HAI Weekly Seminar with Subutai Ahmad - Sparsity in the neocortex, and its implications for machine learning
Most deep learning networks today rely on dense representations. This is in stark contrast to our brains which are extremely sparse.
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Most deep learning networks today rely on dense representations. This is in stark contrast to our brains which are extremely sparse.
This seminar pairs a case study of AI diffusion with an organizational approach to technological changes in the workplace.

This seminar pairs a case study of AI diffusion with an organizational approach to technological changes in the workplace.
Sessions run Wednesdays from 4:30–5:30 PM in CoDa E160. Each session features a different Stanford speaker; talk titles are announced by the organizers.

Sessions run Wednesdays from 4:30–5:30 PM in CoDa E160. Each session features a different Stanford speaker; talk titles are announced by the organizers.
In this talk, Subutai will first discuss what is known about the sparsity of activations and connectivity in the neocortex. He will also summarize new experimental data around active dendrites, branch-specific plasticity, and structural plasticity, each of which has surprising implications for how we think about sparsity. In the second half of the talk, Subutai will discuss how these insights from the brain can be applied to practical machine learning applications. He will show how sparse representations can give rise to improved robustness, continuous learning, powerful unsupervised learning rules, and improved computational efficiency.