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Tag Archive for Sci-Fi

Neural nets and modular capabilities

April 19, 2015 future, Writing Comments Off on Neural nets and modular capabilities

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1004128

This abstract, as it was originally presented via one of the science aggregation websites, was about robots.

Except it wasn’t.  Not really.  I mean, “robots” is the end goal that most people will understand, but what these people are examining is the way that memories are written and rewritten.  They are examining adaptation of the learning process and how that can be applied to the idea of building neural networks.

Right now, when we build an AI, whether it be to assemble cars or act as an enemy in a videogame, it’s very task based.  In an ultra-simplified form you get, “If this happens, you deliver that result.”

But this not only leaves holes in the logic (because what if THAT happens and you didn’t think of it beforehand?) but it makes the programming rigid.  The AI can only operate according to the rules you have set, so if a dog runs into the automotive assembly factory, or a player decides to sneak around the left side of the building instead of the right, you end up with a broken situation.

There is a risk (seemingly) that as we continue to develop neural network based AI’s that this will get coded in there too.  Not always on purpose, but because that is familiar ground.  It is something we can test easily.  It is something we can codify and deliver a clear result that can be shown to colleagues/investors, etc. to keep the funding and interest going.

But in order to truly make a neural net efficient at learning and executing new tasks, it’s got to retain the old tasks.  It’s got to use the knowledge it already has the learn the new stuff even faster (rather than having it handed to them in the form of a programming block).

 

Run, Barry RUN!

April 15, 2015 future, Videogames, Writing Comments Off on Run, Barry RUN!

http://www.sciencedump.com/content/bionic-boots-help-you-run-25-mph

Augmentation is a funny thing.  In science fiction you tend to see integration, bionics, different and intimate ways of meshing machines with humanity.  Superhero fiction and Steampunk tends to be where you find the true gadgeteering.

Experimenting on live people tends to be frowned upon, so oftentimes you see these technologies developing not only in parallel, but there is a certain amount of reinventing the wheel.  The end result seen in these bionic boots mimics the result seen in the “kangaroo” boots that are already on the market. Is the engineering that creates this effect exactly the same?  Probably not, but the end result (that we as the potential user experiences) is very similar.

You see the same kind of thing happening in “bionics” (I’m defining this as “limb replacement” for the purposes of this blog).  There are a half-dozen solutions for getting a replacement hand to close on an object.  Some are simple, mechanical levers and dials operated by the off-hand, some are directly hardwired into the muscles, some use a conductive surface to “read” impulses under the skin, but they all have a very similar end result.

 

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