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Cell-type-specific 3D reconstruction of five neighboring barrel columns in rat vibrissal cortex (credit: Marcel Oberlaender et al.) It is well established that there is a functional columnar structure repeated throughout the cortex across species (the concept received significant attention after a study by Mountcastle in 1957 [1]; see [2] and [3] for reviews). This suggests…
by David Rawlinson and Gideon Kowadlo Why the retina is worth a deeper look Recently, we have been looking at the retina – light sensitive cell layers inside the eyeball, that detect wavelength and intensity, and compute some initial encoding of this data that is transmitted to the brain proper via the optic nerve. The…
This might be our new test suite for the algorithms! http://www.arcadelearningenvironment.org/ “The Arcade Learning Environment (ALE) is a simple object-oriented framework that allows researchers and hobbyists to develop AI agents for Atari 2600 games. It is built on top of the Atari 2600 emulator Stella and separates the details of emulation from agent design.” Why…
I found this video interview with Eric Horvitz, the head of Microsoft Research, to be a really interesting window into their work and vision – a large part of which is AI. As Eric states, there is a “growing consensus that the next, if not last, enduring competitive battlefield, among major IT companies will be…
Just a few days ago, Jay posted here about the recent public attention to AI and the potential future dangers that it presents. Discussion on the topic continues, but it’s not all talk. There are at least two institutes focussed on practical steps to mitigate the risks. There is an institute called MIRI that exists…
By Punarjay Chakravarty In the past year or so, there has been a spate of high-profile pronouncements by respected scientists and engineers, cautioning the world about the potential ill-effects of AI. Stephen Hawking, one of the foremost experts on theoretical and astro physics told the BBC that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell…
I recently published a post on the question of classifying ‘no input’ or missing data. There was a comprehensive reply by Fergal Byrne in a thread on the Nupic Theory mailing list. I am re-posting it here (below) as it provides a valuable perspective of the discussion in the context of human cortical function. Jan 24th 2015 – by Fergal Byrne…
I really enjoyed reading this article Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness? published recently in the Guardian. It’s an engaging re-exploration of the contemporary discourse on the classic mind-body dilemma. One view is that the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is an illusion. There is no separation between mind and body, and that…
If you’re looking for a formal and precise description of the current HTM/CLA algorithm, then this blog [1, 2] by Fergal Byrne may be of interest. Our experience is that while pseudocode is a good way of describing an algorithm, equations can often be more succinct and specific. The CLA whitepaper [3] describes the algorithm…
By Gideon Kowadlo, David Rawlinson and Alan Zhang Can you hear silence or see pitch black? Should we classify no input as a valid state or ignore it? To my knowledge, the machine learning and statistics literature mainly regards an absence of input as missing data. There are several ways that it’s handled. It can…