Brain-Based Devices (NOMAD)

A short news segment exploring NOMAD, a brain-based device developed at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California. The robot has no algorithmic program to accomplish the task of finding and selecting different blocks. NOMAD discovers its environment and the various properties based only an on initial value system. It's behavior is determined and strengthened through real-time synaptic change modeling. (Due to the age of the video clip, there are now numerous machines using similar technologies, NOMAD is by no means the only robot using brain-based or similar machine learning methods.)

For further information on Brain-Based Devices:
http://www.nsi.edu/index.php?page=ii_brain-based-devices_bbd

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• brain-based devices
• neuroscience
• neural
• network
• synapses
• neurosciences institute
• NOMAD
• gerald edelman
• machine learning

[niriop]

@srgrimm13156 The parts of neuro-anatomy that can be directly linked to behaviours and abilities, such as, in the case of language, Broca's and Wernicke's aphasias. The neurons are but part of the processing.

[srgrimm13156]

@niriop Interesting....I've not come across any programs in brain anatomy that I'm aware of. As for neurological devices, do you refer to neurons? I don't think they contain any "programming information" per se.....but I agree that they play an integral part in the "computing"( and I use that word loosely) parts of information.

[niriop]

@srgrimm13156 I have to disagree; programs direct and control behaviour, and human beings have these neurological devices as far as I interpret the data. As to computation, the debate goes on.

[srgrimm13156]

@niriop."...even humans have "computation programs" in their brain neurology to initiate, drive, control and organise their habits such as eating, sleeping and learning and using language." Those aren't programs, nor are they necessarily computational, but then again I suppose it depends on what one calls computational. A comparison between any two objects or scenarios could constitute a computation...I argue there is no such "program" in a brain.

[otonanoC]

More recent work in this direction was done by Christopher Johansson and Anders Lansner from the Royal Institute of Technology at Stockholm. Their work more realistically depicts the complexity found in the cortex. However, their models and descriptions are too abstract. They do not implement their model on a situated, embodied, agent. The physical agent of the BBD provides more concreteness to the research, since real-world behavior is readily displayed.

[CMusic0]

@niriop It is still run by a program but the synthetic neural model itself is not a computer program. Unfortunately the edited interview doesn't do the NOMAD justice - "It doesn't have a computer program". The "It" should be referring to the simulated neural system and not the entire artifact and the interview should claim that it is only the simulation that doesn’t use a logical, accurate system.

[niriop]

@CMusic0 It is still run by a program that "orders" how the recognition takes place. The thing is that Edelman is an immaterialist and a proponant of embodied cognition, in opposition to the computational theory of mind espoused by those such as Pinker, Putnam and Fodor; as such, he's biased towards accurately describing NOMAD as it truly is, because that would mean contradicting his position.

[CMusic0]

@niriop It depends on the definition of "computer program" but I think what they "meant" was that the learning portion is not a computer program in the sense that it is not procedural or instructional computer software based off of precise or logical arithmetic. Although that specific aspect is simulated and encased by a computer program, the brain simulation or simulated nervous system itself is a selectional pattern recognition system.

[niriop]

"It's not a robot."

It's a machine controlled and regulated by a computer system; its a damn robot.

"It doesn't have a computer program"

Shocking to see a Nobel Prize winner say such a stupid thing; it obviously has programs that control its movements and focuses its desire to learn and organise what it learns; even humans have "computation programs" in their brain neurology to initiate, drive, control and organise their habits such as eating, sleeping and learning and using language.