Skip to main content

Thanks to a $28 million grant, Harvard is heavily researching artificial intelligence

Harvard
rabbit75123/123rf
Some of the most intelligent minds in the country are taking a closer look at artificial intelligence, and if the student surpasses the master in this scenario, the world will have some pretty impressive machines on its hands. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a government institution that concerns itself with large-scale research efforts, has awarded a $28 million grant to Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Harvard’s Center for Brain Science (CBS), and its Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. The sizable grant to these three departments is meant to help the famed Boston institution develop “advanced machine learning algorithms by pushing the frontiers of neuroscience.”

The goal of the latest research effort is to better understand the human brain so that machines may emulate our biological capabilities. Today, our minds and our machines each excel at two differing functions — while humans are able to quickly recognize patterns and learn, machines are far better at processing large amounts of data. The sweet spot, then, would be to design an AI that can not only learn as well as humans can, but do so with the speed of a robot.

Recommended Videos

“This is a moonshot challenge, akin to the Human Genome Project in scope,” said project leader David Cox, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology and computer science. “The scientific value of recording the activity of so many neurons and mapping their connections alone is enormous, but that is only the first half of the project,” Cox continued. “As we figure out the fundamental principles governing how the brain learns, it’s not hard to imagine that we’ll eventually be able to design computer systems that can match, or even outperform, humans.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Of course, if the project proves to be too successful,  the Harvard researchers conducting it could turn out to be the last people on earth who are gainfully employed.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Neuro-symbolic A.I. is the future of artificial intelligence. Here’s how it works
IBM Watson Shapes

Picture a tray. On the tray is an assortment of shapes: Some cubes, others spheres. The shapes are made from a variety of different materials and represent an assortment of sizes. In total there are, perhaps, eight objects. My question: “Looking at the objects, are there an equal number of large things and metal spheres?”

It’s not a trick question. The fact that it sounds as if it is is proof positive of just how simple it actually is. It’s the kind of question that a preschooler could most likely answer with ease. But it’s next to impossible for today’s state-of-the-art neural networks. This needs to change. And it needs to happen by reinventing artificial intelligence as we know it.

Read more
Meet Neon, Samsung’s artificial human (who is nothing like Bixby), at CES 2020
Samsung Neon Logo

Samsung is set to unveil a new artificial intelligence product named Neon at CES 2020, and apparently, it will be nothing like the company's A.I.-powered digital assistant Bixby.

Not much is known about Neon so far, aside from what has been posted so far on the product's social media pages. The pinned tweet for Neon's official Twitter account, meanwhile, is just three words that form a cryptic message.

Read more
Revisiting the rise of A.I.: How far has artificial intelligence come since 2010?
christie's auction house obvious art ai

2010 doesn’t seem all that long ago. Facebook was already a giant, time-consuming leviathan; smartphones and the iPad were a daily part of people’s lives; The Walking Dead was a big hit on televisions across America; and the most talked-about popular musical artists were the likes of Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. So pretty much like life as we enter 2020, then? Perhaps in some ways.

One place that things most definitely have moved on in leaps and bounds, however, is on the artificial intelligence front. Over the past decade, A.I. has made some huge advances, both technically and in the public consciousness, that mark this out as one of the most important ten year stretches in the field’s history. What have been the biggest advances? Funny you should ask; I’ve just written a list on exactly that topic.

Read more