hkl @hkl@qoto.org

When I was a PhD student, I attended a talk by the late Robin Milner where he said two things that have stuck with me.

The first, I repeat quite often. He argued that credit for an invention did not belong to the first person to invent something but to the first person to explain it well enough that no one needed to invent it again. His first historical example was Leibniz publishing calculus and then Newton claiming he invented it first: it didn’t matter if he did or not, he failed to explain it to anyone and so the fact that Leibniz needed to independently invent it was Newton’s failure.

The second thing, which is a lot more relevant now than at the time, was that AI should stand for Augmented Intelligence not Artificial Intelligence if you want to build things that are actually useful. Striving to replace human intelligence is not a useful pursuit because there is an abundant supply of humans and you can improve the supply of intelligent humans by removing food poverty, improving access to education, and eliminating other barriers that prevent vast numbers of intelligent humans from being able to devote time to using their intelligence. The valuable tools are ones that do things humans are bad at. Pocket calculators changed the world because being able to add ten-digit numbers together orders of magnitude faster allowed humans to use their intelligence for things that were not the tedious, repetitive, tasks (and get higher accuracy for those tasks). If you want to change the world, build tools that allow humans to do more by offloading things humans are bad at and allowing them to spend more time on things humans are good at.

Longer videos work on another platform, so let's try them here. This #Neuroscience video is a morphological rendering of two parallel pathways in the #Drosophila anterior visual pathway, from Hulse et al. 2021. It was rendered with #Blender3d driven by neuVid.

Wow, TRISCO (née TRIC-DISCO) is out in Science! This cool approach allows imaging of mRNA transcripts throughout the cleared mouse brain. It uses a signal amplification step with in situ Hybridization Chain Reaction (isHCR) and combines it with DISCO-style solvent-based #tissueclearing to make the brain transparent.

Whole-brain spatial transcriptional analysis at cellular resolution
Kanatani et al., Science 2024
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adn9947

#neuroscience #lightsheet #microscopy #isHCR #mRNA #TRISCO

Aligning visual prosthetic development with implantee needs https://tvst.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2802271 "We interviewed six recipients of the most widely used visual implants (Argus II and Orion)"; #BCI #NeuroTech

"Although implants are designed to facilitate various daily activities, we found that implantees use them less frequently than researchers expect."

"Our study reveals a significant gap between researcher expectations and implantee experiences with visual prostheses."

Took a workshop in multiflash at Owlet Lodge feeders... whatcha think? 🙂

#bird #birds #hummingbird #hummingbirds #BirdPhotography #FlashPhotography #BIFPhotography #BIF #BirdInFlight #NikonZ8 #Nature #Outdoors #GardenGoals

🔴 AI feels like an unstoppable force. But it is not a panacea for businesses or society

Akhil Bhardwaj
Anastasia Sergeeva

"But more worryingly, AI can diminish human capabilities to the extent that the ability to determine when to intervene might be lost. Researchers have found that use of AI leads to skill decay – a particular concern where workplace decisions involve life-or-death consequences."

🔗 https://theconversation.com/ai-feels-like-an-unstoppable-force-but-it-is-not-a-panacea-for-businesses-or-society-242886

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI @ai

"i love big puffs, i can't deny..."

these guys were busy & bratty at the famous Owlet Lodge...

emerald-bellied puffleg

#hummingbird #hummingbirds #bird #birds #birding #photography #BirdPhotography #HummingbirdPhotography #NikonZ8 #Fotomontag #PhotoMonday

New haptic patch transmits complexity of touch to the skin https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1063674 "Device delivers various sensations, including vibrations, pressure and twisting "; #haptics, sensory substitution

Bioelastic state recovery for haptic sensory substitution https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08155-9

🔴 AIs show a CV racial bias and absolutely no one is surprised

Mihai Andrei

"Across three million resume-job comparisons, resumes with white-associated names were favored by the AI models in 85% of cases. In contrast, resumes with black-associated names were selected only 8.6% of the time."

🔗 https://www.zmescience.com/other/economics/ai-racial-bias-cv/

#LLMS #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Bias #Ethics #CV #Jobs #Race #Discrimination #Racism @ai

Childhood mortality -- death before age 15 or so -- used to run at about 50%.

Every second child born, died before becoming an adult, all over the world, for as far back as we've been able to track.

We didn't turn the corner until about 1900, when science got us the germ theory. That sparked sanitation and vaccination.

A cabinet nominee (RFK Jr) who questions vaccines is frightening. A nominee who brags about not washing his hands (Hegseth) is terrifying.

What does #neuroscience tell us about AI, and vice versa?

In this new PNAS paper, we find that real neurons' activation functions (f-I curves) share features with freq-used AI activation functions.

We measure many neurons w/ 2p holographic stim.

Work led by Paul LaFosse... 1/3 🧠📈 🧪

X is short for MAGA
https://eprints.qut.edu.au/253211/
Researchers find Twitter changed its algorithm to promote posts from Elon Musk and Republicans in the run-up to the election.

"The date at which (the spike) in engagement occurs coincides with Elon Musk's formal endorsement of Donald Trump on 13th July 2024."
#elonmusk #Election2024 #twitter #trump

I'm a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive − their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life https://theconversation.com/im-a-neuroscientist-who-taught-rats-to-drive-their-joy-suggests-how-anticipating-fun-can-enrich-human-life-239029 by @TheConversationUS; we likely need games for vision BCIs to make learning to see (again) more fun such that it is not only for diehards; #neuroscience

Very smol, very mindful.

As usual, Bernie speaks with absolute clarity on the disastrous performance of the Democratic Party ...

Documenting a prediction: This will receive an Ig Nobel in 2025.

Certainly is of the ilk of “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773186324001014?via%3Dihub

I can’t wait for in door navigation to be a real thing outside of only the largest cities. New apps will enable safer indoor navigation for blind people
https://www.htworld.co.uk/news/digital-health/new-apps-will-enable-safer-indoor-navigation-for-blind-people/

“Researchers say an AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said - ABC News”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/researchers-ai-powered-transcription-tool-hospitals-invents-things-115170291