If you’ve been waiting for the day you can operate a computer by thinking at it, check out “When Machine Learning Meets the Mind: BBC and Google Get Brainy” at the Inquirer. Reporter Chris Merriman brings our attention to two projects, one about hardware and one about AI, that stand at the intersection of human thought and machine. Neither venture is anywhere near fruition, but a peek at their progress gives us clues about the future.
The internet-streaming platform iPlayer is a service the BBC provides to U.K. residents who wish to catch up on their favorite programmes. In pursuit of improved accessibility, the organization’s researchers are working on a device that allows users to operate the service with their thoughts. The article tells us:
“The electroencephalography wearable that powers the technology requires lucidity of thought, but is surprisingly light. It has a sensor on the forehead, and another in the ear. You can set the headset to respond to intense concentration or meditation as the ‘fire’ button when the cursor is over the option you want.”
Apparently this operation is easier for some subjects than for others, but all users were able to work the device to some degree. Creepy or cool? Perhaps it’s both, but there’s no escaping this technology now.
As for Google’s undertaking, we’ve examined this approach before: the development of artificial neural networks. This is some exciting work for those interested in AI. Merriman writes:
“Meanwhile, a team of Google researchers has been looking more closely at artificial neural networks. In other words, false brains. The team has been training systems to classify images and better recognise speech by bombarding them with input and then adjusting the parameters to get the result they want.
But once equipped with the information, the networks can be flipped the other way and create an impressive interpretation of objects based on learned parameters, such as ‘a screw has twisty bits’ or ‘a fly has six legs’.”
This brain-in-progress still draws some chuckle-worthy and/or disturbing conclusions from images, but it is learning. No one knows what the end result of Google’s neural network research will be, but it’s sure to be significant. In a related note, the article points out that IBM is donating its machine learning platform to Apache Spark. Who knows where the open-source community will take it from here?
Cynthia Murrell, July 22, 2015
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