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artificial intelligence
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The Uselessness of Useful Knowledge
Today’s powerful but little-understood artificial intelligence breakthroughs echo past examples of unexpected scientific progress.
neural networks
Neuron Bursts Can Mimic Famous AI Learning Strategy
A new model of learning centers on bursts of neural activity that act as teaching signals — approximating backpropagation, the algorithm behind learning in AI.
neural networks
A New Link to an Old Model Could Crack the Mystery of Deep Learning
To help them explain the shocking success of deep neural networks, researchers are turning to older but better-understood models of machine learning.
neurons
How Computationally Complex Is a Single Neuron?
Computational neuroscientists taught an artificial neural network to imitate a biological neuron. The result offers a new way to think about the complexity of single brain cells.
Q&A
The Computer Scientist Training AI to Think With Analogies
Melanie Mitchell has worked on digital minds for decades. She says they’ll never truly be like ours until they can make analogies.
artificial intelligence
Latest Neural Nets Solve World’s Hardest Equations Faster Than Ever Before
Two new approaches allow deep neural networks to solve entire families of partial differential equations, making it easier to model complicated systems and to do so orders of magnitude faster.
Q&A
A Computer Scientist Who Tackles Inequality Through Algorithms
Rediet Abebe uses the tools of theoretical computer science to understand pressing social problems — and try to fix them.
neural networks
Artificial Neural Nets Finally Yield Clues to How Brains Learn
The learning algorithm that enables the runaway success of deep neural networks doesn’t work in biological brains, but researchers are finding alternatives that could.
neuroscience
Deep Neural Networks Help to Explain Living Brains
Deep neural networks, often criticized as “black boxes,” are helping neuroscientists understand the organization of living brains.