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Brain Inspired

Paul Middlebrooks

Neuroscience and artificial intelligence work better together. Brain inspired is a celebration and exploration of the ideas driving our progress to understand intelligence. I interview experts about their work at the interface of neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, and more: the symbiosis of these overlapping fields, how they inform each other, where they differ, what the past brought us, and what the future brings. Topics include computational neuroscience, supervised machine learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, deep learning, convolutional and recurrent neural networks, decision-making science, AI agents, backpropagation, credit assignment, neuroengineering, neuromorphics, emergence, philosophy of mind, consciousness, general AI, spiking neural networks, data science, and a lot more. The podcast is not produced for a general audience. Instead, it aims to educate, challenge, inspire, and hopefully entertain those interested in learning more about neuroscience and AI.

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  • 157 episodes
  • Updated July 15

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Episodes157

Newest first
  • Jul 6, 2021 · 1 hr 25 min

    BI 110 Catherine Stinson and Jessica Thompson: Neuro-AI Explanation

    Catherine, Jess, and I use some of the ideas from their recent papers to discuss how different types of explanations in neuroscience and AI could be unified into explanations of intelligence, natural or artificial. Catherine has written about how models

  • Jun 26, 2021 · 2 hr 3 min

    BI 109 Mark Bickhard: Interactivism

    Mark and I discuss a wide range of topics surrounding his Interactivism framework for explaining cognition. Interactivism stems from Marks account of representations and how what we represent in our minds is related to the external world - a challenge th

  • Jun 16, 2021 · 1 hr 26 min

    BI 108 Grace Lindsay: Models of the Mind

    Graces websiteTwitter: @neurograce.Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain.We talked about Graces work using convolutional neural networks to study vision and attention way back on epis

  • Jun 6, 2021 · 1 hr 29 min

    BI 107 Steve Fleming: Know Thyself

    Steve and I discuss many topics from his new book Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness. The book covers the full range of what we know about metacognition and self-awareness, including how brains might underlie metacognitive behavior, computationa

  • May 27, 2021 · 1 hr 31 min

    BI 106 Jacqueline Gottlieb and Robert Wilson: Deep Curiosity

    Jackie and Bob discuss their research and thinking about curiosity. Jackies background is studying decision making and attention, recording neurons in nonhuman primates during eye movement tasks, and shes broadly interested in how we adapt our ongoin

  • May 17, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min

    BI 105 Sanjeev Arora: Off the Convex Path

    Sanjeev and I discuss some of the progress toward understanding how deep learning works, specially under previous assumptions it wouldnt or shouldnt work as well as it does. Deep learning theory poses a challenge for mathematics, because its methods aren

  • May 7, 2021 · 1 hr 50 min

    BI 104 John Kounios and David Rosen: Creativity, Expertise, Insight

    What is creativity? How do we measure it? How do our brains implement it, and how might AI?Those are some of the questions John, David, and I discuss. The neuroscience of creativity is young, in its wild west days still. We talk about a few creativity st

  • Apr 26, 2021 · 1 hr 27 min

    BI 103 Randal Koene and Ken Hayworth: The Road to Mind Uploading

    Randal, Ken, and I discuss a host of topics around the future goal of uploading our minds into non-brain systems, to continue our mental lives and expand our range of experiences. The basic requirement for such a subtrate-independent mind is to implement

  • Apr 16, 2021 · 1 hr 32 min

    BI 102 Mark Humphries: What Is It Like To Be A Spike?

    Mark and I discuss his book, The Spike: An Epic Journey Through the Brain in 2.1 Seconds. It chronicles how a series of action potentials fire through the brain in a couple seconds of someones life. Starting with light hitting the retina as a person look

  • Apr 6, 2021 · 1 hr 45 min

    BI 101 Steve Potter: Motivating Brains In and Out of Dishes

    Steve and I discuss his book, How to Motivate Your Students to Love Learning, which is both a memoir and a guide for teachers and students to optimize the learning experience for intrinsic motivation. Steve taught neuroscience and engineering courses whi

  • Mar 28, 2021 · 50 min

    BI 100.6 Special: Do We Have the Right Vocabulary and Concepts?

    We made it to the last bit of our 100th episode celebration. These have been super fun for me, and I hope youve enjoyed the collections as well. If youre wondering where the missing 5th part is, I reserved it exclusively for Brain Inspireds magnificent P

  • Mar 21, 2021 · 1 hr 4 min

    BI 100.4 Special: What Ideas Are Holding Us Back?

    In the 4th installment of our 100th episode celebration, previous guests responded to the question: What ideas, assumptions, or terms do you think is holding back neuroscience/AI, and why? As usual, the responses are varied and wonderful! Ti

  • Mar 17, 2021 · 1 hr 8 min

    BI 100.3 Special: Can We Scale Up to AGI with Current Tech?

    Part 3 in our 100th episode celebration. Previous guests answered the question: Given the continual surprising progress in AI powered by scaling up parameters and using more compute, while using fairly generic architectures (eg. GPT-3): Do you thi

  • Mar 12, 2021 · 1 hr 25 min

    BI 100.2 Special: What Are the Biggest Challenges and Disagreements?

    In this 2nd special 100th episode installment, many previous guests answer the question: What is currently the most important disagreement or challenge in neuroscience and/or AI, and what do you think the right answer or direction is? The variety of answ

  • Mar 9, 2021 · 42 min

    BI 100.1 Special: What Has Improved Your Career or Well-being?

    Brain Inspired turns 100 (episodes) today! To celebrate, my patreon supporters helped me create a list of questions to ask my previous guests, many of whom contributed by answering any or all of the questions. Ive collected all their responses into separ

  • Feb 28, 2021 · 1 hr 46 min

    BI 099 Hakwan Lau and Steve Fleming: Neuro-AI Consciousness

    Hakwan, Steve, and I discuss many issues around the scientific study of consciousness. Steve and Hakwan focus on higher order theories (HOTs) of consciousness, related to metacognition. So we discuss HOTs in particular and their relation to other approac

  • Feb 18, 2021 · 1 hr 32 min

    BI 098 Brian Christian: The Alignment Problem

    Brian and I discuss a range of topics related to his latest book, The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values. The alignment problem asks how we can build AI that does what we want it to do, as opposed to building AI that will compromise our