The Next Big Idea AI & THE BRAIN: How Different Are They?
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Sep 18, 2025 Join Gaurav Suri, a researcher and co-author of The Emergent Mind, along with Jay McClelland, a renowned Stanford psychology professor and neural network pioneer. They dive into fascinating topics like how complexity arises from simple systems, the nature of intelligence in both humans and AI, and the implications of consciousness in machines. The discussion moves from distributed representations to the limits of human memory versus AI learning, leaving listeners to ponder the future of intelligence.
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Emergence From Simple Units
- Emergence explains complex group behaviors from simple units interacting at scale.
- Neural networks in brains and AI both show powerful emergent capabilities when scaled.
Ant Trains And Pheromone Paths
- Gaurav recounts watching ant trains choose the short path after pheromone feedback built up.
- He uses this to illustrate how collective simple rules produce efficient group solutions.
Patterns, Not Single Neurons
- Distributed representations store many related concepts across overlapping neural patterns.
- This overlap creates similarity, categories, and efficient generalization in brains and AI.
