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Artificial intelligence

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The Uselessness of Useful Knowledge

October 20, 2021

Today’s powerful but little-understood artificial intelligence breakthroughs echo past examples of unexpected scientific progress.

Neuron Bursts Can Mimic Famous AI Learning Strategy

October 18, 2021

A new model of learning centers on bursts of neural activity that act as teaching signals — approximating backpropagation, the algorithm behind learning in AI.

A New Link to an Old Model Could Crack the Mystery of Deep Learning

October 11, 2021

To help them explain the shocking success of deep neural networks, researchers are turning to older but better-understood models of machine learning.

How Computationally Complex Is a Single Neuron?

September 2, 2021

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

July 14, 2021

Melanie Mitchell has worked on digital minds for decades. She says they’ll never truly be like ours until they can make analogies.

Same or Different? The Question Flummoxes Neural Networks.

June 23, 2021

For all their triumphs, AI systems can’t seem to generalize the concepts of “same” and “different.” Without that, researchers worry, the quest to create truly intelligent machines may be hopeless.

Melanie Mitchell Takes AI Research Back to Its Roots

April 19, 2021

To build a general artificial intelligence, we may need to know more about our own minds, argues the computer scientist Melanie Mitchell.

Latest Neural Nets Solve World’s Hardest Equations Faster Than Ever Before

April 19, 2021

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.

Rediet Abebe on Using Algorithms for Social Justice

April 5, 2021

The computer scientist Rediet Abebe’s passion for applied mathematics closely aligns with her passion to solve problems with poverty and social inequality.

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