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Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

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Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#21

Post by ASalazarMX »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #8

> To find out which sights specific neurons in monkeys "like" best, researchers designed an algorithm, called XDREAM, that generated images that made neurons fire more than any natural images the researchers tested. I know they put "like" in quotes, but damn. Imagine this from a scifi angle: > "The aliens from Tau Ceti found which stimuli specific humans "like" best by trying them out and seeing which ones made human…

Fortunately the brain has astounding plasticity. It it's only images, we would get used to them.

Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#24

Post by Darkphibre »

monkeyHELL wrote: post #3

JFC. This thing is a monkey nightmare machine. https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire... For sure, those are very likely images of fear. If you wanna call them “highly stimulating” well... That’s probably not untrue. But the only thing that the monkey is likely finding “stimulating” about familiar people in surgical masks is an association with pain and terror. Note the odd expressionless faces…

You seem to be anthropomorphizing the neuron. This work is pretty innovative: We've used this technique to generate similar images of computer neural networks to try to figure out what a given neuron or layer is actually learning: http://yosinski.com/deepvis

Now, we're monitoring a biological neuron with the same technique, and coming up with similar feature selection. That both validates the approach we've been taking with deep neural networks, AND it provides us heretofore-unimaginable access to individual neuronal activation materials.

Exciting stuff!

Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#26

Post by gipp »

crishoj wrote: post #14
nartz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you are interpreting this correctly - its not like they were torturing the monkey. This is almost the same as studies where they show humans a set of images and ask them which they like the most. Except in this case, they just show them the images and try to measure it. Most of these comments are blowing this out of proportion.

Subjecting a being to a machine which automatically evolves stimuli to maximise fear response is not torture?

It's not maximizing "fear response", I'm not sure where everyone in this thread is getting that from. It's maximizing the response of particular visual cortex neurons, in structures where they're shown to be recognizers of specific shapes or concepts.

I.e. it's evolving images that this neuron thinks look most like a monkey, or a person. It's not the only neuron making that judgment, and it's all super nonlinear, so ofc it looks strange and distorted.

It's literally just doing this but with a real neuron instead of a virtual one: http://yosinski.com/deepvis

Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#27

Post by pavel_lishin »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #21
pavel_lishin wrote: post #8

> To find out which sights specific neurons in monkeys "like" best, researchers designed an algorithm, called XDREAM, that generated images that made neurons fire more than any natural images the researchers tested. I know they put "like" in quotes, but damn. Imagine this from a scifi angle: > "The aliens from Tau Ceti found which stimuli specific humans "like" best by trying them out and seeing which ones made human…

Fortunately the brain has astounding plasticity. It it's only images, we would get used to them.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can penetrate to the core of my soul, leaving wounds that never heal.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...

Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#28

Post by dwaltrip »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #21
pavel_lishin wrote: post #8

> To find out which sights specific neurons in monkeys "like" best, researchers designed an algorithm, called XDREAM, that generated images that made neurons fire more than any natural images the researchers tested. I know they put "like" in quotes, but damn. Imagine this from a scifi angle: > "The aliens from Tau Ceti found which stimuli specific humans "like" best by trying them out and seeing which ones made human…

Fortunately the brain has astounding plasticity. It it's only images, we would get used to them.

Try telling that to those who do content review for YouTube, Facebook, etc. People have suffered PTSD from jobs like that.

Saying it's just images isn't saying anything at all. Mental harm is just as real as bodily harm, even if it is harder to examine.

Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#29

Post by BoiledCabbage »

Darkphibre wrote: post #24
monkeyHELL wrote: post #3

JFC. This thing is a monkey nightmare machine. https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire... For sure, those are very likely images of fear. If you wanna call them “highly stimulating” well... That’s probably not untrue. But the only thing that the monkey is likely finding “stimulating” about familiar people in surgical masks is an association with pain and terror. Note the odd expressionless faces…

You seem to be anthropomorphizing the neuron. This work is pretty innovative: We've used this technique to generate similar images of computer neural networks to try to figure out what a given neuron or layer is actually learning: http://yosinski.com/deepvis Now, we're monitoring a biological neuron with the same technique, and coming up with similar feature selection . That both validates the approach we've been tak…

> You seem to be anthropomorphizing the neuron.

And respectfully, you seem to be ignoring the fact that the neuron is part of a living sentient creature.

That comment epitomizes the cliche of an engineer/scientist so excited by the technology that they are completely blind to its real world implications.

Re: Trippy images were designed by AI to super-stimulate monkey neurons

#30

Post by anon1m0us »

mruts wrote: post #12
anon1m0us wrote: post #5

This is sick. I can't believe as human beings we still do this to other conscious creatures with feelings. It's emotionally traumatizing. It's wrong.

Maybe we should just test things on people instead?

Yes, if the human chooses to be the subject of the test, then yes. Monkeys don't give consent.
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