Evolution of an artificial kind ...

In a previous blurb, yours truly talked about reality being digital with analog override with emphasis given to AI and neural nets, the analog front end of AI, the prime driver of how AI evolves, independent of human interaction. Seems this notion rings true based on a new article from Quanta Magazine titled, Artificial Neural Nets Grow Brainlike Navigation Cells.

To whit ...

Having the sense to take a shortcut, the most direct route from point A to point B, doesn’t sound like a very impressive test of intelligence. Yet according to a new report appearing today in Nature, in which researchers describe the performance of their new navigational artificial intelligence, the system’s ability to explore complex simulated environments and find the shortest route to a goal put it in a class previously reserved for humans and other living things.

The surprising key to the system’s performance was that while learning how to navigate, the neural net spontaneously developed the equivalent of “grid cells,” sets of brain cells that enable at least some mammals to track their location in space.

The grid units that organized spontaneously in the neural network given a navigation task are surprisingly similar to the analogous grid cells in the brain, right down to their approximately hexagonal arrangement. These scans show firing activity in the living and artificial neurons.

The rise of the machines looms.