AI in the News — #19

SciAm on Self-Driving Cars and Responsibility (Scientific American)

They offer the following prediction:
“It is a relatively safe bet for driverless carmakers to say they will foot the bill for everything from fender benders to violent crashes because semiautonomy is showing that computer drivers are likely safer than human ones.”

Insect Consciousness (Phys.org)

It’s not how many brain cells you have, it’s what you do with them. Scientists think ants and bees may be doing in their tiny brains some of the same things we do in our mid-brains when we’re awake — implying they may be awake too, at least on a small scale.

If you don’t see the application to AI development, what are you doing with your brain cells?

The Rhythm of Thought (Numenta)

Numenta is a company working on AI systems that emulate neurology. Their founder, Jeff Hawkins, regards the circulation of signal patterns up and down stacks of neurons in the cortex as central to biological processing, and learning as specifically about neurons learning temporal sequences of signals — rhythms. All this is well worth emulating for AI, they believe, as explained in this recent press release.