From the Turing Test to interconnecting brains, a look at innovation's impact on learning
In 1985 the musicologist Clive Waring suffered a headache which lasted for a few days. By the time it passed he couldn’t remember the names of his daughters. He suffered from a very rare condition that has not allowed him to form new memories or remember anything in recent history. Only his short term memory works, forgetting what he was talking about 20 seconds ago. Everything he sees, touches, tastes or smells is brand new to him, living constantly in the present; constantly learning everything for the first time.
This week on the Innovation Ramble we look at the innovation of learning.
For 65 years the Turing Test has been the arbiter of testing machine learning. In June 2014, a chat bot became the first ever computer program to pass the test when it successfully fooled a bunch of researchers into thinking that it was a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman. This catalysed artificial intelligence experts to start thinking about a new way to test machine learning. According to experts, the new tests could include requiring machines to complete comprehension and learning challenges such as assembling flat-pack furniture.
While the machines are assembling our wardrobes the singularity-busting Evolutionary Robotics movement is encouraging robots to learn and evolve in the same way that organic species do. Fumiya Iida at Cambridge University has built a mother robot that creates offspring. The mother then works out which one of the offspring should be kept and which should be discarded: “We want to see robots that are capable of innovation and creativity.” Gulp.
Robots aren’t just teaching themselves but our kids too. Adaptive learning is the practice of applying an algorithmic analysis to children's responses to different teaching methods. An artificially intelligent virtual teacher will meticulously analyse how each student learns and then breaks apart course material. The AI then matches coursework to the kind of brain that person has, delivering it in bits and pieces that slowly build up to a holistic understanding of the material.
They say two heads are better than one, well how about six?
In a series of experiments earlier this year, scientists connected live animal brains into a functional organic computer. The 'Brainet', as they call it, could perform basic computational tasks – and do it better than each animal alone. A second team looked to build upon previous work in the field of neuroprosthetics to see if a Brainet could control a digital arm. To achieve this they implanted a large electrode array into three rhesus monkeys to record their brain activity, and then taught the animals to move a virtual arm in 3D space by picturing the motion in their heads.
At the start of this article we mentioned that when we learn our brains physically change. Each memory has physical locations in the brain. In the journal Nature, scientists are showing that you can reverse the emotional associations of specific memories by using light to control the activity of neurons. It is possible to alter the memory by manipulating the proteins that trigger the impulse of this memory. Therefore, if you experience a negative emotion with a memory, targeting a protein in the emotional regions of the brain may help to remove that connection alone.
Clive Waring lives in a world where he has no choice but to forget everything. But if you were given a pill to forget a memory, would you take it?
Tom Ollerton is We Are Social's marketing and innovation director and Alastair Cole is chief innovation officer at Partners Andrews Aldridge / Engine Group. You can follow their innovation ramblings @innovramble and subscribe to the Innovation Ramble on iTunes.