Neural networks do not imitate the brain and “training” a network has nothing to do with learning, despite these terms serving double duty.
Machine learning models are just math functions fitted to some data. When we get predictions from them, we’re really just using a technique to interpolate between the data points. The denser a particular region has been sampled in the data, the better the predictions will be. (This is why GPT-anything will do a good job writing solutions to common leetcode problems, while struggling with a novel problem.)
Humans have a powerful abstraction ability far beyond any algorithm that has been developed. We can take in a few pieces of information describing a really unusual set of circumstances, run imaginary experiments and simulations on them, and make very granular and accurate predictions about their consequences. Nobody actually knows how.
I don't want to be pedantic. But I'd like to interject. We can simulate everything with math functions. If the algorithm isn't there yet it's because we're using the wrong functions.
Are you a physicalist or a dualist, in the philosophy of mind senses of those words? I don't see how what we do is much different than computers as both use fundamental physical computation to achieve a result. It could simply be that our brains are much more complex in their computation than current computers, but they both compute nonetheless.
I have no idea! I don’t think these questions can be answered (despite modern culture expressing absolute faith in physicalism).
But back to the subject of deep learning, whatever brains do, I think it’s pretty clear that existing neural networks don’t approximate the biological process. They’re just too static.
Machine learning models are just math functions fitted to some data. When we get predictions from them, we’re really just using a technique to interpolate between the data points. The denser a particular region has been sampled in the data, the better the predictions will be. (This is why GPT-anything will do a good job writing solutions to common leetcode problems, while struggling with a novel problem.)
Humans have a powerful abstraction ability far beyond any algorithm that has been developed. We can take in a few pieces of information describing a really unusual set of circumstances, run imaginary experiments and simulations on them, and make very granular and accurate predictions about their consequences. Nobody actually knows how.