The SelfAssembling Brain, Peter Robin Hiesinger
The SelfAssembling Brain, Peter Robin Hiesinger
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The Self-Assembling Brain
How Neural Networks Grow Smarter

Author: Peter Robin Hiesinger

Narrator: Joel Richards

Unabridged: 12 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/08/2023


Synopsis

How does a neural network become a brain? While neurobiologists investigate how nature accomplishes this feat, computer scientists interested in AI strive to achieve this through technology. The Self-Assembling Brain tells the stories of both fields, exploring the historical and modern approaches taken by the scientists pursuing answers to the quandary: What information is necessary to make an intelligent neural network?

As Peter Robin Hiesinger argues, "the information problem" underlies both fields. How does genetic information unfold during the process of human brain development—and is there a quicker path to creating human-level artificial intelligence? Is the biological brain just messy hardware, which scientists can improve upon by running learning algorithms on computers? Can AI bypass the evolutionary programming of "grown" networks? Hiesinger explores these tightly linked questions, highlighting the challenges facing scientists, their different disciplinary perspectives, and the common ground shared by those interested in the development of biological brains and AI systems. Hiesinger contends that the information content of biological and artificial neural networks must unfold in an algorithmic process requiring time and energy. There is no genome and no blueprint that depicts the final product. The self-assembling brain knows no shortcuts.

About Peter Robin Hiesinger

Peter Robin Hiesinger is professor of neurobiology at Freie Universitat Berlin, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate students and leads a research laboratory and a multilab research consortium on neural networks.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Denis on October 19, 2021

Intelligence is evolutionary, a brain should be grown algorithmically and there might not be a workaround. This is the central idea of the book. The book is quite deep itself starting from the history of AI/AL, adding biology in significant details, and digging it very deep to the hardest philosophi......more

Goodreads review by Grace on June 09, 2021

This is a cheerful trip through the world of Artificial Intelligence neural net design (ANN) and biological neural net design within a broader context of neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (AI) history. It is also a serious discussion of what the similarities and differences are. It is also a......more

Goodreads review by Sansar on May 15, 2021

This is an excellent read with the author consistently pounding the “algorithmic description” as a fundamental concept to explain developmental neurobiology while staying away from all new cell and molecular developmental neurobiology. At first reading, I came up with at least a half dozen new exper......more

Goodreads review by Ferdi Ridvan on August 29, 2021

I am one of the lucky people on earth who had the chance to get to know and work with Robin in person. As an accomplished neuroscientist, his approach to scientific questions/problems is strikingly different than those who find joy to follow the mainstream, textbook knowledge in their safe zones. He......more

Goodreads review by Michael on March 13, 2022

Fantastic read. As a scientist, I have always been fascinated by the human brain. Authors like Sacks and Damasio have been my go to for accessible yet deeply scientific insights into how we think and how our brains work. If you are a fan of this caliber, I highly recommend this work by Hiesinger. Bo......more