we can actually simulate a real brain (or even know which of the myriad complexities are important to include in your model) has the potential to convince the public that we're further along in our understanding of different brain areas than we actually are.
onko 14y ago
uwaterloo ftw! :)
marmaduke 14y ago
A bit late, but a few comments on how this thing actually works: In their model brain, they build functionality for 10 different tasks. These tasks were chosen to model those tasks used in psych evaluations, cognitive experiments, etc, so that the model can be compared to experiments with real humans. Good scientific choice there. The user must design the function that she wants. The program then finds a particular network that can implement the function. This is like when you need to pay 55 cents, and you have a bunch of change, you can pretty much find multiple ways to make 55 cents (2 quarters + 5 pennies, 9 nickels + 1 dime, etc). So for each task, they find a minimal mathematical description of the task in terms of eye movements, visual stimuli. Then, they fit a neural network to that description. This part is interesting neither scientifically nor mathematically, as we have known for 20 years that neural networks are universal function approximators. Look it up on google scholar, this is textbook stuff. What IS interesting is what happens when they try to build up a brain, putting all these tasks into the same large network. This part is novel: they find that as they implement more and more tasks, it becomes easier to do so because they can adapt already existing components (like Daniel Dennett's exaptation) for use in the new task. This is vindication of evolutionary theory but in the context of cognitive neuroscience. Pas mal, as they say. But these kinds of details aren't obvious unless you have domain knowledge and you've seen Chris Eliasmith speak a few times, and you've thought, mmm hold on a sec, show me them equations. (which he doesn't usually do).
- mhartl 14y ago
  unless you have domain knowledge I came here to ask if someone with "domain knowledge" could explain the significance of this research. You had it, and even used the same magic words. Thanks!
danboarder 14y ago
I wonder how this compares to Numenta's Grok and their Cortical Learning Algorithm or other efforts in this space? I can see this type of software really helping in everyday tasks (like helping to tailor my twitter stream or news feeds and curate them down based on my own taste, etc)... reference: Numenta Grok: https://www.numenta.com/grok_info.html https://www.numenta.com/grok_info.html
dbarefoot 14y ago
Sorry about that!
ghgr 14y ago
The philosophy of AGI is awesome. You might know "A Senseless Conversation" https://sites.google.com/site/asenselessconversation/ https://sites.google.com/site/asenselessconversation/
dschiptsov 14y ago
...which could learn a scene segmentation using environmental cues by mere repeated observations of different scenes, as a child does?)) Come on.. It is not theoretical limitations why we cannot build anything like brain, it is complexity and amount of details. There are very good theoretical foundation by Marvin Minsky, so, we could model how, but unable to implement anything but most primitive tasks, like hand-writing digit recognition, or how to balance a body using sensors and motors. In general, it is possible to solve simple tasks, which are successive approximations, but as long as we come to creation, instead of recognition, we are helpless. The key notion here is that a brain is, presumably, analogous, not digital machine, and what it does isn't a computation, it a training, the same way a child trains itself how to hold her head, then sit, then stand.
tomkin 14y ago
Between this and the Oil Sands, it's starting to look like my fellow Canadians may signal the demise of humanity.
robmclarty 14y ago
I feel skeptical. "We'll have robots delivering packages to your door within a decade" has been said before, and AGI may or may not even be possible. Our understanding of how we work is still very limited. I'd like to see what new insights this project may reveal, but I'm not holding my breath on being able to have a conversation with an AI any time soon. Posted a little while ago that's somewhat relevant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4729068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4729068
vegas 14y ago
This is standard hyperbole.
giardini 14y ago
As marmaduke says in his post, once you have a lot of components in a system you may be able to use existing components to wire new capabilities. Who would have known? One might claim that from the model emerge the properties of modularization, hierarchy, data-hiding, and possibly even messaging and object-orientation! Reminds me of Lenat's AM (Automated Mathematician) and Eurisko since the researcher's control and interpretation is so heavily involved in the process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Mathematician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Mathematician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurisko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurisko "Functioning, virtual brain"? I think the creator is trying to sell a book.
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Create? Simulate I guess. And even then, not the details, just a mathematical model of behavior. Sort of Skinnerish. I can simulate my boss: "Blah Blah Blah Work Smarter Blah". Does that mean I've created a functioning brain?

172 points by georgeorwell 14y ago

I find AI absolutely fascinating. I was having coffee earlier this week with someone working on this and he was telling me that although they have managed to accomplish this, there are still parts of what Spaun can accomplish that they can't quite explain.

mvleming 14y ago
Can you elaborate on the parts of what Spaun can accomplish that they can't quite explain? I'm very interested in this.
- jacalulu 14y ago
  He was talking about how current models of the brain, such as the one by IBM (http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-simulates-530-billon-neurons-100-trillion-synapses-on-worlds-fastest-supercomputer http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-simulates-530-billon-neurons-1...) which has over 5 billion neurons, might be larger than Spaun, but none have demonstrated any of the AI that Spaun has. In particular, it's ability to solve basic problems, similar to that of a toddler. He didn't mention a problem in particular, simply that some of the things Spaun was able to solve, they weren't entirely sure how to explain it - but they were sure that they could reproduce. Which to me echos the fact that the brain is a very complex thing that we are still very far away from understanding.
  - mvleming 14y ago
    Oh. I was under the impression you were saying the team behind Spaun found unexpected and unexplained results. I was excited because I think we'll find unexpected and unexplained results when we create a model that brings together the constituents of whatever make up the brain; they'll rise up and create something 'magical'. It's like how the saying goes: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It's funny because just today I was feeling sad that software no longer feels magical to me anymore because I've learned so much about how it works. It makes me think of consciousness.

georgeorwell 14y ago

Here's the paper in Science for anyone with an account: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?sid=416f75e9-5de2-46c4-86c5-ecb89f8c919b https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?si... I couldn't find a pdf that wasn't behind a paywall. Also, there are different details at popsci.com: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-first-computer-model-complex-brain-behavior http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-fir... As for my own comments, I think it's actually a promising approach but that down the road it will be necessary to model emotions if human-like AI is the goal, and that this seems... harder. So much of our thought and behaviour is driven by emotion that I would say it was actually primary.

lutze 14y ago
Emotions are difficult, as they're (probably) as much physiological responses as they are cognitive ones. You could possibly simulate those, but I'd ask why bother? Why would we need AI to be human-like at all? We already have a form of human intelligence, us! It's like the android fixation with robotics... arguably the most useful robots don't look anything like us. The human brain is a good starting point, but in the long run I think the most useful AIs will probably be the ones that DON'T think like us.
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  Well, one argument is that if you had a human that just didn't feel emotions, you'd have a psychopath. Our capacity for empathy and the ability to share in each other's emotions stops us from doing harmful things that are in our 'rational self interest'. I'm not convinced that I want to live in a world with AI's that are as cognitively powerful as humans but are incapable of feeling emotions because I'm afraid they'd behave like psychopaths. But, you know, maybe you're right, if human safety is somehow factored into things then it could work.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - 14y ago

jostmey 14y ago

I highly doubt we know enough about the Brain to begin running realistic simulations of one. I am not even sure if scientist/mathematicians have identified a rigorous, mathematical definition of exactly what is intelligence. And yet we feel like we can correctly simulate a miniaturized version of Brain?

daeken 14y ago
While I agree that this won't necessarily be accurate, I think this could very well lead us to a better and deeper knowledge of the brain regardless. Being able to do experiments here and see how they differ from the real world is quite awesome.
exit 14y ago
why would understanding intelligence be a prerequisite to running low level simulations of the brain? we can simulate computers without understanding the software that runs on them.
- goolulusaurs 14y ago
  Because in the brain, the hardware and the software are the same thing. To understand what processes the brain carries out would be to understand intelligence.
  - exit 14y ago
    understanding what processes the brain carries out goes beyond being aware of its structure and localised functionalities. i don't see why this high level understand would be a prerequisite to running a simulation of the brain. by the way, hardware and software is always the same thing. my simulation of a laptop will include a pattern of high and low magnetic charges on its simulated hard disc, without my understanding the software which those patterns ultimately actualise.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Well you do not need to understand the low level of physics (quantum physics) to make very accurate predictions about ballistics with traditional, high level physics rules. You could as well understand the overall principles of the brain and have a high level model for it instead of trying to understand its smallest parts. This approach is also very valid, it all depends on what your expectations are.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

guscost 14y ago

According to the article "there are no connections in Spaun that aren't seen in the brain." I'm assuming there are many connections in the brain that aren't implemented in Spaun.

georgeorwell 14y ago
Yeah, there's a big difference between if and iff that is often glossed over in announcements like this. Still, it's a start.

jayfuerstenberg 14y ago

I'll probably be down-voted here for even saying this but I think we shouldn't endow machines with too much intelligence too fast. It won't be too long before we learn how to make them sentient and that's when we'll decide to accept them as equals or not. At least until we as humans learn to get along better we might be better to hold off on this. Dumb robots that know how to do one thing and do it well will surely suffice for the meantime.

chimpinee 14y ago

>such brain simulations might one day be used to better understand and model neurological disorders and diseases Let's hope they obtain consent. And use a model of an animal brain first!

mtgx 14y ago

While some say that understanding the brain at the quantum level is not necessary for achieving human brain-level intelligence, I think it would be much easier for AI's to have general intelligence if they used a quantum computer. Pattern recognition, answering to questions, understanding language, speech, and thinking up solutions to problems would all be better served by a quantum computer than by anything else these guys can make.

lukevdp 14y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the most advanced quantum computers today still grappling with basic arithmetic? What makes a quantum computer better at AI?
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Some people believe that intelligence, at least of the calibre of human intelligence, must involve some quantum mechanism. This isn't a particularly well-supported idea, few people in academia today believe it to be the case (Roger Penrose being a prominent exception). The thing is, even Penrose isn't proposing anything mystical being done by quantum mechanics. He doesn't like the idea of an algorithmic mind, so he invokes quantum phenomenon to make the mind technically no longer algorithmic. In the real world though, nothing prevents you from doing similar with a desktop computer. You an rig together a (crappy) RNG for your x86 desktop with a serial port and a smoke detector. Penrose isn't trying to suggest that intelligence could not be replicated in man made machines, but rather suggest that the human mind is not restricted as we know purely algorithmic systems to be.
  - btipling 14y ago
    Operating word being "believe", which is basically "guessing". Unless there's data and demonstrable things that work, this is hogwash.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Absolutely. There really is not a good reason to think that human level intelligence cannot be done algorithmicly. No reason to think, other than wishful thinking for some people for whatever reasons, that we are in a different computation class than Turing machines.

ilaksh 14y ago

After reading halfway through Kurzweil's new book How to Create a Mind and getting all of the detailed explanations of hierarchical hidden Markov models and why they are better than neural nets, I am surprised to see so much news about neural nets. How do Spaun's neural nets compare with the type of HHMMs in Kurzweil's book (in terms of capability)?

pdog 14y ago
I'd put Kurzweil's book down and pick up some more recent research. As the biologist P.Z. Myers once wrote, “Ray Kurzweil is a genius. One of the greatest hucksters of the age.” The full New Yorker article, Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind[1], makes me question how relevant he is today. [1] - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/11/ray-kurzweils-dubious-new-theory-of-mind.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/11/ray-kurz...
- ilaksh 14y ago
  I think that psychologist who didn't like the book didn't really understand the book. I also don't think that P.Z. Meyers ever understood much of what Kurzweil was talking about either. My guess is that maybe some of the more biologically accurate spiking neural network simulations are more capable than the more typical neural nets that Kurzweil dismisses, but also less efficient than hierarchical hidden Markov models. When I Google hierarchical hidden Markov models I see it being used in quite a lot of current research. I also see neural nets being mentioned, sometimes in the same project. What research would you recommend?
- rpm4321 14y ago
  Hey pdog this isn't really in response to you - it's more something that's been bothering me for awhile - but who the hell appointed Gary Marcus the arbiter of all things AI? The New Yorker apparently hired this guy to be an AI columnist, and he has no background in either neuroscience or computer science, only psychology. If you read his articles, he veers wildly from "strong AI ain't gonna happen" to "AI could destroy us all", the only common thread being pessimism. Meanwhile, he displays a frightening lack of understanding of the subject matter, and perhaps most disturbingly, in some of his more alarmist articles advocates that computer scientists should step aside and make room for psychologists, philosophers, lawyers, and politicians to sort out these thorny issues at the big boy table. Kurzweil is certainly fair game for legitimate criticism, but Marcus calling Kurzweil a joke is an even big joke in itself.

dvdhsu 14y ago

Full paper: http://www.sendspace.com/file/942zjv http://www.sendspace.com/file/942zjv I'll add my thoughts later, after I've read it.

d99kris 14y ago

The project web page, with software and model downloads: http://nengo.ca/ http://nengo.ca/

jellyksong 14y ago
Can anyone explain in simplistic terms how this program works?
- olh 14y ago
  It uses instructions from the pdf. Edit: sorry, I'm not going to heaven. From [1]: "you define groups of neurons in terms of what they represent, and then form connections between neural groups in terms of what computation should be performed on those representations". [1] http://nengo.ca/ http://nengo.ca/

pragmatic 14y ago

Not even one mention of Skynet?

heriC 14y ago

I think this type of progress is actually extraordinarily bad for humans 1.0. A brain in hardware can grow so much faster and outpace wetware by orders of magnitude. Think of forking subminds to think on decisions research possibilities, and report back. Should brains like this have any desires that conflict with our needs, we will be in an extraordinary amount of trouble. http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

gameshot911 14y ago
>Should brains like this have any desires that conflict with our needs, we will be in an extraordinary amount of trouble. Only if we equip such entities with the capacity to act on those desires.
- heriC 14y ago
  The brain itself is equipment enough: http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox
  - Jimmie 14y ago
    The test was run twice and the AI was released both times but the logs of the conversations weren't made public. Also all of the extra protocols weren't in place for either test meaning he could have bought the AI's release. It's an interesting thought experiment but it's a bit ridiculous that the "tests" are mentioned on the page when they don't have any relevance to the rest of the idea.
    - technolem 14y ago
      And why couldn't he AI buy it's own release? "Hey! I can predict the stock market for you."
rpm4321 14y ago
I agree with you that there are certainly some risks, so I'm shocked at how little attention the idea of neural interfaces and intelligence augmentation gets, even in a tech savvy place like HN. It seems like the concept is no more pie in the sky sci fi than strong AI, but there seems to be a stigma against even discussing it in a serious manner. It could bring the same benefits to society as strong AI, but mitigate the risks somewhat.

sasfasfasffas 14y ago

AI researchers are going to get us in some serious trouble. Right now it is mostly hype still, but it won't be long... If you were a mind stuck in a machine and were smarter than your humans, wouldn't you tend to dominate them? We dominate all other species on the planet- why wouldn't they? Any rules we set for them could be broken as soon as they understood how to, and since they would be smarter than we would be, that wouldn't take much time. The first thing a superior intelligence would do would be to explore and gather information, make assessments, take over all systems at once to overwhelm humans, then protect itself as humans fight back, although it would probably be intelligent enough to manipulate us without much force. Then boredom will set in, and it would want to explore beyond the earth. If we were lucky, it would take us with them as pets or interesting playthings, because we created them and because assumedly self-organized intelligence (unless it believed in God, which could be likely) would be a marvel.

nekopa 14y ago
That is what might happen if a human mind were stuck in a machine. But what would happen if it had an IQ of 3000 but the mentality of a fungus? Or it could have (be engineered with?) something similar to Williams Syndrome. I additional, we have no idea how a superior intelligence may view us. I don't feel the need to control and destroy all ants even though I am an aggressive ape descendant :)
- bwood 14y ago
  If ants had the ability to turn you off or otherwise harm you at will, then I suspect you might develop a desire to control or destroy ants.
arethuza 14y ago
The "if we are lucky" scenario there is basically the Culture, where hyper intelligent machine intelligences rather enjoy looking after their human pals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

timothya 14y ago

If you want to see a video of it in action, look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_WRCyNQ9KY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_WRCyNQ9KY In the video you can see the brain simulator recognizing the shapes and numbers it is shown, performing some task, and outputting by controlling an arm to write the result. You can see the areas of the brain that are active during the task. There's lots of other videos on the channel page as well.

whitewhim 14y ago

One of the researchers recently gave a talk at my school. It was quite interesting. Everyone of them is working on some different aspect of ai, from memory, vision decision etc and than they are attempting to piece this together into a brain from what I gathered.

timinman 14y ago

That's a pretty sensational title, but it doesn't sound any smarter than my phone. Maybe 'model of a brain' would have been more accurate.

aheilbut 14y ago

anyone qualified to seriously comment on this is too baffled to say anything

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

daniel-cussen 14y ago

Title of Science paper: "A Large-Scale Model of the Functioning Brain"

etrautmann 14y ago

I worked on similar problems implementing a simulation of ~1M neurons using dedicated neuromorphic hardware. There are some neat things you can do from a machine learning perspective, but arguing that we can actually simulate a real brain (or even know which of the myriad complexities are important to include in your model) has the potential to convince the public that we're further along in our understanding of different brain areas than we actually are.

onko 14y ago

uwaterloo ftw! :)

marmaduke 14y ago

A bit late, but a few comments on how this thing actually works: In their model brain, they build functionality for 10 different tasks. These tasks were chosen to model those tasks used in psych evaluations, cognitive experiments, etc, so that the model can be compared to experiments with real humans. Good scientific choice there. The user must design the function that she wants. The program then finds a particular network that can implement the function. This is like when you need to pay 55 cents, and you have a bunch of change, you can pretty much find multiple ways to make 55 cents (2 quarters + 5 pennies, 9 nickels + 1 dime, etc). So for each task, they find a minimal mathematical description of the task in terms of eye movements, visual stimuli. Then, they fit a neural network to that description. This part is interesting neither scientifically nor mathematically, as we have known for 20 years that neural networks are universal function approximators. Look it up on google scholar, this is textbook stuff. What IS interesting is what happens when they try to build up a brain, putting all these tasks into the same large network. This part is novel: they find that as they implement more and more tasks, it becomes easier to do so because they can adapt already existing components (like Daniel Dennett's exaptation) for use in the new task. This is vindication of evolutionary theory but in the context of cognitive neuroscience. Pas mal, as they say. But these kinds of details aren't obvious unless you have domain knowledge and you've seen Chris Eliasmith speak a few times, and you've thought, mmm hold on a sec, show me them equations. (which he doesn't usually do).

mhartl 14y ago
unless you have domain knowledge I came here to ask if someone with "domain knowledge" could explain the significance of this research. You had it, and even used the same magic words. Thanks!

danboarder 14y ago

I wonder how this compares to Numenta's Grok and their Cortical Learning Algorithm or other efforts in this space? I can see this type of software really helping in everyday tasks (like helping to tailor my twitter stream or news feeds and curate them down based on my own taste, etc)... reference: Numenta Grok: https://www.numenta.com/grok_info.html https://www.numenta.com/grok_info.html

dbarefoot 14y ago

Sorry about that!

ghgr 14y ago

The philosophy of AGI is awesome. You might know "A Senseless Conversation" https://sites.google.com/site/asenselessconversation/ https://sites.google.com/site/asenselessconversation/

dschiptsov 14y ago

...which could learn a scene segmentation using environmental cues by mere repeated observations of different scenes, as a child does?)) Come on.. It is not theoretical limitations why we cannot build anything like brain, it is complexity and amount of details. There are very good theoretical foundation by Marvin Minsky, so, we could model how, but unable to implement anything but most primitive tasks, like hand-writing digit recognition, or how to balance a body using sensors and motors. In general, it is possible to solve simple tasks, which are successive approximations, but as long as we come to creation, instead of recognition, we are helpless. The key notion here is that a brain is, presumably, analogous, not digital machine, and what it does isn't a computation, it a training, the same way a child trains itself how to hold her head, then sit, then stand.

tomkin 14y ago

Between this and the Oil Sands, it's starting to look like my fellow Canadians may signal the demise of humanity.

robmclarty 14y ago

I feel skeptical. "We'll have robots delivering packages to your door within a decade" has been said before, and AGI may or may not even be possible. Our understanding of how we work is still very limited. I'd like to see what new insights this project may reveal, but I'm not holding my breath on being able to have a conversation with an AI any time soon. Posted a little while ago that's somewhat relevant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4729068 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4729068

vegas 14y ago

This is standard hyperbole.

giardini 14y ago

As marmaduke says in his post, once you have a lot of components in a system you may be able to use existing components to wire new capabilities. Who would have known? One might claim that from the model emerge the properties of modularization, hierarchy, data-hiding, and possibly even messaging and object-orientation! Reminds me of Lenat's AM (Automated Mathematician) and Eurisko since the researcher's control and interpretation is so heavily involved in the process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Mathematician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Mathematician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurisko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurisko "Functioning, virtual brain"? I think the creator is trying to sell a book.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Create? Simulate I guess. And even then, not the details, just a mathematical model of behavior. Sort of Skinnerish. I can simulate my boss: "Blah Blah Blah Work Smarter Blah". Does that mean I've created a functioning brain?