Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagDeepMind

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cropped shot of robot playing chess on wooden surface

Is AlphaZero Actually Superior to the Human Mind?

Comparing AI and the human mind is completely apples and oranges

The Google-backed AI company DeepMind made headlines in March 2016 when its AlphaGo game AI engine was able to defeat Lee Sedol, one of the top Go players in the world. DeepMind followed up this great achievement with the AlphaZero engine in 2017, which made the remarkable achievement of soundly beating AlphaGo in Go as well as one of the world’s best chess engines in chess. The interesting difference between AlphaGo and AlphaZero is that AlphaGo uses databases of top human games for learning, while AlphaZero only learns by playing against itself. Using the same AI engine to dominate two different games, while also discarding reliance on human games suggests that DeepMind has found an algorithm that is intrinsically superior Read More ›

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Close-up image of coder typing on computer

The Search for the Universal Algorithm Continues

Why does machine learning always seem to be rounding a corner, only to eventually hit a wall?

DeepMind, a part of Alphabet (i.e., Google), has made many headlines in the past. The biggest was its development of AlphaGo, which used reinforcement learning to beat the number one Go player at the time (2017). DeepMind generalized this into AlphaZero, which is supposedly able to solve any two-player game of perfect information. DeepMind has come back into headlines recently with the attempt to build an AI which can generate any algorithm. While they are starting with map data, the goal is to generalize this and generate any desired algorithm. The search for such a “universal algorithm” has been essentially equivalent to the search for a perpetual motion machine in physics. The allure of both is obvious. In physics, if you Read More ›

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silhouette of virtual human on abstract technology 3d illustration

George Gilder: An Economic Genius Talks About Gaming AI

George Gilder talks to Robert J. Marks about his book Gaming AI: Why AI Can’t Think but Can Transform Jobs. Show Notes 00:00:45 | Introducing George Gilder 00:03:30 | Is AI a new demotion of the human race? 00:04:59 | The AI movement 00:06:39 | DeepMind and protein folding 00:11:42 | Code-breaking in World War II 00:13:50 | Interpreting between Read More ›

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3d rendering  of futuristic blue circuit board

Can AI Design AI?: Responding to Google’s Latest Tech

Anything can be intelligence if we set the bar low enough

Could a computer design itself? Could it design a bigger and better computer? A team at Google says yes. According to a recent article at NewScientist, Google has begun using AI to design AI. “Engineers at Google have tasked an artificial intelligence with designing faster and more efficient processors – and then used its chip designs to develop the next generation of specialised computers that run the very same type of AI algorithms,” writes Matthew Sparkes. Sparkes continues by explaining Google’s chip design, and introducing the reader to Google’s Anna Goldie, a member of the team at the front of this effort that tasks computers with making better computers. “It is conceivable,” says Sparkes, “that this new AI-designed chip will be used Read More ›

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Human prion (3d model). Prion is an infectious agent that can fo

AlphaFold Scores Huge Breakthrough in Analyzing Causes of Disease

In a world so deeply designed and complexly organized, we need a quick and practical way of knowing what was going on in cells and viruses. AI can help

Alphabet’s DeepMind team has just scored a breakthrough in finding treatments for diseases. Their latest AlphaFold system won a grand challenge in analyzing the “folds” of proteins. Proteins—large and often very complex chains of amino acids—do the work in our cells. But, like all bodies, they are three-dimensional. We can’t understand them until we can analyze the folds (the third dimension) that are unique to each type among hundreds of thousands. Knowing what a given protein actually does (or doesn’t) is critical to developing many new medical treatments. How hard is the problem? In his acceptance speech for the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Christian Anfinsen famously postulated that, in theory, a protein’s amino acid sequence should fully determine its Read More ›

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schematic of human brain and communication via circuit-board, artificial intelligence

George Gilder on Superintelligent AI

George Gilder and Robert J. Marks discuss the human brain, superintelligent machines, artificial intelligence, and George Gilder’s new book Gaming AI: Why AI Can’t Think but Can Transform Jobs (which you can get for free here). Show Notes 00:29 | Introducing George Gilder 01:00 | An “Indian summer” in AI? 03:45 | Superintelligence 06:04 | The future of computing technology Read More ›

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Chain of amino acid or biomolecules called protein - 3d illustration

If AlphaFold Is a Product of Design, Maybe Our Bodies Are Too

The deeper we go into science, the more important our unique human contributions become

Recently, we’ve been looking at tech philosopher George Gilder’s new Gaming AI about what AI can—and can’t—do for us. It can’t do our thinking for us but it can do many jobs we don’t even try because no human being has enough time or patience to motor through all the calculations. Which brings us to the massive complexity of the proteins that carry out our genetic instructions—better knowledge of which would help us battle many diseases. Gilder notes that when DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat humans at the board game Go in 2016, it wasn’t just for the fun of winning a game. DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis (pictured in 2018) is more interested in real-life uses such as medical research (p. 11). Read More ›

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Professional Japanese Development Engineer is Testing an Artificial Intelligence Interface by Playing Chess with a Futuristic Robotic Arm. They are in a High Tech Modern Research Laboratory.

George Gilder on Gaming AI

AI is good at winning games. But how does this (and other) accomplishments translate to applications in the real world? George Gilder and Robert J. Marks discuss artificial intelligence, games, and George Gilder’s new book Gaming AI: Why AI Can’t Think but Can Transform Jobs (which you can get for free here). Show Notes 00:35 | Introducing George Gilder 02:12 Read More ›

COSM-3128

Former Microsoft Head of Research: Machines Will Soon Know Better Than Your Doctor

Other experts at the COSM Technology Summit were skeptical of Craig Mundie’s claims

Mundie, former Microsoft Chief Research & Strategy Officer, formerly told his audience that Big Data will enable each person to be “completely understood” by machines that can produce a computer facsimile of each detail. It would be far too complex for human physicians to make sense of, he said.

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Shovel Annie Spratt Unsplash annie-spratt-j4fV6dKT9tw-unsplash

Do We Need To Learn from AI How To Think Better?

No, and a moment’s thought shows why not
AI can become our "collaborators" only in the sense that a shovel can collaborate with me to dig a hole: It amplifies my powers to do things which are otherwise difficult. Read More ›
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Alpha Go as Alpha Maybe?

DeepMind's AlphaGo defeated a world-champion Go player but further gains were hard won at best
The question scientists must ask, especially about an unexpected finding, is, if no one can reproduce your results, did you discover something new or did you just get lucky? With AI that’s not easy, due to dependence on randomness. Read More ›
The car made of grass.

Can We “Evolve” Self-Driving Cars?

The new method may be an advance but thinking of it as "evolution" at work risks misconceptions

In evolution, “performance” just means the continued survival of a lineage. Thus it can include hybrids between what you might want for your purposes and what you don’t want.

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Superior Artificial Intelligence Wining Chess Concept

Confirmed: DeepMind’s Deepest Mind Is on Leave

The chess champ computer system just never made money
Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman is a philosopher and social justice activist who hoped to use the technology for fundamental transformations. But his AI ethics board lasted about seven days at Google. Read More ›
Photo by Erik Mclean
Supreme money gun

Why Is DeepMind In Deep Water Financially?

Market analysts are wondering if the money is as smart as the machine

In an all-out botwar with the other tech Bigs, DeepMind could simply be paying top minds not to work for the competition while readying AI tools that pay better than winning at board games. Maybe.

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the game of go
the game of go

Why AI Appears To Create Things

When AlphaGo made a winning move, it exhibited no more creative insight than when it played pedestrian moves

Our surprise at AlphaGo’s move says more about our inability to predict what a program will do than about any creative effort of the program. We’ve known for decades that we cannot predict the results of any moderately complex computer program.

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3D technology background with code over male head
3D render of a technology background with code over male head

The Brain Exceeds the Most Powerful Computers in Efficiency

Human thinking takes vastly less computational effort to arrive at the same conclusions.
All of the tasks that AI accomplishes require a certain amount of memory, computational power, and time. We have a good enough understanding of the human brain to measure the same quantities used for the same tasks. Thus, we can measure the difference between what minds and machines require to solve the same problem. Read More ›