Mimicking Nature To Build A Better Machine: The Brain

Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines

A race to decipher the brain’s algorithms could revolutionize machine learning.

Emily Singer | April 6, 2016

Take a three year-old to the zoo, and she intuitively knows that the long-necked creature nibbling leaves is the same thing as the giraffe in her picture book. That superficially easy feat is in reality quite sophisticated. The cartoon drawing is a frozen silhouette of simple lines, while the living animal is awash in color, texture, movement and light. It can contort into different shapes and looks different from every angle.
Humans excel at this kind of task.

Eyewire is a game to map the brain in collaboration with the Seung Lab at Princeton. Anyone can play and you need no scientific background — over 200,000 people from 145 countries already do. Together we are mapping the 3D structure of neurons; advancing our quest to understand ourselves. Source: http://blog.eyewire.org/about/

<more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160406-brain-maps-micron-program-iarpa/; related articles and links: http://blog.eyewire.org/about/ (+Video) (About Eyewire, A Game to Map the Brain) and http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/ (Human Connectome Project)>