Google’s DeepMind is also going down the ‘imagination’ path

Just another quick self glorifying I told you so post. Wired reports that Google is also drawing on imagination as a means to improve their AI:

“What differentiates these agents is that they learn a model of the world from noisy sensory data, rather than rely on privileged information such as a pre-specified, accurate simulator. Imagination-based approaches are particularly helpful in situations where the agent is in a new situation and has little direct experience to rely on, or when its actions have irreversible consequences and thinking carefully is desirable over spontaneous action.”

More info on DeepMind’s blog.

The other AI imagination pioneer I mentioned a year back in the meantime secured $50 Mio in funding last week.

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein

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AI research is progressing in line with MST model of cognitive evolution

Having read Jame5 you will appreciate my excitement over the news that AI startup Vicarious is focusing on training its AGI to be more imaginative:

“Life would be pretty dull without imagination. In fact, maybe the biggest problem for computers is that they don’t have any. That’s the belief motivating the founders of Vicarious, an enigmatic AI company backed by some of the most famous and successful names in Silicon Valley. Vicarious is developing a new way of processing data, inspired by the way information seems to flow through the brain. The company’s leaders say this gives computers something akin to imagination, which they hope will help make the machines a lot smarter.”

Applying the MST model of cognitive evolution we can outline AI development as following:

Control of Position = Movement -> Industrial Robots (1975)
Control of Movement = Simple Reflex -> Roomba (2002)
Control of Simple Reflex = Complex Reflex -> Curiosity Rover (2010)
Control of Complex Reflex = Associative Learning -> Watson (2011) & Deep Mind (2016)
Control of Associative Learning = Imagination -> Vicarious (~201?)
Control of Imagination = Thought -> ???? (~20??)

How much longer before truly creative AGI emerges from this trend?

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First comprehensive roadmap of the mammalian brain

The progress towards a fully virtualized human brain continues:

Researchers from the Allen Institute for Brain Science have published the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, the first comprehensive, large-scale data set on how the brain of a mammal is wired, described in their paper in Nature. 

The mouse brain’s 75 million neurons are arranged in a structure roughly similar to the human brain’s approximately 100 billion neurons, so they provide a powerful model system for understanding how nerve cells of the human brain connect, process. and encode information, say Allen Institute researchers.

More here.

 

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This Guy Is 3-D Printing a Classic Aston Martin … That Runs

Not just quite there yet in regards to owning licensed copies of cars but getting closer:

Using Autodesk 3ds Max modeling software and a Solidoodle desktop 3-D printer, Sentch began the painstaking process of printing out individual 4-by-4-inch sections, mounting them on the wooden frame and then gluing each piece into place. So far, he’s produced over 2,500 fiberglass molds and says he’s 72 percent of the way to completion, but that’s only the printing aspect.

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Piratebay offers “Physibles” now

From Jame5:

The rise of self-replicating universal nano assemblers had not eradicated scarcity as expected, at least not in the sense many people had believed it would. It merely shifted the manufacturing cost for goods to the consumer and left it to the assemblers to supply the energy and raw materials to transform design specifications from virtual to physical reality. The cost went down, but large parts of the savings were added right back by the brand owners that henceforth concentrated on research and development, design, market research and advertising. One did not buy a Ferrari, one owned a licensed copy, and those still did not come cheap.

Reality is catching up with another step in the direction when you wont simply buy a Ferrari but download a licensed copy to be printed with your MakerBot 4 ready for the daily commute. Or even better – a pirated copy of physical objects as now on offer in a new category on the PirateBay:

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

I am looking forward to that day and have been since 2005.

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