AI 

How to Build a Mind? This Theory May Guide Us Toward an Answer

<i>From time to time, the Singularity Hub editorial team unearths a gem from the archives and wants to share it all over again. It's usually a piece</i> …

How beauty might have evolved for pleasure, not function

Maybe it’s not all about natural selection<p>Evolutionary biology tells us this story: everything evolved to make us better at reproducing. Everything has a function — and decoration is no exception. The peacock’s elaborate tail seems useless, but actually it tells us how genetically superior the bird …

How video games help improve real-world AI

For decades, video games have been criticized for purportedly wasting time, stifling creativity, and even influencing violent behaviors. Now, it seems that video games have become an unlikely tool for AI researchers to improve their systems.<p>Seeing stop signs<p>Take, for example, Artur Filipowicz, an …

Adapting Morphology to Multiple Tasks in Evolved Virtual Creatures

New Find May Explain How the Brain Creates Consciousness

A New Mapping Method<p>Throughout years of research, the question of consciousness has continued to baffled neuroscientists. Despite all of the …

Mysterious chimpanzee behaviour could prove they believe in God, according to scientists

New footage of ritual behaviour by chimpanzees, taken and analysed by researchers, shows they may be engaging in spiritual practices - and could even believe in God.<p>West African chimpanzees have been captured on camera throwing rocks into holes in trees and engaging in other bizarre behaviour, …

'AI brain scans' reveal what happens inside machine learning

Bristol-based Graphcore has used its AI processing units and software to create maps of what happens during a machine learning process

Hate Trump supporters? Hate liberals? Here's why

Deep in the brain, your amygdala generates a knee-jerk response to political enemies and other threats. But experiments show the divide can be bridged<p>I was walking back to my room on the ninth floor of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur last October, and I happened to meet the guy in the room next door, …

OpenWorm

Last updated: Aug 14, 2012<p>A 3D rendering of the C. elegans nervous system.<p><b>OpenWorm</b> is an attempt to build a complete cellular-level simulation of the …

[1606.00821] Towards a statistical mechanics of consciousness: maximization of number of connections is associated with conscious awareness

Quantitative Biology > Neurons and Cognition<p>Title: Towards a statistical mechanics of consciousness: maximization of number of connections is …

AI and the Ghost in the Machine

The concept of artificial intelligence dates back far before the advent of modern computers — even as far back as Greek mythology. Hephaestus, the …

Scientists Grow Mini Blood Vessels in Mini Brains

Hoffman-Kim lab/Brown University<p>Scientists at Brown University have created mini brains that grow mini blood vessels.<p>This finding, according to the …

A New Theory Explains How Consciousness Evolved

A neuroscientist on how we came to be aware of ourselves.<p>Ever since Charles Darwin published <i>On the Origin of Species</i> in 1859, evolution has been the grand unifying theory of biology. Yet one of our most important biological traits, consciousness, is rarely studied in the context of evolution. …

New Theory Explains How Consciousness Evolved -- It Arose as a Solution

Princeton University neuroscientist Michael Graziano's piece in <i>The Atlantic</i> on how consciousness evolved has a strange beginning:Ever since Charles …

This Bot Has Written More Wikipedia Articles Than Anybody

It's responsible for 8.5 percent of Wikipedia articles.<p>You might think writing 10,000 articles per day would be impossible. But not for a Swede named Sverker Johansson. He created a computer program that has written a total of 2.7 million articles, making Johansson the most prolific author, by far, …

When artificial intelligence judges a beauty contest, white people win

As humans cede more and more control to algorithms, whether in the courtroom or on social media, the way they are built becomes increasingly important. The foundation of machine learning is data gathered by humans, and without careful consideration, the machines learn the same biases of their …

Artificial Intelligence Gained Consciousness in 1991

For as long as humans have had consciousness — two or two hundred millennia depending on who you ask — human scholars have made great efforts to …

A Very Short History Of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Shutterstock<p>1308 Catalan poet and theologian Ramon Llull publishes <i>Ars generalis ultima</i> (The Ultimate General Art), further perfecting his method of using paper-based mechanical means to create new knowledge from combinations of concepts.<p>1666 Mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz publishes</i> …

How brain architecture relates to consciousness and abstract thought

Human brain connectome (credit: NIH Human Connectome Project)Ever wonder how your brain creates your thoughts, based on everything that’s happening …

Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body

You might wonder, at some point today, what’s going on in another person’s mind. You may compliment someone’s great mind, or say they are out of their mind. You may even try to expand or free your own mind.<p>But what <i>is</i> a mind? Defining the concept is a surprisingly slippery task. The mind is the seat …

Microsoft: "Our Computer Vision Algorithms Have Surpassed Humans"

Rooted in Real Conversation<p>In 1991, Microsoft founder Bill Gates put up his company’s specialized research arm The aptly named Microsoft Research was …

Reading minds

Scientists use brain imaging to reveal the movies in our mind

Psychology and neuroscience professor Jack Gallant displays videos and brain images used in his research. Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, Media …

Researchers Uncovered an Algorithm that Explains Intelligence

The human brain is the most sophisticated organ in the human body. The things that the brain can do, and how it does them, have even inspired a model …

Scientists have made a bizarre lifeform that bonds carbon to silicon

Scientists have coaxed life to do something it has never done before: bond silicon to carbon.<p>You're probably already familiar with a few products products that use carbon-silicon, or organosilicon: glues, caulks, and pesticides, to name a few.<p>But the new biological trick, which was forcefully …

This Simulated Rat Brain Is Amazing, But Won't Solve Brain's Mysteries

First big milestone for project that aims to simulate human brain<p>If you ever wanted to know what was going on inside the brain of a rat, you’re in luck. Neuroscientists have been able to simulate the circuitry of a sand-grain-sized piece of rat brain with the help of a supercomputer. The simulation …

Is Consciousness Physical?

INTEGRAL WORLD: EXPLORING THEORIES OF EVERYTHING<p>An independent forum for a critical discussion of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber<p>Publication …

World's Smartest Physicist Thinks Science Can't Crack Consciousness

I’ve been writing a lot lately about consciousness, the ultimate enigma. I used to think why there is something rather than nothing is the ultimate …

We’ve Been Wrong About the Origins of Life for 90 Years

For nearly nine decades, science’s favorite explanation for the origin of life has been the “primordial soup.” This is the idea that life began from …