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Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

news.mit.edu

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Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#51

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

gryBrd1987 wrote: post #23
kgarten wrote: post #10

this article makes me sad ... a neural network can be also a network of biological neurons, the author means artificial neural network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network the Wikipedia article even goes into the differences, so why did we need a study for that? A study urges caution comparing Jellyfish to Jelley ... tasters found they are not the same (even though I hear that fried jellyfish taste nice...)…

The brain is not involved in a whole lot of behaviors though. Cells organize themselves to an extent. Cuts heal without us focusing conscious thought on them. The brain is a hard drive but the body is the whole computer. Science is proving physical causation. Not just writing down what we want to be true.

Emergent pheneomena both perhaps?

Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#52

Post by crowbahr »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #45
Retric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Brian is using some physics we don’t understand that’s something new not Quantum Mechanics. QM a specific theory of how the world operates, if something else is involved it doesn’t fall under that theory it’s [insert new theory’s name here]. I really don’t get why everyone wants the Brian to operate on some new QM effect other than peoples perception that a 100 year old theory is somehow cutting edge, spooky,…

My understanding of the hypothesis being represented here is QM as a kind of random number generator operating at the neuron/microtubule level. I didn't think there was anything other than a modest injection of randomness being invoked, but I could be misstating the premise.

It's an absurd premise to begin with: The scale at which quantum effects propagate and are observed is radically different than the scale at which the neurons in your brain operate.

The functional channels for neurons are well understood, even if we're still diagramming out all the types of neurons. Voltage gated calcium channels are pretty damn simple in the grand scheme of things, and they don't leave space for quantum interactions beyond that of standard molecular interactions.

The only part of the brain we don't understand is how all the intricacies work together, because that's a lot more opaque.

Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#54

Post by vavooom »

If you are interested in learning about the intersection of Artificial Neural Networks and Biological Neural Network research, I recommend "The Self-Assembling Brain - How Neural Networks Grow Smarter" by Peter Robin Hiesinger. He attempts to bridge research from both fields of study to identify where there are commonalities and differences in the design of these networks.

Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#55

Post by Waterluvian »

bawolff wrote: post #38

The aspect of ai that makes me think something related is going on, is how artifacts look in image generation systems like stable diffusion. Often these systems will have really bizzare artificats, people with 3 arms, etc. However at the same time when you glance at the output without looking carefully you will sometimes miss these artifacts even though they should be absolutely glaring.

Yes! I’m confident this isn’t an original thought, but I feel like it’s a dream generator. Things that aren’t quite right but are in some way, perfectly contextually and topologically valid. Like it’s tricking the object classifier in my brain with a totally unrealistic thing that my brain is ready to simply accept.

There’s some image I see on occasion that’s 100% garbage. If you focus on it you cannot make out a single thing. But if you glance at it or see it scaled down, it looks like a table full of stuff.

Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#56

Post by ben_w »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

AGI is somewhere between "never" and "GPT-3 is it", depending on how general the G has to be and how intelligent the I has to be.

(For all it's flaws, GPT-3 is already does better at random professional knowledge than many TV show script writers).

Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#57

Post by [deleted] »

dekhn wrote: post #50
Retric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Brian is using some physics we don’t understand that’s something new not Quantum Mechanics. QM a specific theory of how the world operates, if something else is involved it doesn’t fall under that theory it’s [insert new theory’s name here]. I really don’t get why everyone wants the Brian to operate on some new QM effect other than peoples perception that a 100 year old theory is somehow cutting edge, spooky,…

I think you're probably missing a number of the important details. In the Penrose/Hammerof model, they're explicitly saying that humans are observed to generate problem solutions that could not have been generated by a purely classical computing process, therefore, the brain must exploit some specific quantum phenomenon. When you talk about QM a a theory of how the world operates, there are wide ranges of QM. Everyth…

[deleted]

Re: Study urges caution when comparing neural networks to the brain

#59

Post by cameronh90 »

bawolff wrote: post #38

The aspect of ai that makes me think something related is going on, is how artifacts look in image generation systems like stable diffusion. Often these systems will have really bizzare artificats, people with 3 arms, etc. However at the same time when you glance at the output without looking carefully you will sometimes miss these artifacts even though they should be absolutely glaring.

Check out the Velocopedia project for something else along this line of thinking: http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html

Turns out nobody quite knows how to draw a bicycle. They get the gist but the details don't make sense.

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