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Dario Izzo

Miguel Nicolelis Says the Brain Is Not Computable, Bashes Kurzweil's Singularity | MIT ... - 9 views

www.technologyreview.com/...the-brain-is-not-computable

Singularity AI Brain

shared by Dario Izzo on 28 Feb 13 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Dario Izzo on 28 Feb 13
     
    As I said ten years ago and psychoanalysts 100 years ago. Luis I am so sorry :) Also ... now that the commission funded the project blue brain is a rather big hit Btw Nicolelis is a rather credited neuro-scientist
  • ...14 more comments...
  • LeopoldS on 28 Feb 13
     
    nice article; Luzi would agree as well I assume; one aspect not clear to me is the causal relationship it seems to imply between consciousness and randomness ... anybody?
  • Luís F. Simões on 01 Mar 13
     
    This is the same thing Penrose has been saying for ages (and yes, I read the book). IF the human brain proves to be the only conceivable system capable of consciousness/intelligence AND IF we'll forever be limited to the Turing machine type of computation (which is what the "Not Computable" in the article refers to) AND IF the brain indeed is not computable, THEN AI people might need to worry... Because I seriously doubt the first condition will prove to be true, same with the second one, and because I don't really care about the third (brains is not my thing).. I'm not worried.
  • Dario Izzo on 01 Mar 13
     
    In any case, all AI research is going in the wrong direction: the mainstream is not on how to go beyond Turing machines, rather how to program them well enough ...... and thats not bringing anywhere near the singularity
  • Luís F. Simões on 01 Mar 13
     
    It has not been shown that intelligence is not computable (only some people saying the human brain isn't, which is something different), so I wouldn't go so far as saying the mainstream is going in the wrong direction. But even if that indeed was the case, would it be a problem? If so, well, then someone should quickly go and tell all the people trading in financial markets that they should stop using computers... after all, they're dealing with uncomputable undecidable problems. :) (and research on how to go beyond Turing computation does exist, but how much would you want to devote your research to a non existent machine?)
  • Dario Izzo on 01 Mar 13
     
    [warning: troll] If you are happy with developing algorithms that serve the financial market ... good for you :) After all they have been proved to be useful for humankind beyond any reasonable doubt.
  • Ma Ru on 04 Mar 13
     
    Two comments from me: 1) an apparently credible scientist takes Kurzweil seriously enough to engage with him in polemics... oops 2) what worries me most, I didn't get the retail store pun at the end of article...
  • Dario Izzo on 04 Mar 13
     
    True, but after Google hired Kurzweil he is de facto being taken seriously ... so I guess Nicolelis reacted to this.
  • Ma Ru on 04 Mar 13
     
    Crazy scientist in residence... interesting marketing move, I suppose.
  • Luzi Bergamin on 05 Mar 13
     
    Unfortunately, I can't upload my two kids to the cloud to make them sleep, that's why I comment only now :-). But, of course, I MUST add my comment to this discussion. I don't really get what Nicolelis point is, the article is just too short and at a too popular level. But please realize that the question is not just "computable" vs. "non-computable". A system may be computable (we have a collection of rules called "theory" that we can put on a computer and run in a finite time) and still it need not be predictable. Since the lack of predictability pretty obviously applies to the human brain (as it does to any sufficiently complex and nonlinear system) the question whether it is computable or not becomes rather academic. Markram and his fellows may come up with a incredible simulation program of the human brain, this will be rather useless since they cannot solve the initial value problem and even if they could they will be lost in randomness after a short simulation time due to horrible non-linearities... Btw: this is not my idea, it was pointed out by Bohr more than 100 years ago...
  • Dario Izzo on 05 Mar 13
     
    I guess chaos is what you are referring to. Stuff like the Lorentz attractor. In which case I would say that the point is not to predict one particular brain (in which case you would be right): any initial conditions would be fine as far as any brain gets started :) that is the goal :)
  • Luzi Bergamin on 05 Mar 13
     
    Kurzweil talks about downloading your brain to a computer, so he has a specific brain in mind; Markram talks about identifying neural basis of mental diseases, so he has at least pretty specific situations in mind. Chaos is not the only problem, even a perfectly linear brain (which is not a biological brain) is not predictable, since one cannot determine a complete set of initial conditions of a working (viz. living) brain (after having determined about 10% the brain is dead and the data useless). But the situation is even worse: from all we know a brain will only work with a suitable interaction with its environment. So these boundary conditions one has to determine as well. This is already twice impossible. But the situation is worse again: from all we know, the way the brain interacts with its environment at a neural level depends on his history (how this brain learned). So your boundary conditions (that are impossible to determine) depend on your initial conditions (that are impossible to determine). Thus the situation is rather impossible squared than twice impossible. I'm sure Markram will simulate something, but this will rather be the famous Boltzmann brain than a biological one. Boltzman brains work with any initial conditions and any boundary conditions... and are pretty dead!
  • Dario Izzo on 05 Mar 13
     
    Say one has an accurate model of a brain. It may be the case that the initial and boundary conditions do not matter that much in order for the brain to function an exhibit macro-characteristics useful to make science. Again, if it is not one particular brain you are targeting, but the 'brain' as a general entity this would make sense if one has an accurate model (also to identify the neural basis of mental diseases). But in my opinion, the construction of such a model of the brain is impossible using a reductionist approach (that is taking the naive approach of putting together some artificial neurons and connecting them in a huge net). That is why both Kurzweil and Markram are doomed to fail.
  • johannessimon81 on 06 Mar 13
     
    I think that in principle some kind of artificial brain should be feasible. But making a brain by just throwing together a myriad of neurons is probably as promising as throwing together some copper pipes and a heap of silica and expecting it to make calculations for you. Like in the biological system, I suspect, an artificial brain would have to grow from a small tiny functional unit by adding neurons and complexity slowly and in a way that in a stable way increases the "usefulness"/fitness. Apparently our brain's usefulness has to do with interpreting inputs of our sensors to the world and steering the body making sure that those sensors, the brain and the rest of the body are still alive 10 seconds from now (thereby changing the world -> sensor inputs -> ...). So the artificial brain might need sensors and a body to affect the "world" creating a much larger feedback loop than the brain itself. One might argue that the complexity of the sensor inputs is the reason why the brain needs to be so complex in the first place. I never quite see from these "artificial brain" proposals in how far they are trying to simulate the whole system and not just the brain. Anyone? Or are they trying to simulate the human brain after it has been removed from the body? That might be somewhat easier I guess...
  • Luís F. Simões on 06 Mar 13
     
    Johannes: "I never quite see from these "artificial brain" proposals in how far they are trying to simulate the whole system and not just the brain." In Artificial Life the whole environment+bodies&brains is simulated. You have also the whole embodied cognition movement that basically advocates for just that: no true intelligence until you model the system in its entirety. And from that you then have people building robotic bodies, and getting their "brains" to learn from scratch how to control them, and through the bodies, the environment. Right now, this is obviously closer to the complexity of insect brains, than human ones. (my take on this is: yes, go ahead and build robots, if the intelligence you want to get in the end is to be displayed in interactions with the real physical world...) It's easy to dismiss Markram's Blue Brain for all their clever marketing pronouncements that they're building a human-level consciousness on a computer, but from what I read of the project, they seem to be developing a platfrom onto which any scientist can plug in their model of a detail of a detail of .... of the human brain, and get it to run together with everyone else's models of other tiny parts of the brain. This is not the same as getting the artificial brain to interact with the real world, but it's a big step in enabling scientists to study their own models on more realistic settings, in which the models' outputs get to effect many other systems, and throuh them feed back into its future inputs. So Blue Brain's biggest contribution might be in making model evaluation in neuroscience less wrong, and that doesn't seem like a bad thing. At some point the reductionist approach needs to start moving in the other direction.
  • Luzi Bergamin on 06 Mar 13
     
    @ Dario: absolutely agree, the reductionist approach is the main mistake. My point: if you take the reductionsit approach, then you will face the initial and boundary value problem. If one tries a non-reductionist approach, this problem may be much weaker. But off the record: there exists a non-reductionist theory of the brain, it's called psychology... @ Johannes: also agree, the only way the reductionist approach could eventually be successful is to actually grow the brain. Start with essentially one neuron and grow the whole complexity. But if you want to do this, bring up a kid! A brain without body might be easier? Why do you expect that a brain detached from its complete input/output system actually still works. I'm pretty sure it does not!
  • johannessimon81 on 06 Mar 13
     
    @Luzi: That was exactly my point :-)
darioizzo2

Scientists Have Trained an AI to Spot Obesity From Space - 5 views

www.sciencealert.com/e-deep-learning-neural-network

shared by darioizzo2 on 19 Mar 19 - No Cached
LeopoldS and microno95 liked it
  • darioizzo2 on 19 Mar 19
     
    If it can be done for obesity, I guess noise is also an option right? :)
  • LeopoldS on 21 Mar 19
     
    love it
LeopoldS

Orbit Fab to launch first fuel tanker in 2021 with Spaceflight - SpaceNews - 1 views

spacenews.com/fab-to-launch-with-spaceflight

in orbit servicing

shared by LeopoldS on 19 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 19 Nov 20
     
    interesting approach, quite a gamble in my view but moving in the right direction
Annalisa Riccardi

Indoor clouds - 4 views

www.psfk.com/...st-creates-clouds-indoors.html

shared by Annalisa Riccardi on 15 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Annalisa Riccardi on 15 Nov 12
     
    created by a Dutch artist :)
  • LeopoldS on 17 Nov 12
     
    Any idea how?
  • Annalisa Riccardi on 19 Nov 12
     
    It seems like he just recreates in the room the right combination of temperature and humidity and than with a fog machine he generates the cloud ... I thought he could be a nice candidate for the artist in residence :)
LeopoldS

Schumpeter: More than just a game | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/news/business/21565926-video-games-are-behind-latest-fad-management-more-just-game?fsrc=nlw|hig|11-8-2012|4090557|36947788|

economics game

shared by LeopoldS on 08 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 08 Nov 12
     
    remember the discussion I tried to trigger in the team a few weeks ago ...
  • ...5 more comments...
  • Luís F. Simões on 09 Nov 12
     
    main quote I take from the article: "gamification is really a cover for cynically exploiting human psychology for profit"
  • Francesco Biscani on 09 Nov 12
     
    I would say that it applies to management in general :-)
  • Dario Izzo on 09 Nov 12
     
    which is exactly why it will never work .... and surprisingly "managers" fail to understand this very simple fact.
  • johannessimon81 on 09 Nov 12
     
    ... "gamification is really a cover for cynically exploiting human psychology for profit" --> "Why Are Half a Million People Poking This Giant Cube?" http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/11/curiosity/
  • pacome delva on 13 Nov 12
     
    I think the "essence" of the game is its uselessness... workers need exactly the inverse, to find a meaning in what they do !
  • LeopoldS on 13 Nov 12
     
    I love the linked article provided by Johannes! It expresses very elegantly why I still fail to understand even extremely smart and busy people in my view apparently waiting their time in playing computer games - but I recognise that there is something in games that we apparently need / gives us something we cherish .... "In fact, half a million players so far have registered to help destroy the 64 billion tiny blocks that compose that one gigantic cube, all working in tandem toward a singular goal: discovering the secret that Curiosity's creator says awaits one lucky player inside. That's right: After millions of man-hours of work, only one player will ever see the center of the cube. Curiosity is the first release from 22Cans, an independent game studio founded earlier this year by Peter Molyneux, a longtime game designer known for ambitious projects like Populous, Black & White and Fable. Players can carve important messages (or shameless self-promotion) onto the face of the cube as they whittle it to nothing. Image: Wired Molyneux is equally famous for his tendency to overpromise and under-deliver on his games. In 2008, he said that his upcoming game would be "such a significant scientific achievement that it will be on the cover of Wired." That game turned out to be Milo & Kate, a Kinect tech demo that went nowhere and was canceled. Following this, Molyneux left Microsoft to go indie and form 22Cans. Not held back by the past, the Molyneux hype train is going full speed ahead with Curiosity, which the studio grandiosely promises will be merely the first of 22 similar "experiments." Somehow, it is wildly popular. The biggest challenge facing players of Curiosity isn't how to blast through the 2,000 layers of the cube, but rather successfully connecting to 22Cans' servers. So many players are attempting to log in that the server cannot handle it. Some players go for utter efficiency, tapping rapidly to rack up combo multipliers and get more
  • nikolas smyrlakis on 16 Nov 12
     
    why are video games so much different than collecting stamps or spotting birds or planes ? One could say they are all just hobbies
fichbio

A 3D bioprinting - 5 views

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.3413.html#access Amazing things happen, development of 3D bioprinting technology opens a new era in restoring people after serious injuries...

Biotechnology bioengineering transhumanism

started by fichbio on 17 Feb 16 no follow-up yet
Alexander Wittig

Trump Asks NASA to Explore Putting Crew on Rocket's Debut Flight - 0 views

gadgets.ndtv.com/...s-rockets-debut-flight-1663364

shared by Alexander Wittig on 27 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Alexander Wittig on 27 Feb 17
     
    Trying the new rocket with humans right away (and 1.5 years to go). What can possibly go wrong? The Trump administration has directed NASA to study whether it is feasible to fly astronauts on the debut flight of the agency's heavy-lift rocket, a mission currently planned to be unmanned and targeted to launch in late 2018, officials said on Friday.
Alexander Wittig

Google AI experiment: fast drawing for everyone - 0 views

autodraw.com

AI fun technology

shared by Alexander Wittig on 12 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Alexander Wittig on 12 Apr 17
     
    AutoDraw is a new kind of drawing tool. It pairs machine learning with drawings from talented artists to help everyone create anything visual, fast. There's nothing to download. Nothing to pay for. And it works anywhere: smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc. AutoDraw's suggestion tool uses the same technology used in QuickDraw, to guess what you're trying to draw. Right now, it can guess hundreds of drawings and we look forward to adding more over time. If you are interested in creating drawings for others to use with AutoDraw, contact us here. We hope AutoDraw will help make drawing and creating a little more accessible and fun for everyone.
Ma Ru

Some movement toward academic spring here in UK - 2 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ia-research-jimmy-wales-online

science UK open access peer review funding Wikipedia

shared by Ma Ru on 03 May 12 - No Cached
  • Ma Ru on 03 May 12
     
    "Giving people the right to roam freely over publicly funded research will usher in a new era of academic discovery and collaboration, and will put the UK at the very forefront of open research".
santecarloni

First Digital Message Sent Using Neutrinos - Technology Review - 1 views

www.technologyreview.com/...27648

neutrinos technology space Phy

shared by santecarloni on 15 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 15 Mar 12
     
    ...obvious use for space...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 16 Mar 12
     
    Indeed, you only need ONE antenna to communicate with your satellite irrespective of its position, since one can freely send the signals right through the Earth. Small disadvantage: you should tell the launcher section to design a new launcher that is capable to bring a 200tons detector to space...
Luís F. Simões

The Secret of Ant Transportation Networks - Technology Review - 2 views

www.technologyreview.com/...27545

bio ant foraging transport networks

shared by Luís F. Simões on 03 Feb 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Just how ants create the highly efficient network of trails around their nests has never been fully understood. Now researchers think they've cracked it
  • They say the structure of ant trails can be entirely explained if the ants's response to a pheromone droplet concentration is linear. "One ant will turn to the left in proportion to the difference between the pheromone it has on its left side and the pheromone on its right," say Perna and co. They also point out that this is exactly what Weber's law predicts.
  • Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1201.5827 :Individual Rules For Trail Pattern Formation In Argentine Ants (Linepithema Humile)
  • Luís F. Simões on 03 Feb 12
     
    from the abstract: "Using a novel imaging and analysis technique on experimental data we estimated pheromone concentrations at all spatial positions in the experimental arena and at different times. Then we derived the response function of individual ants to pheromone concentrations by looking at correlations between concentrations and changes in speed or direction of the ants." [...] "agent based simulations based on the Weber's Law response function determined experimentally produced results compatible with those reported in the literature and reproduced the formation of trails."
  • LeopoldS on 05 Feb 12
     
    Nice article!
Luke O'Connor

RoboRoach Instructions - 3 views

backyardbrains.com/DIYRoboRoach.aspx

shared by Luke O'Connor on 03 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Luke O'Connor on 03 Aug 12
     
    We are pleased to announce the beta version of our RoboRoach control circuit is now available, which allows you to trick a cockroach into turning left or right by microstimulation of the antenna nerves.
  • Luke O'Connor on 03 Aug 12
     
    Courtesy of Alexandre
santecarloni

Quantum Biology and the Puzzle of Coherence - Technology Review - 4 views

www.technologyreview.com/...27628

biology quantum technology bio

shared by santecarloni on 06 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 06 Mar 12
     
    Quantum processes shouldn't survive in hot, wet biological systems and yet a growing body of evidence suggests they do. Now physicists think they know how
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 09 Mar 12
     
    Tobias, José and myself considered an ACT project in quantum biomimetics, but it never led anywhere. Perhaps the field is sexy enough now...
  • LeopoldS on 09 Mar 12
     
    Considered is the right word ... You unfortunately never passed the step after "considering" :-)
  • Luzi Bergamin on 10 Mar 12
     
    Yes, because our bosses forced us to write strategic reports on "system of systems" :-)
  • LeopoldS on 10 Mar 12
     
    Oh these terrible ignorant slave masters .... Would love to see your "reports on system of systems" :-)
johannessimon81

A Different Form of Color Vision in Mantis Shrimp - 4 views

www.sciencemag.org/...411.full

technology BIO biomimetics science

shared by johannessimon81 on 28 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • johannessimon81 on 28 Jan 14
     
    Mantis shrimp seem to have 12 types of photo-receptive sensors - but this does not really improve their ability to discriminate between colors. Speculation is that they serve as a form of pre-processing for visual information: the brain does not need to decode full color information from just a few channels which would would allow for a smaller brain. I guess technologically the two extremes of light detection would be RGB cameras which are like our eyes and offer good spatial resolution, and spectrometers which have a large amount of color channels but at the cost of spatial resolution. It seems the mantis shrimp uses something that is somewhere between RGB cameras and spectrometers. Could there be a use for this in space?
  • Ma Ru on 31 Jan 14
     
    > RGB cameras which are like our eyes ...apart from the fact that the spectral response of the eyes is completely different from "RGB" cameras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cones_SMJ2_E.svg) ... and that the eyes have 4 types of light-sensitive cells, not three (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cone-response.svg) ... and that, unlike cameras, human eye is precise only in a very narrow centre region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fovea) ...hmm, apart from relying on tri-stimulus colour perception it seems human eyes are in fact completely different from "RGB cameras" :-) OK sorry for picking on this - that's just the colour science geek in me :-) Now seriously, on one hand the article abstract sounds very interesting, but on the other the statement "Why use 12 color channels when three or four are sufficient for fine color discrimination?" reveals so much ignorance to the very basics of colour science that I'm completely puzzled - in the end, it's a Science article so it should be reasonably scientifically sound, right? Pity I can't access full text... the interesting thing is that more channels mean more information and therefore should require *more* power to process - which is exactly opposite to their theory (as far as I can tell it from the abstract...). So the key is to understand *what* information about light these mantises are collecting and why - definitely it's not "colour" in the sense of human perceptual experience. But in any case - yes, spectrometry has its uses in space :-)
Thijs Versloot

Is the Universe a simulation? - 0 views

science.slashdot.org/...n-is-our-universe-a-simulation

math science

shared by Thijs Versloot on 17 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Thijs Versloot on 17 Feb 14
     
    'Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we are more likely to be in such a simulation than not,' writes Frenkel. 'If such simulations are possible in theory, he reasons, then eventually humans will create them - presumably many of them. If this is so, in time there will be many more simulated worlds than nonsimulated ones. Statistically speaking, therefore, we are more likely to be living in a simulated world than the real one.'... right...
johannessimon81

Facebook is buying WhatsApp for ~ $ 19e9 - 1 views

www.bloomberg.com/...p-whatsapp-for-16-billion.html

technology

shared by johannessimon81 on 20 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • johannessimon81 on 20 Feb 14
     
    That is about € 14e9 - enough to pay more than a million YGTs for half a year. Could we use maybe just half a million YGTs for half a year to build a similar platform and keep the remaining € 7e9 for ourselves? Keep in mind that WhatsApp only has 45 employees (according to AllThingsD: http://goo.gl/NtJcSj ). So we would have an advantage > 10000:1. On the other hand does this mean that every employee at WhatsApp gets enough money now to survive comfortably for ~5000 years or will the inevitable social inequality strike and most people get next to nothing while a few get money to live comfortably for ~1000000 years? Also: Does Facebook think about these numbers before they pay them? Or is it just a case of "That looks tasty - lets have it"? Also (2): As far as I can see all these internet companies (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, WhatsApp, Twitter...) seem to make most of their income from advertising. For all these companies together that must be a lot of advertising money (turns out that in 2013 the world spent about $ 500 billion on advertising: http://goo.gl/vYog15 ). For that money you could of course have 20 million YGTs roaming the Earth and advertising stuff door-to-door... ... ...
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Thijs Versloot on 20 Feb 14
     
    Jo, thats just brilliant... 500billion USD total on advertising, that sounds absolutely ridiculous.. I always wondered whether this giant advertisement scheme is just one big 'ponzi'-like scheme waiting to crash down on us one day when they realize, cat-picture twittering fb-ing whatsapping consumers just aint worth it..
  • Juxi Leitner on 20 Feb 14
     
    The whole valuation of those internet companies is a bit scary. Things like the Facebook and Twitter ipo numbers seem just ridiculous.
  • Paul N on 21 Feb 14
     
    Facebook is not really so much buying into a potential good business deal as much as it's buying out risky competition. Popular trends need to be killed fast before they take off the ground too much. Also the amount of personal data that WhatsApp is amassing is staggering. I have never seen an app requesting so many phone rights in my life.
Thijs Versloot

Wolfram Language - 11 views

Thats looks pretty awesome indeed. Some of those functions would be very helpfull right now :)

knowledge model everything

started by Robert Musters on 25 Feb 14 1 follow-up, last by Thijs Versloot on 26 Feb 14
Tom Gheysens

Sea Sapphire: the Most Beautiful Animal You've Never Heard Of - 3 views

www.thefeaturedcreature.com/...-animal-youve-never-heard.html

sea sapphire animal BIO science

shared by Tom Gheysens on 06 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Tom Gheysens on 06 Mar 14
     
    this is what I call truly cloaking!...of course only found in and made by nature :) (video at the bottom of the page)
  • Thijs Versloot on 06 Mar 14
     
    Definitely beautiful, even psychedelic maybe.. but technically its not really cloaking, you wouldn't call your window a cloaking device right? :)
  • Beniamino Abis on 07 Mar 14
     
    The video looks surreal!
Thijs Versloot

The future of the great barrier reef - 1 views

phys.org/...t-barrier-reef-scientists.html

nature UNESCO

shared by Thijs Versloot on 06 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Thijs Versloot on 06 Mar 14
     
    A worrying future looms as scientist predict the iconic great barrier reef is at a turning point and could experience irreversible damage before 2030 if nothing is done right now. Well actually, I am not sure if anything can be done as the two degree rise (and changes in ocean temperature/acidity probably?) will likely happen in any case due to delayed effects of decades of pollution, whether or not we stop now with emissions will probably not make much difference. :(
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