
An AI Whose Performance Increases If They Let It Sleep and Dream - danvoell
https://www.sciencealert.com/neural-networks-performance-increases-if-they-re-allowed-to-sleep-and-dream
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ssivark
These articles with headlines relating artificial neural networks with brain
functioning via some superficial analogy are obnoxious. This kind of reporting
based on fresh individual papers is getting out of hand. This work might lead
to Nobel prize winning insights, or end up as a completely irrelevant footnote
in scientific history. Writing profound-sounding headlines about unknown value
with regards to long-term progress is awful sensationalism that leads to loss
of credibility of publishing org ("the boy who cried wolf") and encourages the
worst kind of flag planting culture among researchers.

I don't know why I'm so riled up by this article; it's just the last straw on
the camel's back. Putting up with this is exhausting.

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doublekill
I thought this was about World Models paper. There maybe you can give them a
little leeway: AI has more slack equating humans and machines.

This paper reeks of antromorphization for the hype of it. It gets you
headlines like this, but is probably detrimental to the field as a whole.

Part of the Troubling Trends in Machine Learning Scholarship

> In the first avenue, a new technical term is coined that has a suggestive
> colloquial meaning, thus sneaking in connotations without the need to argue
> for them. This often manifests in anthropomorphic characterizations of tasks
> (reading comprehension [31] and music composition [59]) and techniques
> (curiosity [66] and fear [48]). A number of papers name components of
> proposed models in a manner suggestive of human cognition, e.g. “thought
> vectors” [36] and the “consciousness prior” [4]. Our goal is not to rid the
> academic literature of all such language; when properly qualified, these
> connections might communicate a fruitful source of inspiration. However,
> when a suggestive term is assigned technical meaning, each subsequent paper
> has no choice but to confuse its readers, either by embracing the term or by
> replacing it.

[http://approximatelycorrect.com/2018/07/10/troubling-
trends-...](http://approximatelycorrect.com/2018/07/10/troubling-trends-in-
machine-learning-scholarship/)

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subjectHarold
Other responses are sceptical but this really works. I used to keep my AI
locked up in a cage, never let it sleep, constant training...but I came to
senses. I now have a small paddock in my back yard, I keep all my AI there,
this is AI like nature intended, grass-fed AI, organic AI, the best kind of
AI, no additives, no adulterants, my AI is the best kind of AI, number one AI,
all-time highs AI, and the liberal media...forget about it...they don't want
to talk about how good our AI is, never been better, huge hands AI, my AI
Uncle went to Harvard Business School, Wharton and I remember he told me:
"Always treat your AI like you would want your AI to be treated"...great
advice, it really works AI.

~~~
tcrow
Fresh, organic AI is the only way to go. Can't wait for the Netflix special.

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jsf01
Journalists love making clickbait headlines like this, but if you read the
article it’s just separating the NN’s processing into two phases: one for
consolidation of learned material, and one for learning. Calling the former
“sleeping and dreaming” is a stretch.

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1ste
The use of the words 'sleep' and 'dream' make me instantly skeptical.

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rococode
With regards to the headline, the actual paper uses the same terms so it's not
just journalists making things up to humanize AI. The paper introduces an
"awake regime" and a "sleep regime", and "Dreaming neural networks" is
literally its title. Whether that's an appropriately non-clickbaity name is a
different matter, but they do try to justify the naming (they reference things
like REM sleep as inspirations for the unlearning & consolidation components
of the model) and it was accepted as-is into a legitimate peer-reviewed
journal.

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darepublic
this site seems to employ a ton of clickbait titles and thumbnails that lead
to fairly pedestrian articles

