Frank Rosenblatt, Alan M. Turing, Connectionism, and Artificial Intelligence John M

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Frank Rosenblatt, Alan M. Turing, Connectionism, and Artificial Intelligence John M Proceedings of Student-Faculty Research Day, CSIS, Pace University, May 6th, 2011 Frank Rosenblatt, Alan M. Turing, Connectionism, and Artificial Intelligence John M. Casarella Seidenberg School of CSIS, Pace University, White Plains, NY 10606, USA [email protected] Abstract: Dr. Frank Rosenblatt is commonly associated with Connectionism, an area of It was Frank Rosenblatt who in 1957 began cognitive science, which applies Artificial Neural looking at the McCulloch and Pitts [20] model of Networks in an effort to explain aspects of the neuron and started investigating neural human intelligence. Other notable networks. From his work came a new model he connectionists include Warren McCulloch, called the “perceptron”. Although perceptrons Walter Pitts, and Donald Hebb, but it is Alan differed only slightly from previous neural Matheson Turing, a man of unique insight and networks, Rosenblatt made major contributions great misunderstanding, who is noticeably to the field through his experimental absent from this list. He is commonly associated investigations of the properties of perceptrons with the development of the digital computer, (using computer simulations), and through his employing his paper tape Universal Turing detailed mathematical analyses, basing the Machine. There are many who associate him perceptron model on probability theory rather with providing the foundation for defining than on symbolic logic. He was influenced by Artificial Intelligence, specifically the Hebb‟s concepts and was the first to associate development of the Turing Test as the standard the term “connectionist” with artificial neural to be met in determining if a machine exhibits networks. It was in 1958 when Rosenblatt intelligence. His contribution to AI goes beyond provided a definition to the theoretical basis of his test, laying down the foundation of connectionism in his statement, “stored Connectionism, providing insight into and information takes the form of new connections, supporting later contributions to the key models or transmission channels in the nervous system of Perceptrons, Artificial Neural Networks and (or the creation of conditions which are the Hierarchical Temporal Memory model. functionally equivalent to new connections)” [21, 22]. Introduction Dr. Rosenblatt was not primarily interested with the invention of devices for artificial intelligence, The dawn of Connectionist Theory is commonly but rather with investigating the physical traced back to McCulloch and Pitts and their structures and neurodynamic principles related to model of the Neuron. Further strength was “natural intelligence” [22]. He believed the added upon the publication of Donald O. Hebb‟s perceptron was first and foremost a brain model, influential book The Organization of Behavior not an invention for pattern recognition. (1949) [19], the source of the Hebbian approach Although, never brought to its maturity, the to neural learning studied in connectionism perceptron plays a vital role in artificial today. The contribution to connectionism by intelligence and in connectionist theory. By his Rummelhart, McClelland and the PDP Group own admission, Rosenblatt did not believe the [17, 18] cannot be minimized, yet all of them model was complete and summed up perceptrons show no awareness of Turing‟s early in this passage from his 1962 book (page 28): contribution to the field. "Perceptrons are not intended to serve as detailed copies of any actual nervous system. They're D4.1 simplified networks, designed to permit the and the human. This is the basis of the Turing study of lawful relationships between the Test, a test integrally linked with answering the organization of a nerve net, the organization of question he poses and for determining machine its environment, and the 'psychological' intelligence. Additional details shall not be performances of which it is capable. Perceptrons presented, as it is best for one to read the original might actually correspond to parts of more article. extended networks and biological systems; in this case, the results obtained will be directly Although his famous paper was published in applicable. More likely they represent extreme 1950, Turing was harboring thoughts of machine simplifications of the central nervous system, in intelligence as early as 1941 according to Donald which some properties are exaggerated and Michie [2]. Michie remembers Turing would others suppressed. In this case, successive talk about the possibility of computing machines perturbation and refinements of the system may (1) learning from experience and (2) solving yield a closer approximation.[22]" Dr. problems by means of searching through the Rosenblatt‟s contribution to Artificial space of possible solutions [2]. He was also Intelligence, Connectionism and in providing the attempting to make a comparison between a foundation for Neural Nets and the HTM Model digital computer and the human brain. In a are significant, but he too was unaware of series of broadcast lectures, one given in May of Turing‟s early contributions. 1951, Turing provided some additional insight into what he was thinking. In reviewing In the Beginning… Turing‟s typescript, it was found he believed digital computers could be used in such a manner The mid to late 1950s is often looked upon as the they could appropriately be described as brains. beginning of artificial intelligence. This, He continues by saying, “although digital unfortunately, is incorrect. History, by way of computers might be programmed to behave like discovery and re-discovery of the writings of Dr. brains, we do not at present (1951) know how Alan M. Turing, places artificial intelligence‟s this should be done. As to whether we will or true origins to approximately 1950, and possibly will not eventually succeed in finding such a as early as 1941. To most people, it was program, I (Turing), personally am inclined to Turing‟s article entitled Computing Machinery believe that such a program will be found. Our and Intelligence [1] which affords him his fame, main problem is how to program a machine to but this is only part of Turing‟s contributions to imitate the brain, or as we might say more AI. The significance of this paper could not briefly, if less accurately, to think [3-5]”. have been anticipated at time of its publication, Turing‟s level of understanding of intelligence yet its impact on artificial intelligence cannot be and artificial intelligence was far more advanced disputed. Within this paper, Turing poses the than previously understood, specifically in how question, “Can Machines Think?” we learn. It was Turing‟s [4] understanding, in trying to imitate an adult human mind, we should To determine the answer to this question, he consider three issues: the initial state of the provides the reader with a “game” which first mind, the education it has been subject to, and takes place between an interrogator, a man and a the other experiences it has been subject to (that woman. These three individuals are separated cannot be described as education). His final from each other. The interrogator can ask thoughts show we should try to create a questions of either of these individuals via computational model a child‟s mind and then “teletype” interface. The man will attempt to “educate” it to obtain the model of the adult convince the interrogator he is the woman and brain. It would difficult not to see the correlation the woman will be truthful. The objective is for to perceptrons, neural networks and especially to the interrogator to correctly conclude who is the the hierarchical temporal memory model. man and who is the woman. Turing now alters this game and replaces the man or the woman In the ensuing years, there remained many with a machine. It is now the objective of the unanswered questions concerning his vision of interrogator to differentiate between the machine artificial intelligence, his views on intelligent D4.2 machinery and the continuous debate as to the into networks in a largely random manner, meaning of the “Turing Test” in defining referred to by Turing as “unorganized intelligence. There are arguments attempting to machines”. His invented neural network was show the fallacy of Turing‟s concept of machine called a “B-type unorganized machine”, which intelligence, such that a machine would need to consisted of artificial neurons and devices be conciseness (be aware of itself), but is this a capable of modify the connections between valid argument? Maybe Turing was looking them. His model was very different in that every beyond a simple definition of machine neuron in the network executes the same logical intelligence, but was unable to complete his operation of “not and” (NAND): the output is 1 work due to his untimely departure from this if either of the inputs is 0. If the both inputs are Earth. 1, then the output is 0. Turing selected NAND because every other logical or Boolean operation Some of his critics have found fault in the can be accomplished by groups of NAND behavioral approach of the Turing Test [6]; neurons [10, 11]. French [7] discusses whether passing the Turing Test is a sufficient or a necessary condition for It was Turing‟s contention machines [4, 10, 12] machine intelligence and he asks whether the test could be constructed which would simulate the can be passed at all. Perhaps it is Hayes and behavior of the human mind very closely. He Ford [8] who provided a more provoking goes further by stating these machines “will concern in a moral objection concerned with the make mistakes at times and at times they may artificial constraints the setting imposes on the make new and very interesting statements, and participants of the game and to express their on the whole the output of them will be worth inability to find a practical use for the Turing attention to the same sort of extent as the output Test. They ask why we put forth so much effort of a human mind.[4]” He looked at the creation to build a machine to imitate a human.
Recommended publications
  • Generative Linguistics and Neural Networks at 60: Foundation, Friction, and Fusion*
    Generative linguistics and neural networks at 60: foundation, friction, and fusion* Joe Pater, University of Massachusetts Amherst October 3, 2018. Abstract. The birthdate of both generative linguistics and neural networks can be taken as 1957, the year of the publication of foundational work by both Noam Chomsky and Frank Rosenblatt. This paper traces the development of these two approaches to cognitive science, from their largely autonomous early development in their first thirty years, through their collision in the 1980s around the past tense debate (Rumelhart and McClelland 1986, Pinker and Prince 1988), and their integration in much subsequent work up to the present. Although this integration has produced a considerable body of results, the continued general gulf between these two lines of research is likely impeding progress in both: on learning in generative linguistics, and on the representation of language in neural modeling. The paper concludes with a brief argument that generative linguistics is unlikely to fulfill its promise of accounting for language learning if it continues to maintain its distance from neural and statistical approaches to learning. 1. Introduction At the beginning of 1957, two men nearing their 29th birthdays published work that laid the foundation for two radically different approaches to cognitive science. One of these men, Noam Chomsky, continues to contribute sixty years later to the field that he founded, generative linguistics. The book he published in 1957, Syntactic Structures, has been ranked as the most influential work in cognitive science from the 20th century.1 The other one, Frank Rosenblatt, had by the late 1960s largely moved on from his research on perceptrons – now called neural networks – and died tragically young in 1971.
    [Show full text]
  • Neural Networks and the Distorted Automation of Intelligence As Statistical Inference Matteo Pasquinelli
    JOURNAL > SITE 1: LOGIC GATE, THE POLITICS OF THE ARTIFACTUAL MIND | 2017 Machines that Morph Logic: Neural Networks and the Distorted Automation of Intelligence as Statistical Inference Matteo Pasquinelli Perceptrons [artificial neural networks] are not intended to serve as detailed copies of any actual nervous system. They are simplified networks, designed to permit the study of lawful relationships between the organization of a nerve net, the organization of its environment, and the “psychological” performances of which the network is capable. Perceptrons might actually correspond to parts of more extended networks in biological systems… More likely, they represent extreme simplifications of the central nervous system, in which some properties are exaggerated, others suppressed. —Frank Rosenblatt1 No algorithm exists for the metaphor, nor can a metaphor be produced by means of a computer’s precise instructions, no matter what the volume of organized information to be fed in. —Umberto Eco2 The term Artificial Intelligence is often cited in popular press as well as in art and philosophy circles as an alchemic talisman whose functioning is rarely explained. The hegemonic paradigm to date (also crucial to the automation of labor) is not based on GOFAI (Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence that never succeeded at automating symbolic deduction), but on the neural networks designed by Frank Rosenblatt back in 1958 to automate statistical induction. The text highlights the role of logic gates in the Machines that Morph Logic: Neural Networks and the Distorted Automation of Intelligence as Statistical Inference | Matteo Pasquinelli distributed architecture of neural networks, in which a generalized control loop affects each node of computation to perform pattern recognition.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:2012.03642V1 [Cs.LG] 7 Dec 2020 Results for Learning Sparse Perceptrons and Compare the Results to Those Obtained from Subgradient- Based Methods
    OPT2020: 12th Annual Workshop on Optimization for Machine Learning Generalised Perceptron Learning Xiaoyu Wang [email protected] Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge Martin Benning [email protected] School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London Abstract We present a generalisation of Rosenblatt’s traditional perceptron learning algorithm to the class of proximal activation functions and demonstrate how this generalisation can be interpreted as an incremental gradient method applied to a novel energy function. This novel energy function is based on a generalised Bregman distance, for which the gradient with respect to the weights and biases does not require the differentiation of the activation function. The interpretation as an energy minimisation algorithm paves the way for many new algorithms, of which we explore a novel variant of the iterative soft-thresholding algorithm for the learning of sparse perceptrons. Keywords: Perceptron, Bregman distance, Rosenblatt’s learning algorithm, Sparsity, ISTA 1. Introduction In this work, we consider the problem of training perceptrons with (potentially) non-smooth ac- tivation functions. Standard training procedures such as subgradient-based methods often have undesired properties such as potentially slow convergence [2,6, 18]. We revisit the training of an artificial neuron [14] and further show that Rosenblatt’s perceptron learning algorithm can be viewed as a special case of incremental gradient descent method (cf. [3]) with respect to a novel choice of energy. This new interpretation allows us to devise approaches that avoid the computa- tion of sub-differentials with respect to non-smooth activation functions and thus provides better handling for the non-smoothness in the overall minimisation objective during training.
    [Show full text]
  • Deep Learning: State of the Art (2020) Deep Learning Lecture Series
    Deep Learning: State of the Art (2020) Deep Learning Lecture Series For the full list of references visit: http://bit.ly/deeplearn-sota-2020 https://deeplearning.mit.edu 2020 Outline • Deep Learning Growth, Celebrations, and Limitations • Deep Learning and Deep RL Frameworks • Natural Language Processing • Deep RL and Self-Play • Science of Deep Learning and Interesting Directions • Autonomous Vehicles and AI-Assisted Driving • Government, Politics, Policy • Courses, Tutorials, Books • General Hopes for 2020 For the full list of references visit: http://bit.ly/deeplearn-sota-2020 https://deeplearning.mit.edu 2020 “AI began with an ancient wish to forge the gods.” - Pamela McCorduck, Machines Who Think, 1979 Frankenstein (1818) Ex Machina (2015) Visualized here are 3% of the neurons and 0.0001% of the synapses in the brain. Thalamocortical system visualization via DigiCortex Engine. For the full list of references visit: http://bit.ly/deeplearn-sota-2020 https://deeplearning.mit.edu 2020 Deep Learning & AI in Context of Human History We are here Perspective: • Universe created 13.8 billion years ago • Earth created 4.54 billion years ago • Modern humans 300,000 years ago 1700s and beyond: Industrial revolution, steam • Civilization engine, mechanized factory systems, machine tools 12,000 years ago • Written record 5,000 years ago For the full list of references visit: http://bit.ly/deeplearn-sota-2020 https://deeplearning.mit.edu 2020 Artificial Intelligence in Context of Human History We are here Perspective: • Universe created 13.8 billion years ago • Earth created 4.54 billion years ago • Modern humans Dreams, mathematical foundations, and engineering in reality. 300,000 years ago Alan Turing, 1951: “It seems probable that once the machine • Civilization thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip 12,000 years ago our feeble powers.
    [Show full text]
  • Neurons Spike Back: the Invention of Inductive Machines and the Artificial Intelligence Controversy Dominique Cardon, Jean-Philippe Cointet, Antoine Mazieres
    Neurons spike back: The Invention of Inductive Machines and the Artificial Intelligence Controversy Dominique Cardon, Jean-Philippe Cointet, Antoine Mazieres To cite this version: Dominique Cardon, Jean-Philippe Cointet, Antoine Mazieres. Neurons spike back: The Invention of Inductive Machines and the Artificial Intelligence Controversy. Réseaux, La Découverte, 2018, n°211 (5), pp.173. 10.3917/res.211.0173. hal-02190026 HAL Id: hal-02190026 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02190026 Submitted on 21 Jul 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. NEURONS SPIKE BACK The Invention of Inductive Machines and the Artificial Intelligence Controversy Dominique CARDON Jean-Philippe COINTET Antoine MAZIÈRES La Découverte | « Réseaux » 2018/5 n° 211 | pp. 173-220 ISSN 0751-7971 ISBN 9782348040689 To cite this article : Dominique Cardon, Jean-Philippe Cointet et Antoine Mazières, «Neurons spike back. The invention of inductive machines and the artificial intelligence controversy », Réseaux 2018/5 (n° 211), pp. 173-220. DOI 10.3917/res.211.0173 Neurons spike back - Réseaux n° 211/2018 ​ Abstract Since 2010, machine learning based predictive techniques, and more specifically deep learning neural networks, have achieved spectacular performances in the fields of image recognition or automatic translation, under the umbrella term of “Artificial Intelligence”.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:2109.01517V1 [Cs.AI] 3 Sep 2021
    A BRIEF HISTORY OF AI: HOW TO PREVENT ANOTHER WINTER (A CRITICAL REVIEW) Amirhosein Toosi Andrea Bottino Department of Integrative Oncology Department of Computer and Control Eng. BC Cancer Research Institute Polytechnic University of Turin Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1L3 Turin, Italy 10129 [email protected] [email protected] Babak Saboury Eliot Siegel Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine National Institutes of Health University of Maryland School of Medicine Bethesda, MD 20892 Baltimore, MD 21201 [email protected] [email protected] Arman Rahmim Departments of Radiology and Physics University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC [email protected] September 9, 2021 ABSTRACT The field of artificial intelligence (AI), regarded as one of the most enigmatic areas of science, has witnessed exponential growth in the past decade including a remarkably wide array of applications, having already impacted our everyday lives. Advances in computing power and the design of sophisticated AI algorithms have enabled computers to outperform humans in a variety of tasks, especially in the areas of computer vision and speech recognition. Yet, AI’s path has never been smooth, having essentially fallen apart twice in its lifetime (‘winters’ of AI), both after periods of popular success (‘summers’ of AI). We provide a brief rundown of AI’s evolution over the course of arXiv:2109.01517v2 [cs.AI] 8 Sep 2021 decades, highlighting its crucial moments and major turning points from inception to the present. In doing so, we attempt to learn, anticipate the future, and discuss what steps may be taken to prevent another ‘winter’.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae
    Curriculum Vitae Geoffrey E. Hinton January 6, 2020 Citizenship: Canadian (also British) Address: Department of Computer Science University of Toronto 10 Kings College Road Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G4 Canada Email: [email protected] Higher Education and Qualifications 1967 - 1970 Cambridge University, B.A. Hons (Experimental Psychology) 1972 - 1975 Edinburgh University, PhD. in Artificial Intelligence (awarded 1978) Professional Experience Jan 76 - Sept 78 Research Fellow Cognitive Studies Program, Sussex University, England Oct 78 - Sept 80 Visiting Scholar Program in Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego Oct 80 - Sept 82 Scientific Officer MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, England Jan 82 - June 82 Visiting Assistant Professor Psychology Department, University of California, San Diego Oct 82 - June 87 Assistant Professor then Associate Professor Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA Jul 87 - June 98 Professor Computer Science Department, University of Toronto, Canada Jul 98 - Sep 01 Founding Director of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit University College London, England Oct 01 - Professor Computer Science Department, University of Toronto, Canada (Became\University Professor" in 2006 then Emeritus in 2014) Mar 13 - Sep 16 Distinguished Researcher, Google (half-time). Oct 16 - VP and Engineering Fellow, Google (half-time). Jan 17 - Chief Scientific Adviser, Vector Institute (pro bono) 1 Professional Recognition Fellowships 2016 Honorary Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering 2015 Honorary Foreign Member of the Spanish Real Academia de Ingenieria 2014 Distinguished Fellow, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research 2003 Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2003 Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society 1998 Fellow of the Royal Society 1996 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada 1991 Fellow, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 1987 Fellow, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (1987-1998; 2004-2014) Awards 2019 ACM A.
    [Show full text]
  • Marvin Lee Minsky
    Marvin Lee Minsky Born August 9, 1927, New York; with John McCarthy, established the basic concepts of artificial intelligence; with Seymour Papert in 1969, solidified the computational limits of Rosenblatt's Perceptron. Education: BA, physics, Harvard University, 1950; PhD, Princeton University, 1954. Professional Experience: Lincoln Laboratory, 1957-1958; MIT: professor, mathematics, 1958-1961; professor, electrical engineering, 1958-present; director, Project MAC AI group, 1968-1970; director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 1970-present. Honors and Awards: ACM Turing Award, 1969. Marvin Minsky has probably had more influence, or been a colleague of more people who have had influence, on the development of the concepts of artificial intelligence than any other single person. Over a period of 35 years he has probed most of the classic conjectures of the means to implement or model artificial intelligence. The Perceptron, conceived by Frank Rosenblatt in the mid- 1950s, consisted of a set of photocells and random wiring which was capable of “learning” to recognize specific shapes, such as letters of the alphabet, possibly resembling the brain. Minsky and Papert wrote a book on Perceptrons and were able to define their mathematical properties, thereby allowing them to define the limits of the concept. Minsky gave up this field of study; however, in the form of neural nets, the concept is receiving attention again in the 1990s. In the 1960s Minsky developed new mathematical ideas about artificial intelligence and applied his efforts towards pattern recognition and, eventually, vision. This led to the concept of “frames of information” and to the emergence of the ideas of “knowledge engineering.” Throughout this period he worked on robotic devices endowed with vision in the early 1970s.
    [Show full text]
  • Perceptrons: an Associative Learning Network
    Perceptrons: An Associative Learning Network by Michele D. Estebon Virginia Tech CS 3604, Spring 1997 In the early days of artificial intelligence research, Frank Rosenblatt devised a machine called the perceptron that operated much in the same way as the human mind. Albeit, it did not have what could be called a "mental capacity", it could "learn" - and that was the breakthrough needed to pioneer todayís current neural network technologies. A perceptron is a connected network that simulates an associative memory. The most basic perceptron is composed of an input layer and output layer of nodes, each of which are fully connected to the other. Assigned to each connection is a weight which can be adjusted so that, given a set of inputs to the network, the associated connections will produce a desired output. The adjusting of weights to produce a particular output is called the "training" of the network which is the mechanism that allows the network to learn. Perceptrons are among the earliest and most basic models of artificial neural networks, yet they are at work in many of todayís complex neural net applications. An Associative Network Model In order to understand the operations of the human brain, many researchers have chosen to create models based on findings in biological neural research. Neurobiologists have shown that human nerve cells have no memory of their own, rather memory is made up of a series of connections, or associations, throughout the nervous system. A response in one cell triggers responses in others which triggers more in others until these responses eventually lead to a so-called ìrecognitionî of the input stimuli.
    [Show full text]
  • The Emergence of Fuzzy Sets in the Decade of the Perceptron—Lotfi A
    mathematics Article The Emergence of Fuzzy Sets in the Decade of the Perceptron—Lotfi A. Zadeh’s and Frank Rosenblatt’s Research Work on Pattern Classification Rudolf Seising The Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Deutsches Museum, 80538 Munich, Germany; [email protected]; Tel.: +49-(0)-89-2179-298 Received: 25 May 2018; Accepted: 19 June 2018; Published: 26 June 2018 Abstract: In the 1950s, the mathematically oriented electrical engineer, Lotfi A. Zadeh, investigated system theory, and in the mid-1960s, he established the theory of Fuzzy sets and systems based on the mathematical theorem of linear separability and the pattern classification problem. Contemporaneously, the psychologist, Frank Rosenblatt, developed the theory of the perceptron as a pattern recognition machine based on the starting research in so-called artificial intelligence, and especially in research on artificial neural networks, until the book of Marvin L. Minsky and Seymour Papert disrupted this research program. In the 1980s, the Parallel Distributed Processing research group requickened the artificial neural network technology. In this paper, we present the interwoven historical developments of the two mathematical theories which opened up into fuzzy pattern classification and fuzzy clustering. Keywords: pattern classification; fuzzy sets; perceptron; artificial neural networks; Lotfi A. Zadeh; Frank Rosenblatt 1. Introduction “Man’s pattern recognition process—that is, his ability to select, classify, and abstract significant information from the sea of sensory information in which he is immersed—is a vital part of his intelligent behavior.” Charles Rosen [1] (p. 38) In the 1960s, capabilities for classification, discrimination, and recognition of patterns were demands concerning systems deserving of the label “intelligent”.
    [Show full text]
  • Connectionism: Past, Present, and Future Jordan B
    Connectionism: Past, Present, and Future Jordan B. Pollack Computer & Information Science Department The Ohio State University 1. Introduction Research efforts to study computation and cognitive modeling on neurally-inspired mechanisms have come to be called Connectionism. Rather than being brand-new, it is actually the rebirth of a research pro- gram which thrived from the 40's through the 60's and then was severely retrenched in the 70's. Connec- tionism is often posed as a paradigmatic competitor to the Symbolic Processing tradition of Arti®cial Intel- ligence (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1988), and, indeed, the counterpoint in the timing of their intellectual and commercial fortunes may lead one to believe that research in cognition is merely a zero-sum game. This paper surveys the history of the ®eld, often in relation to AI, discusses its current successes and failures, and makes some predictions for where it might lead in the future. 2. Early Endeavors: High Hopes and Hubris Before the explosion of symbolic arti®cial intelligence, there were many researchers working on mathematical models of intelligence inspired by what was known about the architecture of the brain. Under an assumption that the mind arises out of the brain, a reasonable research path to the arti®cial mind was by simulating the brain to see what kind of mind could be created. At the basis of this program was the assumption that neurons were the information processing primitives of the brain, and that reasonable models of neurons connected into networks would suf®ce. 2.1. McCullogh & Pitts The opening shot in neural network research was the 1943 paper by Warren S.
    [Show full text]
  • Machine Learning
    Graham Capital Management Research Note, September 2017 Machine Learning Erik Forseth1, Ed Tricker2 Abstract Machine learning is more fashionable than ever for problems in data science, predictive modeling, and quantitative asset management. Developments in the field have revolutionized many aspects of modern life. Nevertheless, it is sometimes difficult to understand where real value ends and speculative hype begins. Here we attempt to demystify the topic. We provide a historical perspective on artificial intelligence and give a light, semi-technical overview of prevailing tools and techniques. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications for investment management. Keywords Machine learning, AI 1Quantitative Research Analyst 2Head of Research and Development 1. Introduction by the data they are fed—which attempt to find a solution to some mathematical optimization problem. There remains a Machine Learning is the study of computer algorithms that vast gulf between the space of tasks which can be formulated improve automatically through experience. in this way, and the space of tasks that require, for example, – Tom Mitchell (1997) reasoning or abstract planning. There is a fundamental divide Machine Learning (ML) has emerged as one of the most between the capability of a computer model to map inputs to exciting areas of research across nearly every dimension of outputs, versus our own human intelligence [Chollet (2017)]. contemporary digital life. From medical diagnostics to recom- In grouping these methods under the moniker “artificial in- mendation systems—such as those employed by Amazon or telligence,” we risk imbuing them with faculties they do not Netflix—adaptive computer algorithms have radically altered have.
    [Show full text]