
Air Force Looks for ‘Core Algorithms’ of Human Thought - vaksel
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/air-force-looks-for-core-algorithms-of-human-thought/
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russell
The article is skeptical and superficial, but if I were to assemble a research
program to create real-world, operates-out-in-the-wild intelligence, my one
page executive overview would look a lot like the Air Force requirements. This
set of problems is going to be nibbled away a bit at a time. Some of them may
be horrendously difficult and some may be low hanging fruit.

I think that this will be open research and not filed away in some secret
warehouse a la Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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inigojones
So this is kind of like the study of how humans think ... or their
"cognition", say. You could call it a ... cognitive science.

I only mention this because the phrase "cognitive science" isn't mentioned
once in the linked article or the call for proposals. Cognitive scientists
have been working on the problem of finding the "algorithms of thought" for
decades. Look at Marr's Vision, or Randy Gallistel's body of work (in
particular his new book Memory and the computational brain) for examples.

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stcredzero
Noah Shachtman gets a downmod for no research. We have _some_ idea of what the
components of the mind are now. We can relate all of the branches of
mathematics and science to specific areas of function with an evolutionary
basis.

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Mind-Works-Steven-
Pinker/dp/039333...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Mind-Works-Steven-
Pinker/dp/0393334775)

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ajross
Reading only the headline: how many thought this was a joke? I mean, really, a
huge AI/neuroscience crossover result coming out of ... a DoD project?

Sadly, it's not a joke; just a really bad idea and a not-funny-enough blog
post making fun of it.

