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The New AI: Where Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence Meet

An anonymous reader writes "We're seeing a new revolution in artificial intelligence known as deep learning: algorithms modeled after the brain have made amazing strides and have been consistently winning both industrial and academic data competitions with minimal effort. 'Basically, it involves building neural networks — networks that mimic the behavior of the human brain. Much like the brain, these multi-layered computer networks can gather information and react to it. They can build up an understanding of what objects look or sound like. In an effort to recreate human vision, for example, you might build a basic layer of artificial neurons that can detect simple things like the edges of a particular shape. The next layer could then piece together these edges to identify the larger shape, and then the shapes could be strung together to understand an object. The key here is that the software does all this on its own — a big advantage over older AI models, which required engineers to massage the visual or auditory data so that it could be digested by the machine-learning algorithm.' Are we ready to blur the line between hardware and wetware?"

2 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Saving everyone a few seconds on wiki by narcc · · Score: 0, Troll

    Your point, if we can recreate a 100,000 neuron brain, it will be tiny amount of time before we can model a full human brain an beyond. Do you really think AI will not follow a moore type law? It will probably be even more aggressive.

    Neat. Cargo-cult AI is still around.

    Forget the long-standing problems that make this approach a non-starter. Technology is magical! The singularity is near!

  2. Re:Engineers Do Philosophy Badly by narcc · · Score: 1, Troll

    Searle's nonsense, eh? There's a reason that he's Slusser professor of philosophy at U.C. Berkeley and why his work on AI stands strong today -- even after 30 years of constant assault.

    No one is laughing at Searle except those who feel threatened by the problem he presents. If he were a just another easy-to-dismiss nut, we wouldn't still be talking about his 1980 paper (and related subsequent papers) today. Nor would he wouldn't hold such an esteemed position at one of the worlds finest institutions.

    If you think Searle's work is nonsense, fame and fortune (well, at least fame) can be yours. All you need do is publish a paper that definitively abolishes Searle's argument. (If it's nonsense that any serious academic would do well to disassociate themselves from, why hasn't anyone managed it after more than 30 years? Many big names have tried, yet all have failed. Taking down that giant would make anyone's career, after all.)

    Are you a follower of Ray Kurzweil, by any chance? I only ask because I don't often see Searle dismissed outright by anyone competent unless they also happen to be a singularity nut.