A small contingent of the CNRG presented their work at ICCM this year.
Peter Duggins gave a talk on the effects of drugs (Guanfacine and Phenylephrine) on a spiking neuron model of working memory.
[Paper]
Terry Stewart coauthored a paper with Michael Vertolli on a spiking neural model of supervised learning for auditory localization in barn owls.
[Paper]
Congratulations to Peter Duggins for winning the Allen Newell Award for best student-led paper!
Chris recently paid a visit to the
Toronto Public Library,
where he talked about recent advances in modeling the connection between biology and cognition using
the semantic pointer architecture, and Spaun in particular.
This was the inaugural lecture for the Krembil Foundation Cutting Edge series, focused on health
and technology. Chris' talk, as well as the interview and audience questions, can be seen in full here.
On June 1, 2015, nearly two years after its initial release,
How to Build a Brain
will be available in paperback for $40 (50 CAD).
To celebrate, here are some of our favorite pieces of feedback
we've received on the book, the research described in the book,
and presentations we've given on that research.
My company's CEO told me about this book. I'm almost through my
first reading, and it is...humbling. This book contains more
information in fewer pages than any other book I have read on the
subject. It's an academic text, but it is good if you are hard core
enough to read it.
— Sam Caldwell, HBB review on amazon.com
The brain is a big thing, and including the whole thing in one book
is probably somewhat optimistic... And it is certainly a sign of a
good book that you want more, not less. A great read.
— Simon Laub, HBB review on amazon.com
good!
— Lee Yoon-Kyoung, HBB review on amazon.com
Actually disgusting that the "eBook" is just a scrollable PDF. $60+
for this is just evil. The actual book is great.
— Hannu, HBB review on amazon.com
Whoah, that's some Ghost in the Shell shit right there.
— Hiratana on Reddit
Nice fellow. Looks like some sort of druid wizard. Extremely
intelligent and it does show. Decent lectures.
— Anonymous RateMyProfessors.com review of Chris Eliasmith
Chris is the least evasive of the AI researchers I've seen in interviews.
— zanyguitar, comment on Singularity 1 on 1 interview
He looks like Aaron Paul's hippie doppelganger
— Kwlo Katastasi, comment on TedX talk
I love this guy
— Lokazra, comment on TedX talk
Paul Thagard, Professor of Philosophy at UWaterloo
and fellow member of the
Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience,
wrote a blog post
calling the Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA)
a new synthesis in cognitive science,
bringing together symbolicist and connectionist approaches.
He writes:
As in connectionism, semantic pointers are patterns of firing in
large neural populations, but Eliasmith has figured out how to make
them also work like symbols in high-level reasoning. ... SPA
provides a detailed, neurologically plausible, and mathematically
rigorous account of how the dynamics of embodiment, embedding, and
action work.
Read more at his blog post.
Also check out more of
Dr. Thagard's writing at Psychology Today!