
Machine learning algorithms used to decode and enhance human memory - prostoalex
https://www.wired.com/story/ml-brain-boost/
======
allenz
This study is interesting, but it's not really AI and it's not really novel.

The researchers fit a regression to predict word recall from high-frequency
EEG activity when memorizing the word. We've known for several years that
high-frequency activity predicts memory success, so this part isn't new.

In addition, several papers have tried to improve memory through high-
frequency stimulation from brain implants, with various results. This paper
proposes "closed-loop" stimulation, delivering stimulation only when the
classifier predicts failure. They find that closed-loop is effective.

What the authors really want to claim is that closed-loop is _more_ effective
than open-loop, because otherwise their fancy "AI" classifier is useless.
Surprisingly, this study does not compare closed-loop vs. open-loop.

~~~
Supersaiyan_IV
I'm sad that the AI acronym has become overused, and has lost its credibility.
Back in 2004 even the expression "Expert System" was warily used, and only
when appropriate. The way this is going we're going to have AI toasters by the
end of the year.

~~~
jdale27
_The way this is going we 're going to have AI toasters by the end of the
year._

I'd be surprised if they don't exist already. We already have AI rice cookers:
"Zojirushi's top-of-the-line Induction Heating Pressure Rice Cooker & Warmer
uses pressurized cooking and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to cook perfect
rice." \-- from
[https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/npnvc](https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/npnvc)

~~~
new299
I realize this is somewhat ridiculous, but I actually found their FAQ [0] and
the product very interesting.

The term "AI" has become somewhat meaningless, but in this case they appear to
be adjusting cooking time based on previous results. I'd guess they are
probably adjusting a couple of parameters.

My basic understanding of how rice cookers work, is that they essentially
apply full heating power until all the water has boiled away/been absorbed.
They know when this happens by monitoring the temperature, the temperature
wont rise above 100 degrees until all the water has boiled away. At this point
they shut off.

I guess more "intelligent" rice cookers can do a little more than this, maybe
if they see that it's consistently taking less time than expected to cook the
rice they can heat to a lower temperature at the start to aid water absorption
or something? Would be interested in knowing more.

[0] [https://www.zojirushi.com/app/faq/rice-
cookers](https://www.zojirushi.com/app/faq/rice-cookers)

------
stanfordkid
Personally what I worry about is that there are too many conflicting,
adaptive, self-correcting systems that we don't understand from first
principles.

The body has it's own internal "AI" that also responds and adapts to these
incoming pulses over time. You could probably snort some speed and get the
same effect described here ... but if you keep doing it, it won't keep
working. Now replace the Speed with AI that generates the pulses and can adapt
the dosage in response to the bodies AI... we just don't know what it would do
long-term.

The real problem IMO is that the AI prescribing the dosage doesn't have any of
the sensory inputs the human brain does. So it might boost working memory in a
way that is maladaptive to the situation.

All in all -- I think these technologies could be quite interesting for
allowing us to hyper-evolve out of our mental limitations that are still over-
fitted to living in the jungle... but might make us weak as a species in the
long run by forcing us to have sensory stimulations that are overfitted to a
particular prescribed state that we label as "good".

~~~
davidgu
It seems that almost every technological development will cause us to become
"weak as a species," for the simple reason that these developments remove
difficulties we have faced in the past.

Cars and bicycles damaged our endurance. Shoes softened our soles. If these
technologies disappeared overnight, yes we would be worse off as a species,
but that says nothing about the benefits of these technologies.

If these technologies improve our mental effectiveness, even if only within a
specific type of sensory stimulation, it's likely that we would adapt our
sensory perceptions to deliver these "optimized states," possibly through new
technology, for an overall net gain in efficacy.

~~~
Corvus
“If men learn this ... they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on
that which is written” - Plato on literacy, ca. 350 BCE.

~~~
JoshMnem
He was right to some extent.

~~~
davidgu
He was absolutely right. It's just that the benefits of written language
massively outweigh the small loss in memory performance we experience.

If your computer's OS and all your files were stored on a 64gb ramdisk, it
would be fast, yes, but not very useful.

------
seibelj
> The fact remains that while Kahana’s system can improve word recall in
> specific circumstances, he doesn’t know exactly how it’s improving function.
> That’s the nature of machine learning.

> Luckily, Kahana's team has thought this through, and some algorithms are
> easier to scrutinize than others. For this particular study, the researchers
> used a simple linear classifier, which allowed them to draw some inferences
> about how activity at individual electrodes might contribute to their
> model's ability to discriminate between patterns of brain activity.

Isn’t linear regression the easiest of all ML to understand? It’s neural
networks that cause black boxes.

~~~
madenine
simple linear classifier... I'm guess logistic regression? And yes, neither
would be a black box.

------
justonepost
Better title: Tickling the brain with low-intensity electrical stimulation in
a specific area can improve verbal short-term memory.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180129134354.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180129134354.htm)

~~~
JoshMnem
It can also lower IQ scores.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150505152140.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150505152140.htm)

------
jefft255
The "AI" algorithm used in the paper is far from a black box. It's logistic
regression, which is extremely well understood and has been used by
statisticians and scientists for decades.

------
madenine
"The fact remains that while Kahana’s system can improve word recall in
specific circumstances, he doesn’t know exactly how it’s improving function.
That’s the nature of machine learning."

Seems like its also the nature of electro-stimulus to the brain.

Is the real story here in ML/AI, or in advances regarding 'when is it helpful
to shock your brain a bit vs when is it not'?

~~~
simonster
It's not totally clear to me whether there is a real story in ML/AI or
neuroscience.

The authors used logistic regression to try to determine whether a subject
will remember a word or not, which the classifier did better than chance, but
still did pretty badly, with an AUC of 0.61. Then, when the classifier said
the probability of remembering the stimulus is less than 0.5, they sent some
current through some electrodes. The set of electrodes to stimulate and the
current were selected in consultation with a neurologist and fixed at the
start of the session. They found that stimulation in the lateral temporal
cortex was associated with a significant (but just barely) increase in recall
compared to no stimulation or stimulation outside of lateral temporal cortex.
(But it's unclear whether this decision to look at effects in LTC vs. outside
of LTC was made a priori. If it was not, and many comparisons conducted before
arriving on this story, then the effect may not be statistically significant
after adjusting for the comparisons.)

Beyond the question of whether the outcome was selected post hoc, the main
problem with the study is that, unless I have missed it, there is no control
to demonstrate that selecting the trials on which to stimulate using the
classifier is better than stimulating on every trial. This control seems
necessary to demonstrate that the linear classifier (which is apparently now
"artificial intelligence") is in any way useful. Otherwise, this paper has
little scientific value, short of possibly providing another data point
regarding the effect of stimulation upon memory.

Link to paper:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02753-0#Sec19](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02753-0#Sec19)

------
oregontechninja
You can see better improvement simply by learning how to use your memory
properly. The memory palace technique has saved my life

------
mmasters
A recent innovation we thought you should be aware of is related to the
ability to provide for increased spatio-temporal resolution of the underlying
EEG data set as a pre processing step prior to feeding the recorded EEG data
into machine learning algorithms. TRUUST has pioneered this and is seeing
fantastic results Pre-Clinically on MEA's in drug discovery research for
Fragile X and Epilepsy indications. The technology was developed with Epilepsy
in mind however. If anyone would have an interest feel free to reach out to us
info@truustneuroimaging.com and below are related publications and resources.
We thought it made more sense to enhance the data quality first rather than
trying to optimize the crap out of algorithms given the problem generally
results in better outcomes when better data goes in; garbage in garbage out
sort of deal.

Published paper in Journal for Neuroscience Methods:
[https://www.clearslide.com/view/mail?iID=3f3TTfMPJNBRhXhRDJD...](https://www.clearslide.com/view/mail?iID=3f3TTfMPJNBRhXhRDJDt)

Published Poster with Scripps at SfN for Fragile X:
[https://www.clearslide.com/view/mail?iID=C5dp3gjmMWnMxKktk44...](https://www.clearslide.com/view/mail?iID=C5dp3gjmMWnMxKktk44j)

Cool video showing what is possible with recorded EEG:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhRwpAA1KeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhRwpAA1KeA)

------
laichzeit0
It would be great if people started referring to classification and regression
algorithms as Statistical Learning instead of Machine Learning. But then no
one would write an article like this I guess.

~~~
red75prime
Statistical learning by using gradient descent on functions with a special
structure, which significantly improved classification accuracy in the tasks
some people tend to associate with intelligence.

------
vinchuco
>But people—and institutional review boards—aren’t usually amenable to
cracking open skulls in the name of science.

I feel as if future civilizations (if we get there) will look back at the lack
of practice quoted above with the same demeanor as we do now for geocentrism:

Should the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

------
kaycebasques
Summary: Researchers collaborated with epilepsy patients, who already had
electrodes implanted in their brain to monitor seizures, to improve the
patients' memory. The electrodes are capable of both reading brain patterns,
and stimulating brain activity. ML algorithms learned what each patient's
brain pattern looked like when they successfully memorized a word. The ML
algorithms would then provide a jolt to mirror those successful-memorization-
brain-patterns for words that the patient would historically not have
memorized.

~~~
daddosi
It wil turn into a kind of pre-crime.

------
daddosi
Thats not what we want. The memory should be recalled from external brainz. I
just want to be a professor and a doctor of everything and clearly remember
every paper written about everything complete with animated visuals and
indexing.

------
diziet
A step toward building neural laces.

------
stoical1
15%

------
chiefalchemist
Be careful what you wish for. Not all memories are good. Some are best left
forgotten.

The irony is we keep failing to remember to consider unintended consequences.

~~~
d33
Even if we consider them, what do you suggest? Stop all the research?

~~~
John_KZ
I would definitely suggest not using epilepsy patients as lab rats. First off,
the article says "Machine learning is inherently notoriously inscrutable"
which is extremely wrong and ignorant. Then they proceed to demonstrate how
they essentially failed to force people to memorize useless words on a screen,
by zapping their brains while not really know what they're doing or how
anything works. This is NOT my idea of ethical, late-stage pre-market human
research. This is something to do on rats, not people. This is the same as
shock therapy of rebellious women in the 60's. It's horrible, has irreversible
side effects and you need to stop doing it. These are people, not toys for
PhDs.

~~~
irascible
I think you can chill out a little. These are volunteers and this is
speculative research. And these people are already wired and receiving gross
electric shocks to different nerve clusters in their brain to regulate
epilepsy, so I doubt that more nuanced stimulation like this, is much worse,
and may lead to new breakthroughs, and may turn what is a handicap, into a
special abilility for these people. They are pioneers.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Ok. So when do we stop chilling out?

The fact remains: not all memories are desirable.

