
Why even a moth's brain is smarter than AI - mbeissinger
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610278/why-even-a-moths-brain-is-smarter-than-an-ai/
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merricksb
This study was discussed here 7 days ago (67 points, 14 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16363479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16363479)

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skywhopper
"One of the curious features of the deep neural networks behind machine
learning is that they are surprisingly different from the neural networks in
biological systems."

What a silly thing to say. It's pretty depressing that there are obviously
scientists, engineers, and investors out there with the arrogance and/or
naivete to believe that software neural nets are something more than mere
conceptual mimicry of layman-level theory about how actual brains work.

What's really sad is that however good brains are at what they do, it's also
pretty silly to think that emulating them more closely is a good way to
improve digital computer systems, which have entirely different strengths.
Yes, take what we can learn from how brains process information efficiently,
but don't try to force an incomplete and inaccurate model of brain function
onto non-biological hardware and expect it to be anything more than a poor
brain and a poor computer.

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mattigames
Maybe the millions of years they had to perfect their brains for the tasks
needed for their survival has something to do with it; modern computing has
not even one century in the making.

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vixen99
More likely, the substrate on which the action can take place.

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tw1010
Naive/silly question: are we getting anywhere near actually being able to
exploit all these "natural computers" that exist in the wild? Are we getting
close to being able to use the brain of a moth to compute things with higher
quality than what current AI is able to produce? And if so, how close are we
to actually taking advantage of all that compute power, for instance to mine
bitcoin?

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fiblye
This is one of the most terrifying comments I've ever read. The prospect of
harvesting or growing brains to use as computing devices isn't just some weird
thing from cheap scifi anymore, but something someone out there is actually
researching and trying to make work at this very moment.

Growing organs for transplants or meat for consumption is one thing, but using
the brain of a living creature purely as a tool is a whole different kind of
horror.

~~~
jacquesm
2005:

[http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v10n1/extra...](http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v10n1/extract2.html)

You'll probably be able to find earlier examples.

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raducu
The title is quite missleading, the article does not explain at all "why even
a moth's brain is smarter than AI", it doesn't even prove the statement.

It just goes "octopamine ... something something, biological neural nets don't
use backpropagation".

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sharemywin
Wonder if the Octopamine acts as some kind of bucket brigade algorithm to
reward a recorded sequences of stimuli/actions pairs right before a positive
result.

kind of like smell this go left, smell this go right...you win...reward
previous actions.

