2022-03-20 10:10:49 @bradpwyble @tdverstynen Weird. We don't have to do that. But, that does sound like a very plausible explanation for what was going on here. 2022-03-20 09:11:55 @bradpwyble @tdverstynen I was gonna say, in our dept, we give adjunct status to ppl who already have a job elsewhere but who want to help supervise grad students (e.g. a researcher from industry). So, they don't get paid. What's weird about this post is more that it was posted as if it was an open job. 2022-03-20 09:05:50 @dz_gong @CoreyJMaley @RomainBrette Yes, I don't actually think @CoreyJMaley's position necessarily conflicts with mine at all, so much as it adds important detail/complexity to the question of "what type of computer is the brain"? 2022-03-19 19:23:05 RT @KanakaRajanPhD: Looking forward to speaking in two cool @CosyneMeeting workshops next week! Finalizing my talks - one on data-based RNN… 2022-03-18 20:07:14 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko And I am a total psycho for this mini thread here. My apologies, I'm done now... 2022-03-18 20:06:51 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko And note: "demonstration of efficacy" could very well include theoretical proofs. I never said it had to be via experiments. 2022-03-18 20:05:38 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko And at the risk of being insane about this, here was the tweet just above where you replied. Note my explicitly recognizing that the critiques shouldn't be ignored: https://t.co/cMfMUuWBtG 2022-03-18 20:03:46 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko https://t.co/MbNtbYTkkD 2022-03-18 20:01:37 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko https://t.co/bcdg0nF1ZJ 2022-03-18 20:00:07 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko https://t.co/MBgiMM8k7T 2022-03-18 18:58:11 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko If you don't want to actually attend to my point, fine, let's just let this thread die. 2022-03-18 18:57:07 @_dmh @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko Again, you're just shovelling words into my mouth, it's very frustrating and doesn't feel like you're interested in a productive conversation. I never said all *theory* needs to come with experiment. I said that critiques are more effective when they come with solutions. 2022-03-18 18:54:01 @bradpwyble @_dmh @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko No, I've not only recognized that those examples exist, I have repeatedly recognized that they show symbol processing is better for some things. I have also argued that those things are not instructive for those areas where DL excels in AI (vision, language, etc.). 2022-03-18 17:11:08 @LucaAmb @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @crocodoyle @aina_puce @neuralreckoning @ev_fedorenko https://t.co/bVjyfnC5nw 2022-03-18 17:07:23 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @crocodoyle @aina_puce @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko For example, I know people who are trying to resolve exactly the sort of generalization and shape identification issues your work has highlighted, Jeff. They're just not using symbols... 2022-03-18 17:04:03 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @crocodoyle @aina_puce @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko I think people arguing for symbols often don't realize how hard everyone in the ML community is working to resolve all of the sorts of problems they're raising. It is literally the major focus of much of the research here at Mila. 2022-03-18 16:58:55 RT @AcerbiLuigi: What a great opportunity! Diego is a rising star in machine learning with many brilliant ideas, the topics are exciting an… 2022-03-18 16:57:47 RT @denisejcai: The amazing Joe Zaki @mysteriousjoe_ (co-mentored by @KanakaRajanPhD & 2022-03-18 16:55:26 @bradpwyble @crocodoyle @aina_puce @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko And I include the critics there... 2022-03-18 16:55:08 @bradpwyble @crocodoyle @aina_puce @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko Or alternatively, per the broader point, more people could listen to the criticism and then actually try to solve these problems. 2022-03-18 16:52:57 @TimKietzmann @criticalneuro @GunnarBlohm INKSCAPE FOR THE WIN!!!!!!! 2022-03-18 16:51:37 @bradpwyble @_dmh @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko No, it's not. The key thing he inserted was "experiments you want", turning a reasonable demand for some demonstration of efficacy into an unreasonable exercise in gate-keeping. (Which is clearly what you are trying to imply I am arguing for.) 2022-03-18 16:49:50 @jeffrey_bowers @MelMitchell1 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko @twitemp1 And, my own suspicion, per my reply, is that they haven't done that because they don't actually work that well in domains like language, vision, control, etc. 2022-03-18 16:48:56 @jeffrey_bowers @MelMitchell1 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko @twitemp1 That was the key initial point that @LucaAmb was making. Basically, those who advocate for symbol systems would do better to spend more energy getting their preferred solutions in better working order. It would be far, far more effective in supporting their claims/points. 2022-03-18 16:47:13 @jeffrey_bowers @MelMitchell1 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko @twitemp1 As to specifics that this thread started with, my argument would be not that those who advocate for symbol systems are trying to silence NN work. But rather, that they are doing themselves a disservice by not strengthening their critiques with working models that solve problems. 2022-03-18 16:45:35 @jeffrey_bowers @MelMitchell1 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko @twitemp1 This thread turned into a general discussion of whether criticism should come with solutions. That's what Esther's tweets that I linked speak to. 2022-03-18 16:03:42 Really enjoyed this mix by AliA for kiosk radio - a romp through dubstep, garage, drum n' bass, and jazz. https://t.co/Ik4HG5jr4h 2022-03-18 14:20:34 RT @SaberaTalukder: Next up we have @arna_ghosh @KordingLab @tyrell_turing on bias, variance, neural networks and the brain Had a fun cha… 2022-03-18 14:19:39 @vineettiruvadi @IrisVanRooij If you read the thread, I was very clear throughout the entire thing that critiques without solutions don't have zero value. But, I agree, I overstated things in that one tweet that got picked up here. 2022-03-18 14:18:16 @GunnarBlohm @IrisVanRooij It's not less important. My claim in this discussion has never been that critiques sans solutions are worthless. So, when no solution exists, fine. But, when solutions could exist, I do believe that critiques with solutions are more helpful and more efficacious than those w/o. 2022-03-18 14:15:25 @_dmh @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko No, it's not implying that either. It's just putting a very reasonable burden of actually demonstrating some efficacy of the solution on the proposer. It needn't be "the experiment you want", but it has to be *something*. 2022-03-18 14:12:57 RT @SaberaTalukder: @dongyanl1n and @tyrell_turing poster on time cell encoding and deep reinforcement learning was v cool! Read more here… 2022-03-18 14:11:05 @jeffrey_bowers @MelMitchell1 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko The best account of all this given on Twitter here has been this one from @twitemp1, IMHO. This is the kind of nuanced opinion I wish I could have expressed well in my tweets, and I think it's basically totally correct: https://t.co/CcHvCWMLPL 2022-03-18 14:09:36 I really like how Esther sums this up. I'm fully on-board with this take. https://t.co/3rDtKzYfnp 2022-03-18 14:07:57 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @LucaAmb @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @ev_fedorenko They don't meet the standard of doing better in the sort of real-world tasks that people most want AI to do well at. 2022-03-18 14:05:46 @tdverstynen @WiringTheBrain I think this is exactly right. On some level, there is never a completely true representation of reality in the brain. But, per @WiringTheBrain's point, the fact that we can interact with the world successfully shows our brains capture something of reality. 2022-03-17 21:23:15 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @LucaAmb @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @ev_fedorenko I see your point. But honestly, that's not something I can fit into a tweet. What I will say is that I think there can be no single metric, but rather, a diverse set of tests and scenarios that probe the capabilities of the models. 2022-03-17 21:19:14 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @LucaAmb @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @ev_fedorenko See also: https://t.co/shizlrKiHf 2022-03-17 21:18:46 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @LucaAmb @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @ev_fedorenko Hmmm... At no point did @LucaAmb or I argue that the metric for "models that work" was models that beat narrow ML benchmarks. There are many more ways to judge models and their performance. 2022-03-17 21:16:37 @graemedmoffat Sometimes I fantasize about a world where Arnie took over the Republican party rather than Trump. 2022-03-17 21:09:47 @ParcolletT @SashaMTL Or a kid did... 2022-03-17 21:07:18 @bradpwyble @LucaAmb @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @ev_fedorenko I don't see how arguing that critiques with solutions are worth more than critiques without solutions makes gate-keeping easy. Rather, it helps articulate to people how to make their critiques more powerful. 2022-03-17 20:41:36 @behrenstimb The first time I brought my lab to Cosyne, one of my grad students said to me, "Wait, so you mean, there are actually other people in this world who have your taste in colourful pants?" 2022-03-17 20:26:16 @LucaAmb @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @ev_fedorenko Indeed, it is the lesson I learn over and over with Twitter, and my thousandth reminder of why I shouldn't actually have discussions on Twitter. 2022-03-17 20:25:25 @LucaAmb @JhendersonIMB @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @ev_fedorenko Also, no one ever said critiques without alternative solutions were destructive to science. We said they were less effective than critiques with alternative solutions. 2022-03-17 20:23:58 RT @ylecun: If I wanted to "bully people" or "shut them up", I could write that their research is "hitting a wall". But I'm not the one doi… 2022-03-17 20:23:19 @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko Also, I don't consider something like adversarial examples to be a "critique". They are instead identification of weird behaviour in the system. And yes, that is always useful!!!! 2022-03-17 20:21:49 @MelMitchell1 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko The more nuanced point I've been trying to make this entire thread, but which got overshadowed by my one un-nuanced comment you replied to, is that critiques are more effective when they come with solutions. 2022-03-17 20:14:13 @_dmh @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko It's clearly not saying that. Please read what I wrote rather than straw-manning my claims. 2022-03-17 17:28:29 @IrisVanRooij I stand by the claim that critiques w/o solutions are not as good as critiques w/ solutions. But, I also see your point and would want to add the following caveat based on it: I think critiques without solutions are always important when they serve to highlight real harms. 2022-03-17 17:21:41 RT @AdrianDu_: My first postdoc preprint from @apeyrache lab is finally out! Focusing on our favourite neural system, the head-direction ci… 2022-03-17 17:16:52 RT @BrigitteTousi: #NLP tools help researchers get one step closer to understanding what psychedelic drugs do to the brain. New blog post o… 2022-03-17 15:58:47 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko And thus, it would be more productive if said critics actually tried to build solutions that work. 2022-03-17 15:58:13 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko You're missing my point again. I'm not saying that those researchers whose models have been critiqued should ignore the critiques. I'm saying that they should ignore the solutions offered by the critics if there is no demonstration of their efficacy from those critics. 2022-03-17 15:55:53 RT @SaxeLab: Saxelab is hiring it’s first *experimental* postdoc or research scientist! We aim to understand how representations change in… 2022-03-17 15:11:47 @LucaAmb @bradpwyble @GaryMarcus 2022-03-17 15:10:07 @jeffrey_bowers @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko I think doing just critiques without solutions is not terribly productive, no. It's not that it has no value, but it take up oxygen/ink/characters that would be better devoted to actually building stuff. 2022-03-17 15:08:30 @bradpwyble @GaryMarcus @LucaAmb I'm pretty sure symbol systems would smash NNs at chess. 2022-03-17 15:02:24 RT @criticalneuro: @david_m_amodio Please note this is not about all fMRI research but v short 8min resting state functional connectivity/R… 2022-03-17 15:00:44 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko My goal is not to silence criticism. It's to encourage a more constructive form of criticism. 2022-03-17 14:55:19 @bradpwyble @GaryMarcus @LucaAmb LOL, well, allow me to clarify my definitions. I am not saying, "show us how symbolic models can beat ANNs when ANNs suck hard". That's a very low bar... I am saying, "show us how symbolic models are as powerful as you claim". 2022-03-17 14:53:11 @robwilliamsiii Still totally unclear why you think this relates to Arna's paper... 2022-03-17 14:52:20 @KordingLab @robwilliamsiii @whatishealth21 @arna_ghosh I don't see how this relates to Arna's paper at all... Also, NN people very much do know about the retina. See, e.g., the great work of Eero Simoncelli's group: https://t.co/zUBRT78sI5 https://t.co/K4BcsU5LC9 2022-03-17 14:46:08 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb @ev_fedorenko You're misinterpreting my goals here Brad. I'm not saying there's a fundamental dichotomy, nor that we should abandon one thing or another. My point is merely that critiques sans solutions are the weakest of critiques, and building models that work well is a better strategy. 2022-03-17 14:44:36 @GaryMarcus @LucaAmb I agree that a hybrid model may be very well suited to solving Nethacks. 2022-03-17 14:44:00 @bradpwyble @GaryMarcus @LucaAmb No, the top of the thread was a call for people who want to see more symbolic models to make ones that work well, not ones that work better than ANNs when they don't work at all on a given task. The current solutions to Nethacks arguably are not "models that work well". 2022-03-17 13:40:45 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @LucaAmb It's an interesting question: Could we achieve good AI by jumping straight to higher order cognition, or does it require a base of sensorimotor capabilities like humans have? My guess is the latter. Time will tell... 2022-03-17 13:39:15 @GaryMarcus @LucaAmb Rather, it's strong evidence that current deep RL is definitely not a good solution to tasks like that. 2022-03-17 13:38:39 @GaryMarcus @LucaAmb The Nethack results were interesting, but the current symbol systems don't do that well. They're not even close to human level, I believe. But they do much better than deep RL, which sucks at it. That's instructive, but not strong evidence for the advantages of symbols, per se. 2022-03-17 13:33:40 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb And so, it would be crazy to use models that do well at such "higher cognitive tasks" and poorly at basic sensorimotor processes if our goal is to mimic human and/or animal cognition. 2022-03-17 13:32:44 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @LucaAmb My take on this, which many don't like, is that those forms of "higher cognition" are a very small slice of what the brain does. Moreover, the brain does that stuff using mechanisms that evolved for vision, motor control, language, etc. 2022-03-17 13:29:57 RT @arna_ghosh: Does the brain do backpropagation? Surely not. Could the brain approximate gradients to learn? Probably.. I will be prese… 2022-03-17 13:28:51 @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb In other words: no I don't think the ANN winter is evidence that people who spend more time critiquing models rather than building them are doing themselves or science that much of a favour. 2022-03-17 13:27:58 @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb 2) On the flip side, though, those who thought ANNs could work well did the right thing too: they kept working at it until ANNs did better than other models. They didn't spend all their time critiquing the other approaches. 2022-03-17 13:27:04 @bradpwyble @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Two thoughts on this: 1) If someone thought neural networks weren't a good solution in 1999, or whatever, I think it was very reasonable for them to not include them in their models. 2022-03-16 19:31:46 RT @KohitijKar: #cosyne2022 (1/3) Please come to my poster (03/19): III-005. “Linking neural dynamics across macaque V4, IT, and PFC to tr… 2022-03-16 19:27:17 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb I believe the technical term is shit disturber. 2022-03-16 19:26:12 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb I don't see any clear connection between your results and the critiques vis-a-vis symbol processing capabilities. It is what symbol proc enthusiasts "predicted" in the loosest sense (they always predict ANNs won't generalize, and note, that's not always true). 2022-03-16 19:04:45 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Not completely false, mind you, but there's a lot of really cool work being done, and really amazing systems being built. 2022-03-16 19:04:20 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb I think that is much more cynical a perspective than the reality on the ground... 2022-03-16 19:03:02 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Yes, let's take this paper as an example. You hypothesized that disentanglement wouldn't be sufficient for generalization, and you were right. Great! But, are symbol systems the only alternative to disentangled representations? Why should I take that approach and not another? 2022-03-16 18:46:41 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Falsification is important in science. But building something that works is both much harder and much more informative. 2022-03-16 18:45:48 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Sure, but allow me to be more specific then: I consider recommendations for AI to rely more on symbol systems to be largely misguided, and I am not inclined to change my opinion, due to the lack of better working models from the very critics making these recommendations. 2022-03-16 18:43:07 @neuralengine @CoreyJMaley @RomainBrette For the record, we did mention analog computers in our piece, in order to show that the word "computer" is not only used in reference to digital devices. 2022-03-16 17:49:34 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Yes, but it's also possible to listen well and then judge the recommendation to be faulty. 2022-03-16 17:40:37 @andpru @fedeadolfi No. 2022-03-16 17:27:19 @neuralreckoning 2022-03-16 17:26:31 @fedeadolfi I was already at step 1, but I was kinda hoping your step 2 would have had something more... 2022-03-16 17:25:50 RT @PouyaBashivan: A very talented undergraduate student from my lab (Yifei Ren-who is not on twitter) is presenting a poster at #cosyne202… 2022-03-16 17:25:19 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb The key point is that nothing will make people more likely to listen to your recommendations than if you build something better. 2022-03-16 17:23:52 @jeffrey_bowers @LucaAmb Actually yeah. It's important to identify limitations, and that is always useful. But many critiques also come with recommendations. And, if you can't build something better using your own recommendations, it means your they carry much less weight. 2022-03-16 17:21:47 @fedeadolfi Please tell me how to get a paper in Nature with a random neural network study. 2022-03-16 15:49:44 @bradpwyble @LucaAmb No one doubts the superiority of symbol systems for most software apps. The Q is: do we need it for human-like cognition? There's lots of people who say yes, yet there are few results to point to. At most, we have a few examples where a bit of tree-search is helpful. 2022-03-16 15:42:48 @DrJKhokhar @JKhokharLab @SchulichMedDent @WesternU @westernuACB @uofg @OntVetCollege @thebiomeder Congrats! I think that will be a great place for you. :) 2022-03-15 21:47:18 @matspike Well played sir, well played. 2022-03-15 21:42:51 RT @matspike: Now we've finally, *definitively* established that brains are NOT computers, it's time to address the *real* elephant in the… 2022-03-15 20:50:59 @mattperich @KanakaRajanPhD @UMontreal @Mila_Quebec Looking forward to having you here! 2022-03-15 20:50:41 RT @mattperich: Guess it’s now Twitter-official! As @KanakaRajanPhD said, I’ll be starting my lab at @UMontreal Dept of Neuroscience and @M… 2022-03-15 20:00:44 @LecoqJerome Good point! 2022-03-15 19:59:53 @RomainBrette @FelixHill84 @alexandersclark Respectfully, I read your article, and I don't think that's an accurate description of your arguments. You introduce all sorts of additional requirements into the definition (e.g. "arbitrary changes with agency") that render *your* definition inapplicable to brains, not mine. 2022-03-15 18:50:28 @FelixHill84 @alexandersclark @RomainBrette They do - but are semantic debates useful if the participants simply don't agree about the definitions? 2022-03-15 18:49:28 RT @ShahabBakht: A great illustration of the usefulness of self-supervised pretraining on static images for learning motor control from pix… 2022-03-15 18:42:21 @LucaAmb 100%. What all those advocating for symbol systems don't seem to get is that they don't need to debate people, they need to just show that they're right by building these superior systems they envision. That they don't speaks volumes, IMHO... 2022-03-15 18:36:44 @ed_ruthazer Maybe that's just my timeline... 2022-03-15 18:36:32 @ed_ruthazer I dunno, semantic debates, like the brain-computer one, seem to generate the most activity! 2022-03-15 18:35:07 RT @KanakaRajanPhD: My amazing postdoc @mattperich (soon to be PI at @UMontreal & 2022-03-15 16:20:28 @NM_Wilkinson @RomainBrette @KordingLab I mean, yeah. If you didn't have size/memory/time constraints, then both a standard laptop or an ANN could compute any function. 2022-03-15 15:58:31 @NM_Wilkinson @RomainBrette @KordingLab Compute *any* function. Lots of stuff couldn't do that. How would a chair conceivably sort a list or solve a differential equation? 2022-03-15 15:11:28 @NM_Wilkinson @RomainBrette @KordingLab I'm literally just using normal English here - nothing fancy. 2022-03-15 15:10:54 @NM_Wilkinson @RomainBrette @KordingLab From the Merriam-Webster dictionary for "in theory": "used to say that something seems to be true or possible as an idea but may not actually be true or possible" 2022-03-15 15:09:07 RT @neuroecology: Behavioral information is everywhere in the brain. But... actually where, specifically, is it? Great dissection of the d… 2022-03-15 14:40:03 @RomainBrette @KordingLab I don't agree it's vague. I think anyone who cares to use it in the natural way knows what "in theory" means. Your article is clearly an attempt to attack our definition, first on the grounds of vagueness, but then also on broader philosophical grounds. 2022-03-15 14:35:53 @RomainBrette @countzerozzz You're trying to pull me into a semantic debate here. I'm not interested. 2022-03-15 14:30:05 @RomainBrette @KordingLab I did read the paper. You critiqued our definition, which you're doing here again. As I said, that proves my point. 2022-03-15 13:54:09 Why is everyone so keen on semantic debates on Twitter? Why do y'all get off on that? 2022-03-15 13:52:24 @FelixHill84 @RomainBrette https://t.co/O8godtraej 2022-03-15 13:52:01 @SussilloDavid The most amazing thing for me is that my entire point at this time is that the debate is useless - and yet all I get is people wanting to debate me. 2022-03-15 13:50:34 @GaneshNatesh @RomainBrette But, it sounds like you're assuming there is a "correct" definition of what a computer is. My point is precisely that there isn't, and there's no point in having such debates. 2022-03-15 13:49:00 @neuroecology I like your Ted talk. 2022-03-15 13:24:45 @KordingLab @RomainBrette Apologies for any confusion, I saw a typo in my earlier thread, and being a very anal retentive person, felt the need to redo it... LOL... 2022-03-15 13:24:10 @KordingLab @RomainBrette No, won't happen. There's nothing to debate. @RomainBrette has actually just proven my and Tim's point: https://t.co/4NQLYKWK7d 2022-03-15 13:23:08 All of this serves to emphasize precisely what we said, namely, that this is all just a semantic debate, and a useless one. As such, I don't really care to argue with @RomainBrette about whether the definition he gives for computer ("a programmable machine") is correct or not. 2022-03-15 13:23:07 He argues that we are not using Wittgenstein's theories correctly, but he is ignoring our actual use of them. Our claim is not that Wittgenstein's theories render the brain a computer. Our claim is that his theories force us to look at the use of the word to examine its meaning. 2022-03-15 13:23:06 What @RomainBrette does here proves the point that @countzerozzz and I made in our recent paper: https://t.co/TmHM4QWT0x He rejects the definition of "computer" that we argued computer scientists use. In doing so, he proves our point that this is a semantic argument. https://t.co/OuHkrZpmJF 2022-03-15 13:12:43 @NeuroChooser @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm @NeuroPolarbear Yes and no. There are real benefits to scale. Small labs are more limited in the size of projects they can tackle. Also, small labs introduce more redundancies. But, that being said, I also enjoyed my time in a small lab. 2022-03-14 22:42:39 @TimKietzmann I do it when I'm not trying to reply to the person's original point, but rather, trying make my own point using something they said. 2022-03-14 18:51:38 RT @jburnmurdoch: NEW: I’m not sure people appreciate quite how bad the Covid situation is in Hong Kong, nor what might be around the corne… 2022-03-14 18:25:29 RT @neuromatch: It's fantastic to see that NMA courses are getting officially recognized by universities with credits! If you know departme… 2022-03-14 17:58:14 @neuralreckoning @CosyneMeeting That sucks, sorry to hear it... 2022-03-14 16:35:35 @micahgallen @patrickmineault @NeuroPolarbear @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm Geez... They should really hire you to lead their next ad campaign... 2022-03-14 16:32:23 @patrickmineault @NeuroPolarbear @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm It's absolute utility that matters for evaluators. Both promotion committees and grant panels evaluate publications, etc., on an absolute scale, not a per person scale. 2022-03-14 16:30:51 @ShahabBakht @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm @NeuroPolarbear Yeah, definitely. A PI that decides to keep their lab small and function like a postdoc will struggle to advance their career as much as a PI who grows their lab. There can be exceptions, e.g., if the PI helps discover something really big. But, that's obviously not a given. 2022-03-14 16:10:56 @andpru @GunnarBlohm @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear Very true. Not feasible for many life sciences labs at all. 2022-03-14 16:10:10 @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm @NeuroPolarbear So, I would have to actively decide to handicap my own career advancement for that extra time/space to do my own science. Thus, it's a hard decision. 2022-03-14 16:09:18 @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm @NeuroPolarbear 1) The "extra" 15 people in my lab are amazing scientists. They are collectively doing more for science than I would myself. 2) There are financial/career incentives for me to grow my lab. It maxes "my" productivity and explicitly factors into my pay raises and grant reviews. 2022-03-14 16:08:48 @neuroecology @GunnarBlohm @NeuroPolarbear It's a good Q, and the answer is: it's complicated. Roughly... 2022-03-14 14:24:00 @GunnarBlohm @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear If I had kept my lab really small (say 3 grad students 1 postdoc), then I probably would have time to do that. But, currently we're at 18 lab members. To keep all those people funded and well-supervised requires a lot of time. 2022-03-14 14:22:50 @GunnarBlohm @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear Honestly? That I have taken on too many trainees. 2022-03-14 13:12:43 @NeuroPolarbear @blueapex @neuroecology In industry? Yes. In academia? Not really. And indeed, they are what is missing. Science is greatly impeded by the lack of permanence. It is harder to build on long-term results when everyone on the team has a 3-to-6-year limit and must build their CV for the next step. 2022-03-14 12:58:40 @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear Perhaps that is insensitive and out of it, but that doesn't mean they are lying when they say they enjoyed their postdoc. 2022-03-14 12:57:59 @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear Of course, but when PIs say that "being a postdoc was a great time" they're forgetting the anxieties associated with the financially precarious existence and thinking of the science they did on a day-to-day basis. 2022-03-14 12:56:25 @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear LOL... But, hold on, I'm not saying if the job was totally different. I'm saying if it was the same daily tasks, but different financially. I know y'all never believe us when we say it, but most of what one does as a PI is not as fun as what one does as a postdoc. 2022-03-14 12:51:53 @neuroecology @NeuroPolarbear Uh, let's be clear: I honestly would seriously consider going back to being a postdoc if it came with the same pay and job security that being a faculty member does! The reason no one considers it is because it doesn't. 2022-03-14 12:49:58 @ShahabBakht https://t.co/uXBPznDX1W 2022-03-13 18:38:49 Now that I have pried it out of my 10 year old's hands, I am very much enjoying @ryanqnorth's new book How to Take Over the World. It's super funny, and definitely not providing me with any moral justification for "enlightened supervillainy". https://t.co/BSVP1GPHq5 2022-03-12 08:11:00 CAFIAC FIX 2022-01-20 23:18:30 RT @AllenInstitute: You can help advance #neuroscience from home! Play @MozakCGS, a free online #citizenscience game for reconstructing neu… 2022-01-20 16:59:34 RT @utkuevci: When new neurons (or layers) are added to an existing neural network, they are often initialized randomly . In our recent wo… 2022-01-20 16:57:27 RT @pgmid: Doris @doristsao, Tony @TonyZador, and Blake @tyrell_turing are organizers for this year's NAISys conference: From Neuroscienc… 2022-01-20 15:01:58 @bradpwyble I think where we diverge, Brad, is that I don't think the limits on compute that the brain faces is anywhere near the limits we face in comp neuro, so these issues you're raising are several decades away. 2022-01-20 14:53:03 @bradpwyble @crocodoyle But infinite compute isn't the question. Large, yet finite compute still requires inductive biases, heuristics, and sub-optimal solutions. 2022-01-20 14:51:50 @bradpwyble @crocodoyle Let's be clear: even a huge neural network cannot discover optimal solutions to real-world problems. They find heuristics and shortcuts. I consider this issue to be totally orthogonal to the question of compute. 2022-01-20 14:50:37 @bradpwyble We'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the opposite: limited compute clearly, *explicitly*, puts us on a different page from the algorithms we're trying to discover, because they operate on large-scale compute in real-world problems. 2022-01-20 14:49:11 @bradpwyble I don't see these as different things at all, so I don't really see your point. Heuristics and inductive biases are there, sure, and I agree, we want to identify them. But it is all done on a very large-scale by the real brain, and small models will miss critical phenomena. 2022-01-19 23:10:10 @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht That too, but honestly, speaking as a biggish lab, our limitation right now is compute, not hands. We've got lots of hands, but very little server time... 2022-01-19 23:08:39 @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht That would be cool, we should discuss! Though, I'm not clear on how we could make it readily accessible to those without a lot of compute... 2022-01-19 22:57:09 @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht And so ask yourself: why isn't every computational neuroscience model trained on thousands of tasks? We all know this may be key to how the brain learns/works. I think a big reason we don't do this is: not enough compute! 2022-01-19 22:56:15 @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht I actually take the opposite interpretation here, i.e. this is an example of why we need scale!!! Put another way: one of the things we need to scale up on is the space of tasks we train on. Without training on large sets of tasks (like brains) we may be chasing non-problems. 2022-01-19 22:53:52 @skornblith @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht I think this just shows that those metrics are not capturing what we want though... As you noted, their qualitative behaviour is different, and there better are metrics that can capture this. One example that pops to mind - consistency in language models: https://t.co/CwMIYL3Dc1 2022-01-19 22:50:59 @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht Maybe, but given that the brain is a large-scale system, I am less worried by this. Put another way, I think it is more likely that a small-scale model will turn out not to scale to the brain well than that we will ignore a good small-scale model when large-scales are available. 2022-01-19 22:45:27 @cian_neuro @NeuralEnsemble Though, I'd be curious to hear both of your takes on whether you consider this to be a true example of how large-scale models lead to different results than we can get from small-scale models. It struck me as such, but maybe I'm missing something... 2022-01-19 22:44:34 @cian_neuro Sure, though caveat: you are likely more knowledgeable on this than I am. Basically, I was thinking of stuff like the work of @NeuralEnsemble, wherein phenomena appear in the large-scale model that you couldn't necessarily predict from a smaller scale: https://t.co/2Hq4fuVCHT 2022-01-19 22:34:52 @neuralreckoning @ShahabBakht Indeed, it is important to acknowledge that precisely why large models behave differently (or even exactly how they behave) is not well understood. But the empirical evidence shows they seem to have different properties than small models, which is the central point. 2022-01-19 22:32:41 @ShahabBakht @neuralreckoning Yes, this is key! It's not about eking out a few more % points of accuracy, @neuralreckoning, it's about not getting distracted by problems that only pertain to small scale models and data. Without scaling up, there is always the possibility that it's actually not a real problem. 2022-01-19 22:29:22 @ShahabBakht @neuralreckoning Yes, very well put!!!! 2022-01-19 20:08:53 @bradpwyble Of course, you're obviously correct on some level: the brain doesn't have *infinite* compute. But, I don't think any existing model is anywhere near the level of the real brain's compute, and so, that is not something we need to be worried about as modellers right now. 2022-01-19 20:07:44 @bradpwyble I think evolution invested a large amount of energy and resources into scaling up the brain. A single human brain is still way bigger than any ANN, and our data streams much higher-bandwidth. When you consider there's 7 billion of us interacting... that's so much compute!!! 2022-01-19 20:00:49 @bradpwyble I disagree... First, compute doesn't limit the brain - the brain's level of compute makes ours look pathetic! Second, my point is that often you can only judge whether an idea is wrong by scaling it up. So, I think that absent lots of compute, many more wrong ideas hang around. 2022-01-19 17:14:44 @Timothy0Leary @KordingLab It's true of all the best drugs. 2022-01-19 17:13:59 @KordingLab I think you just don't spend enough time thinking about your own good ideas and testing them with big compute before you move onto something new. Case in point: deep learning with apical dendrites. 2022-01-19 17:12:31 @VenkRamaswamy Yes! 2022-01-19 17:12:01 @GunnarBlohm I totally agree! But I don't see that as unique to comp neuro at all, so wouldn't describe it as "comp neuro's biggest problem". 2022-01-19 15:00:35 RT @aleks_madry: ImageNet is the new CIFAR! My students made FFCV (https://t.co/QWUdL5hRxS), a drop-in data loading library for training mo… 2022-01-19 15:00:24 RT @paqio: Dear @Google Google Scholar is extremely useful. Please keep up the good work! Sincerely, People who publish stuff Please lik… 2022-01-19 14:50:58 Well... That's convenient! https://t.co/9WicNIhSoa 2022-01-19 14:47:40 6/6) Thus, I really think access to compute is the biggest problem in comp neuro. If everyone could have access to the resources required to create really big models, the field would progress more equitably and much faster. 2022-01-19 14:47:39 2/6) Also, we are getting more and more open datasets and interaction with experimentalists. Though we can and should take this farther, I think the direction of the field in this respect is sufficiently promising that it is not appropriate to describe it as a "problem". 2022-01-19 14:47:38 1/6) The correct answer is lack of compute!!! Why? Well, first, there are tons of amazing ideas in comp neuro. I see new ones come out every day. I can't even keep up. I don't think we're lacking great ideas. https://t.co/hg6XjGliej 2022-01-19 14:26:20 @KordingLab Lack of compute! 2022-01-19 14:24:41 @folinoid @RecursionPharma @Mila_Quebec Cool, congrats! 2022-01-18 19:51:21 RT @IanCLim: Brain-computer interface (BCI) 2021 year in review 2021 was a big year! We saw an intracortical BCI decode handwriting, the… 2022-01-18 18:54:49 If this is true: holy shit! https://t.co/aT1mDJr8a1 2022-01-18 18:27:35 @SashaMTL Totally. I know they have one in Alberta at least! https://t.co/rloETICmV4 2022-01-18 16:33:16 @roydanroy You moved to Berkeley? 2022-01-18 16:17:20 RT @AntonSArkhipov: New paper! Out in eNeuro, "Measuring stimulus-evoked neurophysiological differentiation in distinct populations of… 2022-01-18 13:42:50 @patrickmineault Neuromancer is and always will be the classic! 2022-01-17 18:53:06 RT @redouad: Update: Switzerland now reports deaths by booster status. Compared to unvaccinated people, the COVID mortality rate is: • 9x… 2022-01-17 08:11:00 CAFIAC FIX 2022-01-11 08:11:00 CAFIAC FIX 2022-01-05 22:47:18 Very much looking forward to reading this new paper from @nspruston and crew: https://t.co/7MycQkC8Sg My personal bet: the plateau potentials stuff in CA1 is going to turn out to be super critical, a major finding for the learning and memory field. 2022-01-05 18:46:36 @sunw37 @soniajoseph_ Also, see here! https://t.co/eZVzGSfne4 2022-01-03 21:04:16 RT @anne_churchland: Have you been wondering what we've learned about behavior from all these large-scale recordings folks are always on ab… 2022-01-03 21:03:33 @neuralreckoning @neurograce Very true! But, part of that is being honest with oneself about which venue a paper is appropriate for... in other words, not every venue requires a paradigm shifting paper to get past the editor's desk. 2022-01-03 20:20:15 @neurograce Indeed, my strongest reviewer #2 energy emerges when it feels like the authors are misrepresenting and/or exaggerating what their results show. 2022-01-01 16:45:45 RT @patrickmineault: There's been tremendous advancements in understanding the brain with deep unsupervised models. Here's my end-of-year w… 2021-12-31 21:26:04 The genderless urge to pontificate broadly on complex ideas while making "concrete suggestions" for space-limited grant proposals. PS - For any of my co-grant writers reading this, it is intended as gentle teasing, and applies equally to me! 2021-12-31 21:20:59 RT @CIFAR_News: Can we measure global happiness? Can AI slow species loss? How quickly can a cosmologist aim a telescope at a star’… 2021-12-31 19:53:10 @JonAMichaels Left hand, I would like to introduce you to the right hand... 2021-12-31 16:15:46 @lucy3_li Yes, it is. I rarely write code anymore, and I miss it. 2021-12-31 01:17:40 RT @ManonMasse_Qs: Le couvre-feu ça n’affecte pas tout le monde pareil. Les femmes victimes de violences, les personnes itinérantes ou les… 2021-12-30 17:15:55 @FritjofHelmchen CC @NeuroNaud 2021-12-30 17:15:12 RT @FritjofHelmchen: Dendrites of L5 neurons in barrel cortex as key integration sites for tactile task learning! If you're interested chec… 2021-12-30 16:27:15 RT @ubi_works: Behold, our 2021 Year-in-Review : Canada's first Basic Income bills, major media attention, new supporters in parliament, a… 2021-12-27 14:14:44 RT @hardmaru: I’m super excited to see ideas from complex systems such as swarm intelligence, self-organization, and emergent behavior gain… 2021-12-27 14:13:24 @PhilBeaudoin :( Indeed... C'est tellement triste... 2021-12-27 14:12:11 https://t.co/Zy6yPxbq49 2021-12-27 08:20:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-12-20 23:46:23 RT @ylecun: World models, intuitive physics, planning, problem solving, discrete search for solutions, continuous optimization of control p… 2021-12-20 21:31:10 @o_guest @IrisVanRooij @Abebab You mean I replied to the Q she asked in her tweet with three smallish tweets? I don't see why that is rude... I wasn't disrespectful or hostile. But, if you or she don't wish to engage or you find me/my tweets rude somehow, no prob, I'll leave this thread/y'all alone. 2021-12-20 21:23:17 @o_guest @IrisVanRooij @Abebab Sorry, what do you mean by "launch into a sub-thread like you did"? 2021-12-20 21:18:18 @IrisVanRooij @o_guest @Abebab Look, if you don't want to engage/explain, totally fine, you're not required to! But, I don't spend my time attacking or trolling people on Twitter, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to censor yourself in relation to me... I'm sorry that you feel you have to. 2021-12-20 21:16:12 @o_guest @IrisVanRooij @Abebab She could also just tell me if I had misinterpreted her... 2021-12-20 18:51:57 @SashaMTL Okay, well fingers crossed then that cases start to level off such that we're back by the 10th. JFC... 2021-12-20 18:50:28 @o_guest @IrisVanRooij @Abebab Because that's not the case with the moth example. There is nothing but mimicry in external appearance. 2021-12-20 18:26:13 @IrisVanRooij @Abebab Of course, a lot depends on "we hope" in the first tweet. But, that is precisely the job of people in the neuro-AI sphere, to try to make that "we hope" not crazy. 2021-12-20 18:25:18 @IrisVanRooij @Abebab So, yeah, if the moth was actually trying to copy how the owl's eyes worked on some level, then it might indeed provide some insight. 2021-12-20 18:24:48 @IrisVanRooij @Abebab The difference is that when we build an AI model that is not just mimicking the behaviour, but *also* the algorithm (we hope), then there is more explanation present than in the case of the moth (which is nothing like the owl, except in external appearance). 2021-12-20 18:20:16 @SashaMTL Ah shit, really? Just for the next two days you mean? 2021-12-20 18:19:39 @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @CoreyJMaley @DLBarack Like, consider a situation where the state space of the circuit depends on neuromodulatory tone, and that can vary continuously, then you've got an uncountable state space... 2021-12-20 18:17:22 @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @CoreyJMaley @DLBarack My honest answer to this is that I'm not convinced brain states are countable, because I suspect we can't actually define a stationary state space for the brain as a whole. 2021-12-19 01:20:37 @ulusdd @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann Yes, but I didn't say "any task you can imagine", I said "any scenario we may wish to use them for", and by that I was trying to say, "practical tasks of the sort people do". Though I see how this is not explicit in the phrasing... 2021-12-19 01:17:11 @danilobzdok @fedeadolfi @KordingLab I actually half agree with the OP. Not everything in the brain will be useful for AI. Our job is precisely to figure out what is and what isn't. 2021-12-18 16:30:03 @micahgallen @KordingLab @aina_puce I mean, that's what I was wondering when I saw this tweet. What is this position? It's clearly not a normal postdoc. So, if it's some fancy postdoc with a super award attached, I feel like this is not a wider problem... 2021-12-18 15:57:04 @bradpwyble @TimKietzmann I think there's another important distinction here: the sound bites that get chosen by the media and what academics actually say to each other. 2021-12-18 15:54:37 @dysonsphere Ditto! 2021-12-18 15:54:26 @LilaDavachi Thanks, :) you too! 2021-12-18 15:53:58 @bradpwyble @TimKietzmann @pfau Well, I guess I don't follow them, cause my Twitter feed is almost 100% full of people pointing out the failings of current AI models... 2021-12-18 15:52:50 @NavAfrashteh @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann Very far 2021-12-18 15:52:41 @ulusdd @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann No, you're not getting what I'm saying then. What I described above was intended to apply to humans too, because generally, if you need to perform some visual task having a human worker does the trick! 2021-12-17 22:45:34 We couldn't do a proper lab X-mas party because of COVID again this year... BUT, we did do our annual lab photo at least, and everyone was able to come, even if only as disembodied versions of themselves! Happy holidays from the LiNC Lab!!!! https://t.co/F2JUgtpc9m 2021-12-17 20:30:09 RT @J_D_Crawford: Can a convolutional network model of the visual system be combined with a multilayer perceptron model of the sensorimotor… 2021-12-17 20:17:18 @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann My interpretation of "Is vision is solved?" is quite straightforward: Do we have vision models that work well for almost any scenario we may wish to use them for? It's perfectly meaningful, and not something anyone claims. 2021-12-17 19:32:25 @pfau @TimKietzmann Ha ha... fair enough. I spend 99% of my time with hyper-critical academics who don't let the slightest brag escape critique. I would probably feel very differently if I spent more time in Silicon Valley... 2021-12-17 19:30:12 @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann I guess you and I just interpret that phrase differently... fair enough! https://t.co/aiKJYocys5 2021-12-17 19:28:22 @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann I guess you could argue his claim that computers can recognize objects "as well as most adults" is problematic, and not true. But I don't think that is equivalent to saying "vision is solved". 2021-12-17 19:26:41 @MelMitchell1 @TimKietzmann Where in that quote does Terry say "Vision is solved"? 2021-12-17 19:26:09 @TimKietzmann No one ever said it. It's a total straw man... 2021-12-17 19:19:50 @TimKietzmann Probably not a lot, is my guess. How else could the networks do this? 2021-12-17 18:00:59 RT @michaelzlin: Finally, what we've been waiting for: age-controlled data on Omicron severity, courtesy SA health ministry. Across all ag… 2021-12-17 17:04:19 RT @ScottGottliebMD: Clear evidence that covid cases have peaked in #Gauteng province in South Africa suggests we don’t fully understand ep… 2021-12-17 16:59:25 RT @josephdviviano: Pitching Montréal to tech people: "Come here and microdose Europe" 2021-12-17 15:51:21 RT @Mila_Quebec: Le professeur David Rolnick met son expertise en IA au service de l’environnement. Découvrez comment des membres de Mila c… 2021-12-17 14:58:37 RT @neuralreckoning: Oh, looks like this is officially announced now. I'm giving the 2022 @CosyneMeeting tutorial on spiking neural network… 2021-12-17 14:55:44 RT @patrickmineault: Super excited to finally release this handbook on writing good research code. Based on my experiences going from resea… 2021-12-16 22:07:42 Another TT job opening in AI here @mcgillu: https://t.co/ejAf8ywQ8Y 2021-12-16 22:03:38 RT @Stefan_Mihalas: @tyrell_turing Thanks for the kind words Blake. And for those who like to get the gist from twitter before diving into… 2021-12-16 22:01:18 RT @ubi_works: A New Bill for Guaranteed Livable Basic Income in Canada was introduced this morning by MP @LeahGazan. Add your voice and t… 2021-12-16 21:57:25 And another freshly minted doctor of neuroscience in the lab!!!!! Congrats to Kirthana Sathiyakumar (not on Twitter)! You made me so proud! Thanks to @tdverstynen and @ArruCarval_lab for serving as externals, and to @WidowWeb and @ItoLiMBiClab for being on her committee. 2021-12-16 21:49:21 @cian_neuro Totally agreed, well put. 2021-12-16 14:40:30 @DrYohanJohn @neurograce @ChristopherBohm And, it should be noted, the reason most of the development happens in ML right now is quite straightforward and has nothing to do with science: Big tech has poured a ton of money into this research. Why not piggy back on that? 2021-12-16 14:39:16 @DrYohanJohn @neurograce @ChristopherBohm 1) No one thinks backprop happens in the brain. The question is whether there are other ways to estimate gradients 2) Who cares where the majority of development happens? Also, lots of ANN development does happen in comp neuro. 2021-12-16 14:29:05 @ylecun @DrYohanJohn Well put. Also, the OP is ignoring decades of insights into how brains work thanks to ANNs (attractor networks, learning dynamics, properties of distributed reps, impact of damage, the list goes on...). 2021-12-16 14:04:19 What's a Data Scientist? https://t.co/eX0GzQ3Gdh 2021-12-16 14:03:26 @bradpwyble @ryrobyrne @neuralreckoning In addition to solid and equitable government funding for basic science, I actually think a better model for innovation than lots of private money for academics is in-house research by companies that give their researchers a lot of leeway, e.g. Bell Labs, DeepMind, etc. 2021-12-16 14:01:31 @bradpwyble @ryrobyrne @neuralreckoning To be clear: we also need and want industrial funding of R & But, the ticket to more innovation is not large sums of private money for established academics who already have a lot of resources. 2021-12-16 13:36:45 @behrenstimb Regardless, hope you have a speedy recovery. 2021-12-16 13:35:14 @behrenstimb Geez... I hope that with all this immunity it's at least not too bad for you at this point? 2021-12-16 13:31:54 @AnneEUrai Félicitations! 2021-12-16 13:31:32 Fascinating looking paper out from @Stefan_Mihalas and co: The Geometry of Representational Drift in Natural and Artificial Neural Networks https://t.co/i6SxiZ3vdl 2021-12-16 02:00:49 RT @KordingLab: Within psychophysics, Bayesian models are often great at describing behavior. We wrote a textbook on that. Please give us f… 2021-12-16 01:51:24 @josephdviviano @InquilineKea @Mila_Quebec https://t.co/9vqvQGC4Ru 2021-12-16 01:50:01 @graemedmoffat Ummm... but pretty much all coffee is better than Timmy's. 2021-12-15 15:22:50 RT @huangcza: Very honored to be a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, and also an adjunct prof @UMontreal! I am recruiting postdocs+students+interns… 2021-12-15 15:05:02 RT @ylecun: Pretty amazing adversarial image for the human visual system. Outside the fovea, feature detectors are sensitive to lower-spati… 2021-12-15 15:04:57 @bradpwyble @KordingLab @CoreyJMaley @ylecun I think optimal is the wrong idea. The question is instead: how well does the perception match objective reality? Adversarial images are those that induce much larger than normal discrepancies between the two. Visual illusions are also this. They're the same. 2021-12-15 14:21:12 @EricFeczko @autobencoder @KordingLab Very interesting... Suggests that this will be a good test case for when optimizers can finally graduate to more systematic thought. 2021-12-15 14:18:43 @EdwardT77070823 @TPVogels Already noted in the thread: https://t.co/89NKenWHvR 2021-12-14 22:38:28 @TPVogels @andpru @jmourabarbosa @behrenstimb @tsonj @neuroecology Andrew just hasn't figured out the key to getting into Cosyne yet, which is to submit an opaque computational model that kinda sorta fits some large scale recording from mouse cortex. https://t.co/ERtmdiQRrC 2021-12-14 22:35:36 @behrenstimb @TPVogels @tsonj @neuroecology *Expanded* is the key word though. Just re-writing it for another audience isn't kosher, IMO. 2021-12-14 22:04:56 @behrenstimb @neuralreckoning @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology ???? No, no, no... Putting your paper on arXiv/bioRxiv is a mechanism for communicating your ideas and your data. Submitting to a conference or a journal is just a mechanism for building your CV. 2021-12-14 21:59:17 @neuralreckoning @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology The Q is: how is submitting to NeurIPS and a journal different from submitting to two different journals? Given that both review forums lead to inconsistent and noisy reviews, I guess I assumed the issue here was the imagined degree of involvement of authors in the process. 2021-12-14 21:33:50 RT @anilananth: We might soon see neural networks that sip rather than gulp energy. My story on spiking #neuralnetworks for @SimonsInstitut… 2021-12-14 21:24:53 RT @andpru: A great opportunity to come work with us. 2021-12-14 21:17:44 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology You're right, spending 2 years responding to reviewer comments is much better for students' mental health. 2021-12-14 21:15:36 RT @criticalneuro: Delighted that my paper "Collective Minds: Social Network Topology Shapes Collective Cognition" is out in Philosophica… 2021-12-14 21:07:08 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology Again, respectfully, I disagree. Some of my favourite papers from my lab have been in ML conferences. And we though *a lot* about them. We just started way before the deadline!!!! 2021-12-14 21:06:03 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology Time management my man, time management... It ain't easy, and I could see why maybe this would make you not want to submit to ML conferences, but I don't think that renders the resulting papers less peer-reviewed than at journals. 2021-12-14 21:04:58 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology But the conference thing is a red herring. This is the main type of venue for peer-reviewed articles in CS. And yes, sometimes the reviews are short. But, I find the quality is not radically different. People provide garbage reviews at journals often too... 2021-12-14 21:02:40 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology Except every PhD student in ML... 2021-12-14 20:57:18 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology All that being said, I think, per your comment Tim (and what I said here: https://t.co/TsOm1JLuoI) the one situation where it is okay is if the paper is massively expanded with lots of new data upon submission to the journal, rather than just tweaked in sales pitch. 2021-12-14 20:56:22 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology Yes, the authors only have a couple of weeks to respond, and only one chance, but that doesn't change the fact that the review process is a lot of work, and way more than a neuroscience conference abstract. Note: these conference papers are often all that ML people publish! 2021-12-14 20:54:16 @behrenstimb @tsonj @TPVogels @neuroecology He he... the feeling is mutual here, Tim. Barely peer reviewed?! Dude, as an AC at NeurIPS I take big issue with that. Many of the reviews are super rigorous, and the author responses are a lot of work. It is way, way more like a journal review than, say, a Cosyne abstract gets. 2021-12-14 17:07:00 RT @misicbata: Standardizing workflows in imaging transcriptomics with the abagen toolbox | https://t.co/d8Qy9u6Qu1 led by @rossdavism w/… 2021-12-14 17:05:24 RT @sharky6000: We (the @DeepMind Alberta team) are hiring! Are you interested in RL, continual learning of long-lived agents, experiential… 2021-12-14 17:04:23 @josueortc @TimKietzmann @dlevenstein @TPVogels @neuroecology @svrhm2021 Agreed 2021-12-14 16:45:19 @KordingLab @bradpwyble Really, my emails feel like a continuous stream of data... 2021-12-14 16:44:16 @KordingLab @bradpwyble I suspect Brad's first point is key. The problem with symbolic approaches is always that grounding your symbols is hard in high-D, continuous spaces (like real life). But if someone has already made the world discrete for you, it becomes way more feasible to use them! 2021-12-14 16:42:19 @TimKietzmann @dlevenstein @TPVogels @neuroecology Yes! But those papers are shorter and intended to be a work in progress, more akin to a Cosyne abstract, not a full journal paper. 2021-12-14 16:19:56 @AcerbiLuigi @TPVogels @neuroecology That's a good point... I guess if you're extending the paper a lot and give a lot more info, then I'm OK with it. But, I was imagining taking a 10-page NeurIPS paper and editing the language to make it a 12-page neurosci journal paper, which I don't think is cool. 2021-12-14 16:15:22 @dlevenstein @TimKietzmann @TPVogels @neuroecology Yes, I agree, that's what drives the NP responses, but I think on those notes: 1) That's a misunderstanding, it's a full 10-page paper! 2) I actually think that most NeurIPS papers in the comp neuro sphere are pretty close to what one would submit to a journal anyway. 2021-12-14 16:08:57 @AcerbiLuigi @TPVogels @neuroecology But even if it's not identical I think it's totally not cool. NeurIPS is a peer-reviewed venue, the papers are real papers. It's like submitting your paper to JMLR, then once it's accepted, changing it a bit and submitting to Neuron. 2021-12-14 15:59:30 @TPVogels @neuroecology Oh, well, yeah, if you do the latter, you are the asshole, sorry. But, seriously, why would you think this is okay? It's exactly like submitting to two journals... 2021-12-14 15:48:20 @TPVogels Do you mean a workshop poster or a full conference paper accepted as a poster? In the first case, no prob, in the second case, total shenanigans, don't do it! 2021-12-14 15:20:34 RT @mpezeshki91: Happy to share a new preprint on the origins of "epoch-wise double descent". Spoiler: As fast-learning features overfit, s… 2021-12-14 15:06:12 @KordingLab I'd really love a breakdown from someone of what is different between Nethack and other videogames that led to these results! 2021-12-13 21:16:07 RT @karamchandanij: We are looking for a software developer to help build a national registry that will support Canadian neuromuscular rese… 2021-12-13 21:15:14 Annik was the first student in my lab (she originally did an MSc) so this is end of an era for both her and I. She did amazing, seriously, super well done!!!!!! 2021-12-13 21:14:15 Big congrats to @wagonspeedracer who just successfully defended her PhD thesis!!! So proud! Thanks to @gershbrain (who graciously served as an external despite being under the weather), @Franklandlab, @duncanlabUofT, Doug Tweed and Monica Parry for sitting on the exam committee! 2021-12-13 16:03:53 RT @TimKietzmann: We are presenting ecoset, our alternative to ImageNet/ILSVRC, as part of the NeurIPS workshop: "ImageNet: Past, Present,… 2021-12-13 15:45:33 @PreetumNakkiran @NeuroVenki @boazbaraktcs @CPehlevan @TonyZador @KordingLab @KanakaRajanPhD And this is why ANNs are a great tool for neuroscience. They are the simplest possible PDP system. Add in optimization, and voila, you have the key mix for providing insight on brains: task optimized PDP algorithms that can approximate brains at the algorithmic level. 2021-12-13 15:43:32 @PreetumNakkiran @NeuroVenki @boazbaraktcs @CPehlevan @TonyZador @KordingLab @KanakaRajanPhD Yes, agreed! And ANNs and brains do share more than that! The key phrase I used above was "algorithmic-level". Both ANNs and brains are parallel distributed processing systems. And PDP algorithms are very different in character from other algorithms. 2021-12-13 15:23:20 RT @McCrayWX: Pour ceux qui pensent qu’une rue piétonne à l’année ne pourrait pas fonctionner avec l’hiver québécois, je vous présente la r… 2021-12-13 00:31:38 @PreetumNakkiran @NeuroVenki @boazbaraktcs @CPehlevan @TonyZador @KordingLab @KanakaRajanPhD The core point is this: I don't think we can understand the brain w/o thinking about how evolution and learning have shaped it. I think trying to understand neural computation mechanistically sans optimization is a doomed endeavor. Thus, we need ANNs for complete understanding! 2021-12-13 00:28:56 @PreetumNakkiran @NeuroVenki @boazbaraktcs @CPehlevan @TonyZador @KordingLab @KanakaRajanPhD You didn't really capture the real point of DL in neuroscience as I see it: ANNs are an algorithmic-level model of neural computation that we know how to optimize well. As such, they serve as good normative models for understanding how evolution/learning have shaped the brain. 2021-12-13 00:25:47 @CPehlevan @NeuroVenki @PreetumNakkiran @boazbaraktcs @TonyZador @KordingLab @KanakaRajanPhD Yeah, TBH I'm the opposite... Those "clever models" don't actually provide much in the way of insight in my opinion - they feel instead like toys to me. The insights that tickle my brain come from optimization models. 2021-12-12 16:37:26 @bradpwyble @neurograce @KordingLab E.g. I think that the SD in IQ is around 15 points, right? So a drop of < But, I'm an intense optimist, generally... 2021-12-12 16:35:41 @bradpwyble @neurograce @KordingLab Yeah, I've seen this graph before, and clearly it speaks to the differences in our psychology... When I saw this, I was like, oh, sans hospitalization, it's really not bad! 2021-12-12 16:32:30 @NeuroVenki @PreetumNakkiran @boazbaraktcs @CPehlevan @TonyZador @KordingLab @KanakaRajanPhD Honestly, there are so many new papers out there every week, it would be hard to summarize in a few tweets. Here are a couple of more recent reviews: https://t.co/Wn5S7rZJ4K https://t.co/feRYZ0kBQa 2021-12-12 16:24:11 RT @TonyZador: Biological neural networks (BNNs) are much more energy efficient than artificial NNs. The human brain uses about 15-20W, whe… 2021-12-10 21:05:26 @bradpwyble @neurograce @KordingLab Yeah, but the same probably holds for other diseases that we don't consider lock-downs for, e.g., there are probably lots of long-term effects from other viruses like the flu or chickenpox, etc., that aren't severe enough to notice easily. 2021-12-10 20:10:15 @bradpwyble @neurograce @KordingLab See e.g. here: https://t.co/6hce06EbB2 2021-12-10 20:09:00 @bradpwyble @neurograce @KordingLab I totally see what you're saying, but being honest, I'm less inclined to think lockdowns are an appropriate response to stop long COVID (as opposed to using them to prevent death). Though also: I thought the data was pretty clear that long COVID is generally from severe cases? 2021-12-10 19:59:09 @JAlGallego @KordingLab Oh, I didn't know that! Yes, I was referring to the tendency for viruses to evolve towards less deadly forms. 2021-12-10 19:02:41 @KordingLab On some level though, if deaths are down, this is almost what I expect/want: that COVID eventually becomes like the flu, i.e. an annoying thing that we get yearly boosters for but which doesn't lead to lockdowns. 2021-12-10 17:00:16 RT @IrisVanRooij: Twitter: Does the brain really compute? Me: Hungarian dancers compute! https://t.co/GCijSELHN0 2021-12-10 16:54:51 @adamimos @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic But I think there's also just an intuitive argument: if we removed any energy, time, or memory constraints, it seems clear that a human being could compute any function that a Turing machine can. 2021-12-10 16:51:12 @adamimos @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic No, not necessarily. You "just" need to show that for any given Turing machine there exists a neural circuit that could implement the same function. That need not involve actually mapping mechanisms in the neural circuit onto states in the Turing machine. 2021-12-10 15:42:29 RT @TonyZador: I don't usually tweet politics, but I have an idea I would like to share We (in the US) have a serious problem: Due to gerr… 2021-12-10 15:33:27 RT @karimjerbineuro: Are you a world-renowned scientist + open to move to Montreal? @UMontreal is looking for high-profile candidates for… 2021-12-10 15:04:33 RT @IpshitaZ: So stoked that my first postdoc paper is now out! A huge thanks to the co-authors and members of the Buzsaki lab for all thei… 2021-12-10 15:00:55 RT @samnastase: @Neuro_Skeptic https://t.co/Fa7PWIcXrn 2021-12-10 14:59:04 @RomainBrette @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic Okay, there, I did... 2021-12-10 14:58:52 RT @RomainBrette: @tyrell_turing @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic My forthcoming book will be entitled "No Blake, the brain is not a computer". (… 2021-12-09 21:41:02 @SuryaGanguli @Neuro_Skeptic And as I've said once before, you're right that there are two different definitions, one which renders the brain obviously a computer, one obviously not. But, I'm not sure that either definition is completely uninteresting. I think we can, and do, derive use from both. 2021-12-09 21:10:36 @RomainBrette @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic I can't decide if I love or hate the idea of someone writing an entire book about how I'm wrong... 2021-12-09 21:07:00 @adamimos @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic You're not quite getting it... My claim is *not* that the brain operates like a Turing machine, because that is not the definition of a computer. Rather, the key question is whether brains could, in theory, compute any decidable function (however they happen to do that). 2021-12-09 16:46:40 @Timothy0Leary @dePolavieja Yes, exactly: https://t.co/BbzC4C1965 2021-12-09 16:16:28 @WorldImagining Yes, exactly. 2021-12-09 16:09:32 @WorldImagining This is why thought experiments are generally not a good tool for scientific argumentation, in my opinion... 2021-12-09 15:09:51 @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic I've actually got a perspective piece articulating this in review right now, should be out sometime in the next few months. :) 2021-12-09 15:09:07 @prof_kozak @Neuro_Skeptic Thanks for beating me to it! Yes, @Neuro_Skeptic, the brain is *literally* a computer if you define "computer" based on the usage of the word in computer science. But, those articles attacking the brain as computer idea are attacking a different conception of "computer". 2021-12-09 14:44:54 @dav_robbe @pavelrueda CC @dongyanl1n 2021-12-09 14:29:24 @RichardSocher There are lots of things that are fast on GPUs that we don't use. Transformers took off cause they're fast on GPUs *and* because they work well. 2021-12-09 14:20:05 @alassopairts @ProfDAHammer 2021-12-09 14:00:18 RT @apsarathchandar: Doina Precup, @rpascanu and I are very excited to announce the first International Conference on Lifelong Learning Age… 2021-12-08 22:08:31 @TarazLee But, I suppose your real question is: are there any examples of *real* data for which that is not the case? And the answer is, yes! See e.g. here: https://t.co/2kCryt7IEL 2021-12-08 22:08:03 @TarazLee Sure, that's trivial: sample your D > 2021-12-08 21:22:45 RT @tvanouvelles: Héma-Québec fait un appel aux donneurs de sang https://t.co/RKac6PtLxd cc @cdube_sante https://t.co/jZIZiLRP0y 2021-12-08 21:18:53 @EricGrenierTW @dilip_andrade Québec? Non, c'est clairement fou. Mais, quand même, la bonne réponse est Montréal. 2021-12-08 21:14:40 @jaaanaru @eLife @mattlark Wow, congrats! 2021-12-08 21:14:34 RT @jaaanaru: In our new @eLife paper, we present a novel low-cost tool capable of multi-layer optical recordings, optogenetic stimulation,… 2021-12-08 19:21:03 RT @ZuckermanBrain: How does your brain choose what to remember and what to forget, to help you find a place you've visited before? The @at… 2021-12-08 19:17:50 @NunezKant @NeuroNaud Yeah, you got it: we didn't find that was a huge issue for alignment or learning, in the end. But, we liked it, so we kept it. :) 2021-12-08 19:17:07 @NunezKant @NeuroNaud The linearity was in the probability of bursting, which we regulated with apical dendrite targeting inhibition. You can see this illustrated in Fig. 5b. But, honestly, that didn't have a huge effect on the results (e.g. Fig 5c), which is why we don't then compare in Fig. 6. 2021-12-08 18:27:42 @NunezKant He he... nice, glad you got to the "oh, that's why" at some point. 2021-12-08 15:59:26 @soniajoseph_ @raffi_hotter @RoyEyono @neuro_morphic @YoeriDassen @ananyachdh How does one create a DAO though? That's an honest Q! 2021-12-08 15:57:44 RT @g_lajoie_: New Preprint: We explore multi-scale feature learning dynamics in a simple teacher-student model. We find intriguing general… 2021-12-08 14:43:35 @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @bradpwyble Yeah, I'm sure there's some survivorship bias there... It could be that it never ends for the life sciences, due to the greater complexity of the systems involved. Or, it could be that it will require just much higher technical sophistication in experiments. 2021-12-08 14:34:45 @KordingLab @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat Well, if none of the life sciences meets your expectations, it's possible that you have over-inflated expectations. Which I think is common, because we all get raised on a diet of well-established fields like physics and chemistry where the early noisy stages ended long ago. 2021-12-08 14:33:21 @bradpwyble @KordingLab @graemedmoffat Totally, and for me, that is just how science should work! 2021-12-08 14:32:04 @graemedmoffat Or, alternatively, it suggests that no one should take a single paper as truth until it's been replicated a few times, which is something I've argued for for a long time. 2021-12-08 14:20:34 RT @DeepMind: Introducing MIA, a Multimodal Interactive Agent that cooperates and communicates with humans in a 3D virtual world called the… 2021-12-08 14:19:23 @graemedmoffat With work like this, small things like the humidity in the building, the sounds of the utilities, the demeanour of the grad students, the stats of the local population, etc., all can affect reproducibility. You just can't control all this stuff. 2021-12-08 14:17:51 @graemedmoffat I'm just not convinced there is a systematic problem here that could be solved within the independent labs model. I think necessarily, independent labs will produce different results for nigh-impossible to control reasons. 2021-12-08 14:15:35 RT @Labrigger: Wang and Burkhalter’s exquisite work showed that there are higher visual areas (HVAs) in mice with precise retinotopic maps.… 2021-12-08 14:13:35 @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat Agreed! This is part of my point: I don't think that things are all that bad in psychology! 2021-12-08 14:11:59 @graemedmoffat I mean, on some level you're right, because the type 1 errors should be occurring at a rate of 5%, not 50%, given the typical alpha used. But, I think it was always naive to think that our stats could compensate for the inherent noise between people and labs. 2021-12-08 13:52:20 @graemedmoffat Sure, and that can add to the noise. But, I would go so far as to say there is no replicability crisis. Rather, a lot of people had unrealistic ideas about how replicable things would be in the life sciences. 2021-12-08 13:46:57 RT @JudeAtwood: TILDA SWINTON AS LIBRARIES: a thread Tilda Swinton as Texas Southern University's Library Learning Center https://t.co/jqS… 2021-12-08 13:44:21 @KordingLab Good work, and keep going!!! I'm at 956! :D 2021-12-08 13:42:26 These results actually seem pretty reassuring to me... When studying complex biological systems there will necessarily be noise in results, even if everyone is behaving honestly/openly. If we see a clear positive correlation in results, I think that tells us science is working! https://t.co/ISP2zmlhNO 2021-12-07 22:26:25 @alltheperkes https://t.co/uxuLa59EBT 2021-12-07 22:12:24 @SashaMTL That video is so perfect... 2021-12-07 22:10:33 RT @TheKaranMenon: The Omnicron variant is just another example of how COVID will be prolonged if rich nations and Big Pharma keep blocking… 2021-12-07 17:41:13 RT @chelseabfinn: Can NNs learn and enforce symmetries on their predictions? Inspired by Noether’s Thm, we do so by learning quantities th… 2021-12-07 17:36:40 RT @allisonpwhitten: Today in @QuantaMagazine, I wrote about new biologically inspired approaches for one of AI’s trickiest unsolved proble… 2021-12-07 17:36:16 @bradpwyble @patrickmineault Chris will be happy that you caught that reference... :D 2021-12-07 17:35:48 RT @patrickmineault: I will be hanging out and taking questions on our NeurIPS paper until 1PM Eastern - come join. Neuroscience Hall, Slot… 2021-12-07 14:09:51 RT @HBHLMcGill: The McGill Neuro Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program is tailored specifically to help scientific researchers move from… 2021-12-07 14:07:38 @introspection @karimjerbineuro Merci Guillaume! :) 2021-12-06 23:05:07 @KordingLab Congrats!! 2021-12-06 22:10:56 @lavoiems @karimjerbineuro Merci! :) 2021-12-06 21:47:08 J'étais nerveux, mais les étudiants étaient très gentil.e.s, et j'ai profité beacoup en faisant cette présentation. Merci @karimjerbineuro pour m'avoir accueili ! https://t.co/5croSd2OT4 2021-12-06 21:42:11 @GlenBerseth Congrats! :D 2021-12-06 18:24:03 RT @mpezeshki91: Gradient Starvation is among the top ten of most cited papers even before being published at #NeurIPS2021: https://t.co/e8… 2021-12-06 18:23:43 RT @TrackingActions: just out! New faculty position, open rank, on *brain inspired AI* A joint position across life science & 2021-12-06 18:23:29 @Abebab Congrats! 2021-12-06 14:47:09 RT @neurograce: New paper on arXiv! In this work, we wanted to know how the visual system of a fully-embodied reinforcement learning agent… 2021-12-06 01:45:47 RT @s_y_chung: Larry Abbott and I wrote a review on neural manifolds: "Neural population geometry: An approach for understanding biologic… 2021-12-03 19:27:52 RT @narges_razavian: In contrastive self-supervised learning, models are often treated as a blackbox. In our @NeurIPSConf paper, we show t… 2021-12-03 19:17:20 @Aman_Badhwar @mnrajah Thanks! 2021-12-03 19:09:54 RT @Beschizza: the AI really knocks it out the park when you give it Dune. https://t.co/yP4ooetyz7 2021-12-03 18:13:09 @mnrajah @Aman_Badhwar I was gonna say: care to share? 2021-12-03 16:34:16 @Pinboard @leavittron "The idea that eats smart people" I love it... 2021-12-03 16:32:45 @graemedmoffat Oh man, exactly... 2021-12-03 15:03:59 @PaulMinda1 We have a full license at Mila, I love it! 2021-12-03 15:01:36 @JesParent @soniajoseph_ Yeah, agreed. I think half of the appeal of hand-wringing over super intelligent AI is precisely that it allows one (particularly tech ppl) to avoid asking hard questions about the here-and-now. 2021-12-03 14:47:03 @stanislavfort @soniajoseph_ We can't define intelligence, IMO. We can only look at how people use the word. And, our usage is tied to human behaviour. So, in the same way that I wouldn't call a person who can't select goals "intelligent", I wouldn't call an AI that can't select goals intelligent. 2021-12-03 14:42:00 @ethancaballero @soniajoseph_ @stanislavfort Yeah, I don't buy that take... 2021-12-03 14:40:50 @leavittron @Pinboard Sorry, which talk? 2021-12-03 14:36:42 @criticalneuro @MSFTResearch @hannawallach Congrats! 2021-12-02 23:19:38 @soniajoseph_ @stanislavfort Indeed, I would say that goal selection is clearly a critical part of intelligence. 2021-12-02 22:53:15 @jacobmenick @pfau Not quite... There is a fourth possibility, which motivated my tweet: The probability of super intelligence this century is sufficiently low, and the probability of irresponsible use of dumb AI is sufficiently high, that the latter is much more worrying than the former. 2021-12-02 22:01:46 @pfau Might be one of those rare moments! 2021-12-02 20:49:48 @aeronlaffere @ShahabBakht @neuromatch https://t.co/bnAKeUQRTk 2021-12-02 20:48:49 @theBjornErik @WiringTheBrain Did you take a look at the Republican Party recently? 2021-12-02 20:45:50 @RealtimeAI @ShahabBakht @NoahGuzman14 @neuromatch I was gonna say... Marder is typically a font of wisdom, but I'm not getting her point here (at least as phrased by your tweet). What's wrong with everyone wanting to have a good base in fundamental methods like math, stats, and now, ML? 2021-12-02 20:39:32 RT @Franklandlab: AZBA is out! This started with @Fish4Brains bemoaning the fact that there was no modern brain atlas for adult zebrafish a… 2021-12-02 20:30:36 RT @AleenaGarner: Check out our latest work with @georg98keller! Auditory and visual cortex work together to make predictions based on asso… 2021-12-02 19:16:53 I find it kinda funny to worry about the threat of super intelligent AI in the future when we face the much more immediate and real threat of dumb AI with super power over people's lives. 2021-12-02 16:45:12 RT @SciChefQC: Notre consultation citoyenne sur les planifications stratégiques des #FRQ se poursuit jusqu'au 6 déc.! Voici le rapport de l… 2021-12-02 16:33:13 RT @neuromatch: Then 15 short talks and all the asynchronous flash talks. 12 hours of computational neuroscience that you cannot miss! @Sur… 2021-12-01 22:04:21 RT @LecoqJerome: Why do we use DF/F in two photon calcium imaging? I have seen a lot of confusion, misunderstandings over the years. So I… 2021-12-01 21:43:42 RT @DavidWCochrane: A rare moment of non-partisanship in the House of Commons as MPs give unanimous consent to fast track the Conversion Th… 2021-12-01 13:45:39 @graemedmoffat @SunshineRulez @KenBoessenkool I was gonna say, I actually think that's a good idea *if* you simultaneously limit voting to below 65. 2021-11-30 20:17:49 RT @meganranney: We all owe South Africa a thank you and an apology. 2021-11-30 20:13:54 RT @samvermette: On donne $12 000 aux gens pour s’acheter un char électrique. Pourquoi on donne pas $12 000 pour convaincre les gens de vi… 2021-11-30 16:05:26 @sjo09 Awesome, congrats!!! 2021-11-30 14:02:06 @bradpwyble @JulioMTNeuro @KordingLab Also, you can use some common sense about how generally healthy you are... 2021-11-29 22:32:04 Overall, it's good to be reminded of all this! BUT, there are two important caveats to all this data: 1) Democracy has actually reversed since 2015, which is the last year shown here. 2) CLIMATE CHANGE. This is *the omitted* subject that makes it hard to remain so optimistic. https://t.co/1JSrqlWu2p 2021-11-29 20:41:16 RT @IrisVanRooij: computation is not a metaphor 2021-11-29 20:39:32 RT @karimjerbineuro: Deadline extended to Dec 8th ! 2021-11-29 20:02:10 And another very cool looking paper in @eLife this week: Distinct dendritic Ca2+ spike forms produce opposing input-output transformations in rat CA3 pyramidal cells https://t.co/TN3MidNTla 2021-11-29 19:56:54 Very cool... looking forward to digging into this! https://t.co/JykiganDub 2021-11-29 19:34:41 RT @ZeroNoiseLab: Bit of a kick to the hornets' nest, but here is a simple test we came up with to figure out how much the brain cares abou… 2021-11-29 17:00:35 @graemedmoffat @andpru That is probably the least disruptive and respectful way to do it... I think we all agree King Charles is not something Canada wants. 2021-11-29 14:30:00 RT @neuromatch: The second panel discussion at NMC4.0 is about this: “Can we understand how the brain computes or should we focus on unders… 2021-11-26 22:20:32 @SashaMTL Where's the option for loudly singing Baby Shark any time she tries to discuss the matter with you? 2021-11-26 18:33:07 RT @DrStephenArcher: Unvaccinated people account for 92% of #COVID19 in Ontario vs breakthrough cases (post 2-doses vaccine) just 3.8%, and… 2021-11-26 16:58:17 @neurodelia Fascinating... I wonder if this would change (and maybe even be opposite) with a thorough explanation of the pharmacology of the drugs before hand. 2021-11-26 14:39:19 RT @sailorrooscout: If there is one thing I am going to tell you today it is to IGNORE the media and the clickbait headlines on this new va… 2021-11-26 14:28:22 RT @ubi_works: It’s very hard to get people focused on long-term problems when they can't pay their bills. #BasicIncome makes every probl… 2021-11-25 21:09:58 RT @MAIN_Community: MAIN 2021 is delighted to announce that Marieke Mur @marieke_mur from University of Western Ontario will be giving a ta… 2021-11-25 20:23:45 RT @introspection: Fully-funded PhD in my lab with @UMontrealDIRO & 2021-11-25 17:43:10 RT @ShahabBakht: There are so many interesting observations in this paper: https://t.co/ivIXAW87KR The most interesting one imo: 1- "[C… 2021-11-25 16:16:11 RT @NicolasPapernot: We’re looking for PhD students interested in visiting the CleverHans lab @UofT @VectorInst @TorontoSRI for up to 6 mon… 2021-11-25 13:53:15 RT @hugospiers: Amazing pointing abilities of Mbendjele BaYaka people of the Congo Young children accurately pointing at locations kms awa… 2021-11-24 22:47:24 @ShahabBakht But what if both the smartest and the dumbest people spend their time there? 2021-11-24 21:05:58 I wish I could answer this question, but for some stupid reason the ethics board didn't approve my forced swim test study in humans... https://t.co/M3CbWte5LX 2021-11-24 19:59:54 RT @DMWolpert: Wonderful to see our COIN model of motor repertoire learning published. Great work by James Heald @HealdJbh40 in collabora… 2021-11-24 19:41:12 @furthlab 2021-11-24 18:01:05 Dear academia: There are too many reference letters. Please use them only when it's critical (e.g. for a very competitive scholarship). Please stop asking for reference letters for things like small awards and summer schools, etc. 2021-11-24 16:43:38 RT @chethan: NLB challenge update - an impressive entry from @AEStudioLA puts them atop the MC_Maze leaderboard! Hints at new ways to uncov… 2021-11-24 16:41:28 @HashemiLab No Q: totally good! That's what they're for!!! 2021-11-24 16:23:38 RT @takaki_komiyama: 1/ Our new paper is out online today in Neuron @NeuroCellPress. Congrats Ryoma @ryhattori! https://t.co/bPN41xygvV 2021-11-24 15:56:36 @graemedmoffat I could probably do it, but it would require me taking the day off to go and wait at a walk-in clinic... 2021-11-24 15:46:04 @wagonspeedracer Great thread @wagonspeedracer, and awesome work on this project!!! 2021-11-24 15:44:21 Very cool work here from @wagonspeedracer, showing that moderate forgetting can help learning with episodic memory systems! This was something @Franklandlab and I hypothesized back in 2017 (https://t.co/WAAAuAfvaV), great to see it concretely demonstrated. https://t.co/lnAR0oZLoa 2021-11-24 14:33:42 @julie_grollier @AcadSciences Félicitations ! 2021-11-24 14:30:48 RT @ylecun: People who think evolution works through random mutations and selection need to explain how intelligent life appeared using not… 2021-11-24 14:27:08 RT @karimjerbineuro: Imagine... You walk into a café...and run into Yoshua Bengio, Alison Gopnik, Anil Seth & 2021-11-23 20:08:52 RT @hugospiers: Great to see @IvaBrunec & Predictive Representations in Hippocampal and Prefrontal Hierar… 2021-11-23 18:32:57 @AlexUsherHESA @erinotoole That, and, how did the Liberals manage to make inflation so high in the US, UK, etc. too? 2021-11-23 18:30:41 @graemedmoffat @KordingLab This particularly happens with RL. I am consistently bemused when I hear people talk about how RL doesn't have anything to do with the brain: half of the foundations of RL were literally made by psychology and behavioural neuroscience folks to model the brain. 2021-11-23 16:57:19 @tdverstynen @KordingLab 2021-11-23 16:56:06 @KordingLab That dude's tweet illustrates both an ignorance of what RL is, and what babies are like... 2021-11-22 21:07:09 RT @svlevine: An awesome opportunity for students who want to work on RL, robotics, and other cool topics at MILA :) 2021-11-22 20:53:21 RT @TheNeuro_MNI: Only 1 more day until our #OpenScienceInAction Symposium! Don’t miss “Open Science Enabling AI: The #AlphaFold Protein S… 2021-11-21 19:25:07 @KennethHayworth I think it's complete conjecture that you could get 90% of the memories in an accurate way. I think it more likely that all of the memories would be significantly distorted, rendering that which you recreate not the original person at all. 2021-11-21 19:22:27 I 100% agree with @micahgallen here. Peer review can improve papers, and may keep ridiculously shoddy papers out of some venues, but pretty much nothing stops a paper from being published *somewhere*. https://t.co/8p40TUpWZ7 2021-11-21 17:08:55 @KennethHayworth Second, things like chromatin configuration determine the dynamics of the mRNA and protein structures, which are ever-changing. Thus, let's even say you *could* get a perfect snapshot of the mRNA and protein states: that would still be an incomplete picture. 2021-11-21 17:07:26 @KennethHayworth First, fixation doesn't preserve mRNA and protein structures perfectly, nor do we have scanning techniques for fixed tissue that work without disrupting these structures, so it's not even clear that you could do with fixation what you seem to hope. 2021-11-21 17:04:51 @KennethHayworth Yes and no. Fixation can be used to *study* memory, in the same way that we can study ion channels with X-ray crystallography. Can we get information from these techniques? Absolutely! Can we get a perfect snapshot of the molecules without disrupting them? No, definitely not. 2021-11-21 17:02:41 @KennethHayworth But it's not an assumption. I just linked to you a review going over how chromatin conformation seems to contribute to memory storage. I could bust out similar articles on the PSD. My claims here are very well supported by a reasonably large body of literature. 2021-11-21 16:41:50 RT @neuroecology: behavioral control loops -> (from Cis… 2021-11-21 16:41:01 @KennethHayworth Like, lemme make this crystal clear: Post-death fixation of tissue, as it currently works, is just never gonna cut it, in my opinion. 2021-11-21 16:39:35 @KennethHayworth Sure, here's an example: https://t.co/bRpCOcHiaK Please tell me what tech will allow us to determine the conformation of chromatin in every neuron in the brain without disrupting that conformation (or other structures in the neurons)? 2021-11-21 16:37:32 @KennethHayworth Your claim that there is already a reasonable path sketched out seems clearly false to me: What technology even just *imaginable* to us now allows us to determine the shape and position of every protein/nucleotide chain in billions of cells without disrupting them? 2021-11-21 16:35:49 @KennethHayworth Who said anything about magic? Read what I wrote: I think that there are microscopic structures in the brain that are key for memory (e.g. the protein shapes in PSD, chromatin in the nucleus, etc.) that are too delicate to scan without simultaneously disrupting them. 2021-11-21 16:34:04 @KennethHayworth That's a weak argument. Basically, you're saying, "Since people found flight hard to conceptualise, your objections to the practicality of mind uploading aren't of concern". That is clearly a logical fallacy. 2021-11-21 16:17:45 @KennethHayworth Added to this: I suspect such scanning could never operate on a living brain, and that we would need to capture a person literally seconds after glucose stops flowing through the brain, so for most deaths the window of opportunity wouldn't even be there... 2021-11-21 16:14:30 @KennethHayworth My suspicion is this: There will never be a scanning technology of sufficient precision that doesn't simultaneously mess with the microscopic molecular structures that may be key for true uploading. 2021-11-21 16:11:23 @TonyZador @KennethHayworth Exactly, this is precisely my perspective too. 2021-11-21 16:10:22 @KennethHayworth I totally agree, any neuroscientist should agree that *in principle* it is possible. But, many (myself included) think it practically a total non-starter. 2021-11-20 18:16:33 @RWerpachowski @neurobongo Definitely... 2021-11-20 01:14:51 RT @MAIN_Community: MAIN 2021 is delighted to announce 4 amazing Keynote Speakers! Surya Ganguli /Stanford @SuryaGanguli Alison Gopnik /Be… 2021-11-20 01:01:31 @neurobongo And let's just be clear: Those of us who live in America's major client states (Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, and most of Europe), will suffer greatly if/when this happens. 2021-11-20 01:00:18 @neurobongo I say the following with sadness: I think American democracy will only resuscitate after a major crisis, like war with China, civil war, splitting apart, or dictatorship. I wish I saw a different path forward, but I'm afraid that the major parties are too fucked up for that... 2021-11-19 20:58:33 @MelMitchell1 @GaryMarcus @WiringTheBrain I don't think you have any grounds for that claim. I think they most definitely are the same. 2021-11-19 18:25:50 @GaryMarcus @WiringTheBrain @MelMitchell1 In contrast, any attempt to hard-wire these things into AI as an engineer is like putting your bets on intelligent design... 2021-11-19 18:25:10 @GaryMarcus @WiringTheBrain @MelMitchell1 Because evolution is also an optimisation procedure (literally equivalent to SGD in expectation: https://t.co/bygP8G3rQH). Since common sense emerged through optimisation via natural selection, it is very reasonable to think it could emerge through other forms of optimisation. 2021-11-19 18:11:13 @MelMitchell1 Agreed! 2021-11-19 16:00:15 RT @soniajoseph_: Is there any literature comparing the brain to a market economy? 2021-11-19 14:55:42 RT @chethan: Phenomenal - a program to help underrepresented students to dive into neural engineering, AI, and robotics. A paid masters in… 2021-11-19 14:31:23 @GunnarBlohm Notice that the 2021 spring wave had just as sharp an inflection point at the start and then levelled off well before 6K cases. 2021-11-19 14:30:03 @GunnarBlohm Dude, that's some over the top extrapolation... I wouldn't trust that for one second if one of my students presented an ML model to me with that fit... 2021-11-19 14:25:06 @mptouzel @graemedmoffat @josephdviviano @MHendr1cks I don't think the concern is stagnant bureaucracy but rather a stagnant private sector that is allowed to remain stagnant by government policies that protect shitty companies from competition. See e.g. Bell, SNC Lavalin, Loblaw's, etc. 2021-11-18 20:05:15 RT @residentadvisor: Watch @yungsingh35ol and @ministryofsound's new documentary about Punjabi garage https://t.co/bUcGfTpIgp 2021-11-18 20:02:45 RT @schrep: We want this tech accessible to everyone, so like wav2vec, we’re open sourcing it!! You can find the 128-language model we anno… 2021-11-18 18:30:54 RT @BL_Owens: Canada punches above its weight in science, but business needs to step up on innovation. My story for @NatureIndex https://t… 2021-11-18 18:03:31 @WiringTheBrain That's what your dad said. 2021-11-18 17:55:38 @WiringTheBrain You left an important option out: It's just a silly semantic debate that we should all stop having. 2021-11-18 17:51:09 @graemedmoffat @MHendr1cks Not far from the truth... But, on some level, why not? The avg person rightly just wants stability and comfort. The issue is that we need to get the Canadian public, and in turn politicians, to understand that there is no long-term stability without wealth creating innovation. 2021-11-18 17:49:06 The difference is that the text and illustrations in Dragons clearly demonstrate how to deal with spicy salsa and tummy troubles. How to prevent connectionists from worrying about single neurons remains an open question after many decades. 2021-11-18 17:49:05 This writing reminded me of the book, "Dragons love tacos": Hey, Kid! Did you know that Deep Learning Researchers love Objective Functions? But Wait! As much as they love Objective Functions, they hate Single Neurons even more. https://t.co/g6Oez9eob8 2021-11-18 17:17:58 @graemedmoffat @MHendr1cks That is possible... 2021-11-18 17:03:36 @MHendr1cks We do want government to fund more basic research (or at least, fund it better), but our biggest challenge on this front is figuring out how to get Canada's overly conservative business culture to start placing more bets on innovation over natural resources. 2021-11-18 17:02:30 @MHendr1cks In the main article, this is the key point for me: [The problem] is largely due to the structure of the Canadian economy... where extracting and exporting natural resources, rather than innovation, are the main source of wealth. “By default, the business sector has become lazy” 2021-11-18 15:02:13 @WorldImagining It's totally over the top... The problem is that there is a contingent of hyper-anxious parents in Ontario for whom no measure is too much. 2021-11-18 14:58:11 RT @PaNormandin: Avis d'intérêt public pour limiter les crises cardiaques: il y aura un test du système d'alerte d'urgence auj à 13h55 au Q… 2021-11-18 13:42:02 RT @MAIN_Community: Over 1000 researchers and students have already registered for #MAIN2021 Nov 29-30th! Registration is free and abstr… 2021-11-18 13:41:16 @PhilCorlett1 @WiringTheBrain I was gonna mention this one too. :) 2021-11-17 22:44:31 RT @LabeledLines: How does a sensory feature become a spatial landmark? In our paper we show how mouse hippocampus converts an odor into a… 2021-11-17 21:09:52 @RWerpachowski @SashaMTL Not that we have much time, but: just wait. 10 years ago, any carbon pricing was impossible. 5 years ago, only left-wing parties supported it. Now, in many developed countries all mainstream parties support some pricing. My prediction: 10 years from now, it will be a given. 2021-11-17 19:13:09 @SashaMTL https://t.co/Q6ZQOl58Qi 2021-11-17 19:05:46 @SashaMTL $1000/ton by 2050 please! 2021-11-17 19:03:38 @SashaMTL Yeah, I get that... This is why I'm a big proponent of swingeing carbon taxes. I'm sure that collectively there are enough smart people on the planet to address these issues, but only with massive financial incentive will the critical mass actually come to try to help. 2021-11-17 18:59:56 RT @ninsellab: It would be easy to underestimate how great a job this would be. Opportunity to apply ML techniques to a variety of compelli… 2021-11-17 16:41:55 @mickcraig101 It is mandatory here. 2021-11-17 15:08:02 RT @pyoudeyer: Open internship @FlowersINRIA at the crossroads of deep language models, #NLP, question generation, curiosity, #edTech Ma… 2021-11-17 15:07:08 RT @MCapogrosso: Come join us at Pitt!!! #neurotwitter #Neurotech 2021-11-17 14:33:07 @SashaMTL @lzamparo Yup, that sounds about right... 2021-11-17 14:30:53 RT @ubi_works: 80% of NDP caucus supports Basic Income — and the Liberals need their support to pass any bill or budget. Help urge the NDP… 2021-11-16 22:19:18 @SashaMTL My condolences... When I was 31 I slipped a disc badly (hunching over for baby picking up and tiny brain surgeries). I didn't sit for 6 months. Over time, a standing desk and lots of core strengthening has gotten me to a place where I honestly suffer no regular back pain. 2021-11-16 21:56:42 @SashaMTL I think I've started to get an early tell-tale warning sign... maybe it will develop for you too. Other option that has worked for me at times: get an uncomfortable chair. 2021-11-16 21:55:48 @EliSennesh @akatzzzzz @anilananth @QuantaMagazine @bill_lotter @neurobongo @TimKietzmann @KanakaRajanPhD @flodlan @tvjrennie But that second point is critical, since truly Bayesian models require the system to obey Bayes' rule (or at least approximate it in most circumstances), and that's not a guarantee under some models (like CPC, as you noted). 2021-11-16 21:54:18 @PaulMinda1 Not only is it the best tasting non-dairy milk, my understanding is that it is also the most environmentally friendly (cause oats use way less water than some of the other options). 2021-11-16 19:06:27 @Timothy0Leary @felix_anton_s @cian_neuro @QuantaMagazine @anilananth Surely, the main cost was always survival... 2021-11-16 19:06:11 @Timothy0Leary @felix_anton_s @cian_neuro @QuantaMagazine @anilananth I agree, it was never the main cost. But, I could easily see it being an auxiliary cost used in a circuit. 2021-11-16 18:56:17 @felix_anton_s @Timothy0Leary @cian_neuro @QuantaMagazine @anilananth Not as the current cost function, no. I would argue the current cost function is likely built off of machinery whose original cost was energy minimization, not that the current cost is energy minimization. (Note: I speak here of energy in Joules, not energy in, e.g. a NN). 2021-11-16 18:51:50 @SashaMTL I just use the pain in my back as the timer... 2021-11-16 16:41:12 RT @chklovskii: A biologically plausible algorithm for optimal feedback control: https://t.co/PdHX4fUCe7 Accepted to #NeurIPS2021 as a spot… 2021-11-16 15:32:29 RT @martisamuser: What is the computational role of recurrence in deep nets trained for object classification? We (@martisamuser, @gialdegh… 2021-11-16 14:48:49 @CoreyJMaley @KordingLab @fedeadolfi @neuromatch Fair enough, I'll read the paper. :) 2021-11-16 14:47:50 RT @introspection: Learning Dynamics from Large Biological Data Sets: Machine Learning meets Systems Biology https://t.co/k5DEQxydvX https:… 2021-11-16 14:45:50 @Timothy0Leary @cian_neuro @QuantaMagazine @anilananth Very interesting! 2021-11-16 14:45:11 @KordingLab @CoreyJMaley @fedeadolfi @neuromatch Can you clarify what that means? I don't understand. 2021-11-16 14:43:15 @CoreyJMaley @KordingLab @fedeadolfi @neuromatch No, I understand that. But, I'm claiming that when you change the parameters in a neural circuit *both* the function computed *and* the algorithm used are changed. Do you disagree? 2021-11-16 14:36:57 @CoreyJMaley @KordingLab @fedeadolfi @neuromatch They are partially so in neural circuits as well, though, no? If I alter the parameters of my neural circuit, it computes a different function with a different algorithm. How is that fundamentally different from altering the physical parameters on my chip when I program it? 2021-11-16 14:33:41 @achristensen56 So, that's not some sort of fancy way to make coffee? 2021-11-16 14:24:44 @CoreyJMaley @KordingLab @fedeadolfi @neuromatch The funny thing is though, I don't think that's 100% true for digital computers either! When one starts doing graphics or deep learning, one realizes immediately how much the algorithms one wants to run mandate specific hardware! 2021-11-16 14:21:58 @Timothy0Leary @cian_neuro @QuantaMagazine @anilananth This is pretty speculative though... and ultimately, if energy minimization was the ultimate goal, then we should have just dispensed with brains altogether! 2021-11-16 14:20:44 @Timothy0Leary @cian_neuro @QuantaMagazine @anilananth No, you're not, and I actually largely agree with you, but for one thing: I suspect that the phylogenetic path to predictive processing may have been via energy saving mechanisms, i.e. predictive mechanisms co-opted machinery that had originally evolved for energy saving. 2021-11-15 23:05:18 @CoreyJMaley @KordingLab @fedeadolfi @neuromatch But, perhaps I have misunderstood that. If you agree that there can be many different neural circuit implementations of a given algorithm, then we agree completely. :) 2021-11-15 23:04:35 @CoreyJMaley @KordingLab @fedeadolfi @neuromatch I haven't read your article, so I'm not sure. But, this sentence from the abstract makes me go : "Marr’s representational/algorithmic level and implementational level collapse into a single level" Does that not imply that any single algorithm == a single implementation? 2021-11-15 22:49:10 @KordingLab @CoreyJMaley @fedeadolfi @neuromatch But, there are neural motifs implied by this algorithm. That's where y'all are correct! But, it's not the case that there is a *single* viable motif for this algorithm in neural circuits. There is still some disconnect between the levels. They're not completely identical. 2021-11-15 22:47:04 @KordingLab @CoreyJMaley @fedeadolfi @neuromatch I think you're both half-right. :) We can still make a distinction, but it is necessarily soft. Example: in this paper, they show the algorithm zebrafish use for rheotaxis (https://t.co/opzXwINSW7) and there are several different implementations the fish may actually use. 2021-11-15 21:03:44 RT @weijima01: New from the lab: @jenni4eyes and I are proposing a new category of suboptimal Bayesian inference models for human behavior,… 2021-11-15 19:40:06 RT @TheNeuro_MNI: ***New Session confirmed for the #OpenScienceInAction Symposium!*** Don’t miss “Open Science Enabling #AI: The #AlphaFol… 2021-11-15 17:38:10 RT @MIT_CSAIL: 9 Distance Measures in data science with algorithms. via: @gp_pulipaka https://t.co/37izyWPL9b 2021-11-15 17:29:41 RT @weijima01: Bayesian modeling of perception and action: draft of book with Konrad Kording (@KordingLab) and Daniel Goldreich (@dangoldre… 2021-11-15 17:13:37 New @QuantaMagazine article from @anilananth on predictive processing/learning in the brain is out! https://t.co/QF13QwvuJJ 2021-11-15 15:27:33 @pierre_bellec @CT_Bergstrom @FerryDanini I suspect that is the root of this (very unfortunate) mis-translation. 2021-11-15 14:16:09 RT @TonyZador: Scientists would take more risks if grants didn't force them to be conservative https://t.co/v3pqGCvzsT 2021-11-12 21:57:08 @TodThiele @UTSC That's a great addition! 2021-11-12 18:14:23 RT @DouglasResearch: CIC IMAGING SEMINAR Wednesday, November 17, 2021 - 11:00am by Laura Suarez, a PhD candidate at The Neuro. "Learnin… 2021-11-12 18:14:07 RT @patrickmineault: Cool idea: how much things change visually affects how you perceive time. Static scenes feel shorter, changing scenes… 2021-11-12 16:21:09 @TheBrunoCortex Looks like beautiful work, really looking forward to digging into the paper in detail! 2021-11-12 16:18:28 RT @TheBrunoCortex: An apical tuft is one of the most prominent features of a pyramidal neuron. What do these mysterious subcellular compar… 2021-11-12 16:15:48 RT @lukesjulson: The most batsh!t crazy paper I've seen (from 1995) says brains can do backprop bc dendritic spines are separate voltage co… 2021-11-12 16:14:20 @lukesjulson @JasonSynaptic @yusterafa I'm gonna have to check that old paper out then!!! 2021-11-11 20:53:09 RT @SeidelTal: 1/ Editorial decision-making is a cornerstone of academia, shaping scientific progress & 2021-11-11 20:00:43 RT @alfairhall: I made this handy cheat sheet for the current neuro job openings at @UW.. applications due Nov 15! Don’t delay. https://t.c… 2021-11-11 19:27:00 RT @DeepMind: Can the visual brain learn to represent faces by disentangling? Today in @NatureComms, our team finds that novel faces can… 2021-11-11 17:26:03 RT @chethan: Super-excited about this work led by rockstar students @fzhu23 and @arsedle, w/ @agiovann76 and @MattAntimatt. "Deep inferenc… 2021-11-11 17:00:53 @cjmuise So many replies... I need to take the time to parse them all! 2021-11-11 15:24:19 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels No, that's really not an issue anymore. That is easily dealt with in LSTMs and GRUs for medium length sequences and longer-term stuff can be handled by external memory modules for credit assignment as well: https://t.co/UUiMfr5XgX 2021-11-11 13:38:05 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels Hmmm... I see why you say that, but IMO, the missing ingredient is not better learning. The problem is instead the architecture and loss we use, i.e. the learning works fine, but we're not setting it up to learn the right things. 2021-11-11 13:22:47 @AtonKamanda @tscottphillips I don't think we 100% know, but surely it involves a combination of reinforcement, goal setting, and control. 2021-11-11 13:21:07 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels Yes, indeed, and there is evidence for that: https://t.co/lDjiW2Hl8K But, the point re the OP is that it's not that we don't know how to train recurrent nets. It's that just making a net recurrent isn't enough. You need *useful* recurrence, and finding that is the challenge. 2021-11-10 23:02:35 RT @mBeiran: New preprint with @ostojic_srdjan, @mjaztwit, @nicognitive and @hansemsohn! We show that generalization in recurrent neural… 2021-11-10 22:23:49 RT @IrisVanRooij: Vacancy (plsRT) Postdoctoral Position in the Dutch Research Consortium '@in_interaction'! Are you a computational c… 2021-11-10 21:36:56 RT @JonAMichaels: I'll be online at #SfN21 tomorrow (9:15am CT) to discuss my work showing that long-latency feedback responses reflect exp… 2021-11-10 21:19:02 RT @pgmid: I'm *finally* releasing my online course all about the conceptual landscape of neuro-AI (neuroscience and AI together to study i… 2021-11-10 21:02:28 @tscottphillips 1) Is consistent with unexpected things making us laugh. Example: dopamine release feels good, and it is also encoding unexpected rewards. But, we still learn to expect them, minmizing that error. 2021-11-10 21:01:20 @tscottphillips Small distinction I want to make between two different theories though: 1) The brain learns by minimizing prediction error (I believe this). 2) The brain selects actions in order to minimize prediction error (I don't buy this). 2021-11-10 19:53:39 RT @TrentonBricken: Attention has dominated DL but intuition remains limited for why it works so well. In our #NeurIPS paper just out(!), @… 2021-11-10 19:52:00 Interesting looking paper, very up your alley @KordingLab: Systematic Perturbation of an Artificial Neural Network: A Step Towards Quantifying Causal Contributions in The Brain https://t.co/gbLvUecvdH 2021-11-10 19:27:54 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels RNNs can match performance on *static* image classification, but they're no better at this point. But, anything with a temporal component requires an RNN (unless you go with the huge transformer route). 2021-11-10 19:23:32 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels I'm not quite sure what you mean by "standard task"... There are many tasks that a FF network just cannot do but RNNs can. But, I presume that's not what you're asking? 2021-11-10 18:42:06 RT @pfaucette1: The Air Can CEO foolhardy remarks made me think of the myths anglophones tell each other, implicitly or explicitly, about… 2021-11-10 18:32:20 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels People have developed solutions to the inefficiency of RTRL: https://t.co/CEaoqZnuI9 2021-11-10 18:08:00 @bradpwyble @JonAMichaels Sort of... that's how the math works out. But, something like RTRL is more directly about recurrent nets. 2021-11-10 16:44:41 @andpru Meh, the 'delete' button is also pretty effective here... 2021-11-10 16:35:45 @PaulMinda1 Joni Mitchell is the one folk artist from that era whose work just speaks to my brain... total genius. 2021-11-10 16:33:29 Academics: How many survey requests from funding agencies, conferences, universities, and journals do you get in a week? I think I'm clocking in at ~2 per week. If I actually did them all I would literally be doing around 20-40 hours per year of just filling out surveys... 2021-11-09 20:20:44 RT @_JaeeonLee_: My last piece of work from my Ph.D, 'exploring' the role of striatal indirect pathway came out today in @Nature! https://… 2021-11-09 20:18:57 @NoahGuzman14 @PessoaBrain I use exactly this one in my class, it's great, IMO. 2021-11-09 20:13:22 RT @graemedmoffat: The untested vaccines have been tested again. No serious side effects in children, 91% efficacy. 2021-11-09 14:33:45 @json_dirs @KordingLab I've seen many departments that *subsidize* stipends, but it's never been enough to remove the need for grant funding. 2021-11-09 14:32:55 @json_dirs @KordingLab Excuse my ignorance, but: Most disciplines are not grant funded? Where are these departments that are paying the total costs for grad student stipends?!?!? I've never encountered one in my entire career... 2021-11-09 14:30:45 Yes and no. Some of my trust is based on personal experience successfully replicating some phenomena as a student/postdoc (though, it was sometimes not successful). On the other hand, some of my trust is based on the clear positive impact of science on my life and my society. https://t.co/heneUECXut 2021-11-08 21:34:56 @Garrett_Neuro @SMEmrich Awesome, thanks! 2021-11-08 21:34:09 RT @TheNeuro_EDI: We are very excited to announce our first first Neuro EDI lecture, tomorrow, Nov. 9 at 4:15PM (online)! This first talk… 2021-11-08 19:31:58 Any academics out there use project manager software? We're looking at some options, currently trying to decide between Asana and Airtable. Any experience/thoughts to help guide us? 2021-11-08 19:17:28 @SashaMTL @huggingface Congrats!! 2021-11-08 19:15:58 @GunnarBlohm @karimjerbineuro @UMontreal @Mila_Quebec @ai_unique Ben oui, pourquoi pas? 2021-11-08 19:15:05 RT @karimjerbineuro: Faculty position in Montreal! Assistant Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience & https://t.co/vGIpvtOScj Join… 2021-11-08 17:49:06 @KordingLab Yes, I agree. And, I also agree, I think on balance it is worth it. 2021-11-08 17:45:32 @KordingLab Is the fewer students part of the equation because higher pay == fewer grad students? 2021-11-08 17:42:39 Liquor store clerk: I'm gonna need some age verification. Me: Faaabric laaand, FABRIC LAND (Apologies to everyone who did not grow up in Ontario in the 80s: https://t.co/xK7CXKK2iB). https://t.co/G10eBhNJ7k 2021-11-08 14:58:50 RT @david_rolnick: Very happy to be sharing our report on how governments can shape AI to align with climate action. This has been the prod… 2021-11-08 14:57:48 @prokraustinator @AcademicChatter Bonne chance ! 2021-11-08 13:43:07 https://t.co/Fhw25ueX6v 2021-11-07 22:48:29 RT @adelegoldberg1: Universal Grammar is found in Cooking https://t.co/zF5J9O20Qd 2021-11-06 23:20:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-11-01 19:20:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-11-01 17:30:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-08-20 19:16:13 @MHendr1cks @IDEpiPhD @mcgillu There's definitely something in the higher-up conversations that they're not sharing with us. Whether it be pressure from the province, potential costs, or a philosophical objection to vaccine mandates, there is some key component of the reasoning they are keeping silent on. 2021-08-20 17:29:00 @andpru I agree. It's fantastic. And it makes me feel much less like we're in a bonkers pyramid scheme with our trainees. 2021-08-20 17:28:07 RT @andpru: Leaving the academic track for the neurotech industry is increasingly attractive given the growth and opportunities in that spa… 2021-08-19 20:29:48 RT @mariam_s_aly: How is the hippocampal spatial map shaped by reward? High reward value leads to fast reorganization and stabilization of… 2021-08-19 20:05:34 RT @OdedRechavi: Doing a second post doc https://t.co/isXsN4Wu32 2021-08-19 18:20:11 RT @pgmid: What is learning, really? What counts as life? That, and @alonamarie, @janexwang, and @criticalneuro chat about algorithms, repr… 2021-08-19 18:07:10 RT @cydharrell: Cyberpunk is a warning, not a manual 2021-08-19 17:51:38 RT @MHendr1cks: This is a really fantastic benchmark for Quebec to reach, thanks to outreach, the public-spiritedeness of Quebeckers, and i… 2021-08-19 17:23:36 @graemedmoffat @ar0mcintosh My understanding is that steel production is a huge contributor to CO2 release: https://t.co/nBX7pCSom1 2021-08-19 17:07:54 RT @kwanalexc: Thank you Jeffrey DiBerto and @zenbrainest for this preview of our #psilocybin paper @NeuroCellPress. “The cranial windows o… 2021-08-19 15:58:11 @IP_policy @mcgillu @LawMcGill It also suggested that they could look into using the passport for *some* activities. But, I'm like, why not all, and why not just prepare for this right away? 2021-08-19 15:57:27 @IP_policy @mcgillu @LawMcGill The email today explaining the logic was bizarre... It essentially said, "since we have a vaccine passport in this province, we don't need to do anything more to encourage people to get vaccinated", as if that's the sole reason to require vaccines for on campus activity. 2021-08-19 15:51:22 @SashaMTL WTF?!?!? I've never heard of anything so exhaustive, and I know people who work at tech companies. Were you applying to be their CEO?!?!? 2021-08-18 22:06:50 @crocodoyle @IP_policy @mcgillu But, the vaccine passport could be used, no? 2021-08-18 21:28:19 @IP_policy @mcgillu What is the actual motivation here, I wonder? Given that other unis are doing it, and that we will have a provincial vaccine passport to make it easy, I honestly don't understand why they are pushing back on this... Is there some anti-vax person high up in the admin or something? 2021-08-18 21:26:18 RT @ylecun: Last batch of translucently-cosmic Deep Learning lectures. https://t.co/eZTXF0txVE 2021-08-18 21:26:01 @SashaMTL https://t.co/0waBO2NlIy 2021-08-18 21:25:20 RT @Alex_D_Reyes: The Reyes lab at NYU is seeking a postdoc to study memory formation in live neural networks. We will use optical stimula… 2021-08-18 20:34:40 Cool looking paper from the Clopath lab: Learning predictive cognitive maps with spiking neurons during behaviour and replays. https://t.co/UZvQNtMES1 2021-08-18 20:33:27 @SashaMTL Geez, that sounds even worse than a tenure track interview... 2021-08-18 20:32:46 RT @ShahabBakht: Enjoyed reading this paper by Yaoda Xu and Maryam Vaziri-Pashkam: https://t.co/zXrChdR7Rf Careful analysis of representat… 2021-08-18 18:03:03 @graemedmoffat @bradpwyble @MccabeCJM Yeah, indeed, I'm pretty sure that some fear-mongering may be the only route to public acceptance of the massive investments needed. 2021-08-18 17:34:49 @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat @MccabeCJM Yeah, I don't think fear is the *only* motivator for large-scale innovation funding. But, it would also be dishonest to say it isn't an effective one... 2021-08-18 17:15:12 @recursus I actually think the early stages of learning to code can resemble this. But, of course, humans pass on to deeper understanding and problem solving relatively quickly... 2021-08-18 17:13:49 RT @gstsdn: New paper! https://t.co/4oiC9A9SuI We use big language models to synthesize computer programs, execute programs, solve math pro… 2021-08-18 14:44:11 @HeblingVieira @TonyZador I was gonna say: Hopfield was actually in vogue in ML last year! Problem is from an ML perspective that it's much more efficient to just compute attention with softmax than with an actual Hopfield net... 2021-08-18 14:42:21 @graemedmoffat @MccabeCJM I totally understand the importance of military research funding. But, that's different from spending trillions on boots on the ground to occupy a country that anyone with some knowledge of history could have told you was not going to bend to outside forces. 2021-08-18 14:37:30 @felixtaschbach Thanks! Super happy to hear that! 2021-08-18 14:37:04 @andpru @neuroecology @anne_churchland Do you have a pad with a digital pen? It helps with the notes in the margins issue (though not the staring at a screen issue...) 2021-08-18 14:36:12 @AkshaySujatha @NunezKant @neuromatch Super glad to hear that! https://t.co/HzZ8N01uK5 2021-08-18 14:35:12 @cian_neuro Congrats! 2021-08-18 14:34:40 RT @KordingLab: After publishing 3 papers in a week or so @NBDT_journal is 4 published papers shy of pubmed registration. Going to happen s… 2021-08-17 21:13:05 @dennis_a_burke @neuroecology @anne_churchland I do that too, but I once got called out on it! 2021-08-17 20:40:01 @neuroecology @anne_churchland I know, right? That's why I throw a tiny fit every time someone tells me they require a real wet signature on a document... 2021-08-17 20:38:59 @anne_churchland I do not, never have! I wonder if it's a generational divide... 2021-08-17 20:29:15 @JohnKubie @NunezKant @neuromatch You can do locomotion without a brain though! Note: I mean specifically a *brain*, i.e. a centralized, multi-synaptic pathways organ. I don't mean just a nervous system. 2021-08-17 20:15:19 @JasonSynaptic @josephdviviano @melcregor @TonyZador Indeed, this is the key question: is the other stuff just there to make the synaptic changes permanent, or is there some additional information stored there beyond what the synaptic weights should be? My guess is the latter, but I think the jury is out... 2021-08-17 20:13:26 @NunezKant @neuromatch Thanks! I think it's a question we don't actually ask enough in neuroscience... 2021-08-17 17:52:22 @andpru It's such a stupid waste of money... Almost as bad as the Ralph Bucks from days of yore. 2021-08-17 16:48:01 @melcregor @JasonSynaptic @TonyZador Ah, well, you just mentioned the other one I think is a strong contender, i.e. changes in intrinsic excitability! That may also include changes in non-linear channel dynamics in dendrites. 2021-08-17 16:43:53 @OwenJones84 They could have had a better exit plan, one that recognised the possibility that the Afghan government was not as capable of keeping the Taliban at bay as hoped for. But, no, there was nothing else to do but leave at this point (shoulda happened long ago...) 2021-08-17 16:40:51 @JasonSynaptic @TonyZador But, if you want "stored at" to mean, "these physical changes are the proximal mechanism for altering information processing", then "just synapses" becomes a viable (though still unlikely in my opinion) answer. 2021-08-17 16:39:33 @JasonSynaptic @TonyZador Thus, if "stored at" means, "these physical changes are required in a cell to propagate the information through time" then the only possible correct answer is "synapses + other". (And your poll shows most people know this!) 2021-08-17 16:38:19 @JasonSynaptic @TonyZador At the same time, those who try to claim that we can't say whether synaptic changes are involved in long-term memory are clearly talking nonsense, given a mountain of evidence. 2021-08-17 16:36:56 @JasonSynaptic @TonyZador Define "stored at". Given the dynamism of synapses (and the cell membrane in general), I think it's clear that there need to be other changes inside a cell in addition to changes at a synapse in order to render synaptic changes permanent, and there's lots of evidence for this. 2021-08-17 15:31:52 @SashaMTL https://t.co/O092r81L2R 2021-08-17 15:15:32 Not that you wanted to, but if you did want to know what it sounded like in my bedroom between 1995-1998, this Fabio and Grooverider mix is a pretty good representation: https://t.co/8H4XKUj71l 2021-08-17 14:51:04 @neuralreckoning @josueortc @ameet_rahane Well, except libertarians... 2021-08-17 14:25:34 RT @TonyZador: CSHL is recruiting NeuroAI Scholars. PhD-level independent researchers trained in AI who spend 2 years at CSHL working wit… 2021-08-17 14:12:42 @neuralreckoning @josueortc @ameet_rahane Coordination cannot just be peer-to-peer and result in cooperation *unless* the system is designed so 2021-08-16 22:25:43 @neuralreckoning @josueortc @ameet_rahane But, that is the point! A guarantee of a cooperative system requires *coordination* (i.e. credit assignment). Without such coordination there is no guarantee the result will be cooperative. 2021-08-16 22:23:46 @neuralreckoning Yeah, but the sort of police the left wants defunded don't police economic activity, they police personal activity. 2021-08-16 22:22:43 @neuralreckoning @ameet_rahane @josueortc Yeah, I think so. 2021-08-16 20:46:35 @josueortc @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning Yes, that's my claim, anyway... :) 2021-08-16 20:33:21 RT @russpoldrack: Why do we have memory? This interesting review @TrendsCognSci from Ishita Dasgupta and @gershbrain lays out the case tha… 2021-08-16 20:32:58 RT @emilytcowan: New paper with @LilaDavachi out now in Learning & 2021-08-16 20:27:47 @neuralreckoning @ameet_rahane And I feel like this is the semantic distinction that this entire conversation has turned on. The examples you gave (and @josueortc too), are examples of local gov control, rather than national gov control. But, they're still about collective, rather than individual, decisions. 2021-08-16 20:24:48 @neuralreckoning @ameet_rahane You see, I don't consider those lack of government control. Those were merely *local* government control, as opposed to national. The kibbutz was still a collective body. Individuals in a kibbutz were not simple making their own self-interested decisions. 2021-08-16 20:23:29 @josueortc @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning You can argue that leftists want this collective decision making to reflect each individual's needs, and as a leftist I agree that is the goal. But, to the OP, leftist ideas are more analogous to neural circuits with some collective goal, i.e. top-down credit assignment. 2021-08-16 20:21:08 @josueortc @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning My basic argument to you, @neuralreckoning, and @ameet_rahane is this: A self-organising system of the sort envisioned by some comp neuroscientists implies no collective decisions, but rather, each individual making their own decisions. That is analogous to free-market ideology. 2021-08-16 20:18:46 @josueortc @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning I still don't agree with this assessment. The key point is that those *communities* have self-determination. That means that the collective group, rather than the individual, is the locus of power. To the original point, that is the opposite of a self-organising system. 2021-08-16 18:58:48 @josueortc @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning But this is all just theory, and theory about some theoretical end-state in addition. In practice, no left-wing governments have ever reduced government control of the economy. They have all increased it. 2021-08-16 18:57:40 @neuralreckoning @ameet_rahane Also, again, we have to distinguish between economic and personal freedom. Many jurisdictions in the US may have more heavily government control on personal matters (drugs, abortion, etc.) but economically less control than leftier places like Canada and Europe. 2021-08-16 18:55:54 @neuralreckoning @ameet_rahane Oh, boy can I ever, and it's a doozy!!!! https://t.co/8ZPThBj5YK 2021-08-16 18:37:12 RT @unsorsodicorda: There are many blogs with code on VAEs, but very, very few on the (only?) kind of modern VAEs we use in practice today,… 2021-08-16 18:00:37 @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning Right, exactly, so this is why I think an honest analysis recognises that left-wing economics, in actual practice, means more government control. 2021-08-16 17:58:44 RT @GretaThunberg: This basically sums up our current situation. The “code red” IPCC report came out a week ago. Since then not one politic… 2021-08-16 17:56:36 RT @nathanieldaw: A big publication day for us. First @payampiray's theoretical manifesto on linear approximations to RL which offers a new… 2021-08-16 17:49:09 @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning But how do you get to a situation where the workers control the means of production? Workers can organise, but capitalists can too, and they can often beat back worker organisation. The practical answer to the Q, as history has repeatedly shown, is to mandate it via government. 2021-08-16 17:46:21 RT @rafaelshimunov: Everyone who started the war in Afghanistan, won the war in Afghanistan. https://t.co/zmG0ZFTtpP 2021-08-16 17:45:17 @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning Can you give a single *real* example of that? Putting academic theory aside, when has a left-wing government ever minimised government involvement in collective organisation? 2021-08-16 17:43:30 @neuralreckoning Like, yes, in theory most left-wing thinkers muse about the eventual dissolution of top-down control, but literally every left-wing gov ever follows a practical path of modifying the economy, through direct (like nationalisation), or indirect control (via redistribution, etc.) 2021-08-16 17:37:21 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble 1) Social democracy is left of centre in both the US and Europe, so the point holds. 2) Socialism proper is (by definition) either government or government approved workers' councils controlling the means of production. 2021-08-16 17:34:28 @neuralreckoning Those are just another form of mini government though. The point is *collective action*, not individual action. 2021-08-16 17:06:39 @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning That is precisely what I'm talking about. In a self-organising system, workers do *not* control the means of production. That requires a means for control via either government, or government mandated workers' councils/unions, etc. 2021-08-16 17:05:30 @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning Hmmm, sorry, I don't agree with this analysis... Collectivism is about putting the economy under the control of the government. And worker co-ops are just a different way of organising governance. The primary principle is: collective action, not self-organisation of individuals. 2021-08-16 17:00:57 @itamarlandau My memory was that basically anyone who had studied the history of Afghanistan was like, "guys, this is crazy, you're making the exact same mistake the British and then the Russians made". 2021-08-16 16:58:24 @ameet_rahane @neuralreckoning From an economic perspective I don't agree. Right-wing govs always emphasise the importance of letting the market self-organise. Left-wing govs emphasise the importance of government's role in economic redistribution, goal-oriented projects, etc. Think the Green New Deal... 2021-08-16 16:55:47 @neuralreckoning The entire ethos of right-wing economics is: let the system self-organise. Invisible hands! Efficient markets! Left-wing economic thought is about recognising the limits of that approach, and the problems it introduces, and using government programs and/or direction to fix it. 2021-08-16 16:54:13 @neuralreckoning Hmmm... I think you have an odd definition of left-wing then (from an economics perspective). Yes, left-wing is often associated with *personal* freedom, but the key feature of left-wing economics is government oversight and/or correction of the economy. 2021-08-16 16:09:15 RT @LucaAmb: Our work on biologically plausible synaptic weight transport is finally out! https://t.co/Z9jfGB5G2A 2021-08-16 15:56:26 @fugitivehistor1 No, I mean listening to the *community of experts*, not one individual. Too much noise in that, and crackpots can slip through. 2021-08-16 15:55:06 @neuralreckoning Pure communism would be, I guess, hard-wired features... 2021-08-16 15:54:39 @neuralreckoning Top-down credit assignment. I have actually used this metaphor before when explaining why we need it. Basically, the dream of the self-assembly people is like pure free-market economics, whereas deep learning is more like an economy with some major government influence. 2021-08-16 15:51:18 I remember very well when the war in #Afghanistan started. I remember knowledgeable people at the time stating it was a fool's errand. Here we are, 20 years, countless deaths, and trillions of dollars later... Maybe, we should listen to people with expertise more often? 2021-08-13 22:26:30 @andpru @ShahabBakht Glad you guys discussed it! I hope we can discuss it over beer sometime sans COVID spoiling! 2021-08-13 22:24:40 RT @TodThiele: Latest from the lab: Great job by Vernie Aguda : ) #zebrafishrocks #zebrafish https://t.co/gudbYQirn2 2021-08-12 20:18:26 RT @svoboda314: The Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics is recruiting for an exciting project on multi-regional neural computation. Recent… 2021-08-12 18:18:53 RT @CasualBrady: Introducing the https://t.co/5A1fbPZveT decision assistant. This is my #ai startup’s first release. We want to help people… 2021-08-12 16:53:11 RT @patrickmineault: On the relationship between PID controllers and gradient descent https://t.co/fvuMbAOoib 2021-08-12 16:51:56 RT @j_asminewang: have been conversing into the night with GPT3 for a year now. some beautiful poetry has emerged. excited to make a beauti… 2021-08-12 16:51:02 @IP_policy @mcgillu What's weird though is that we're quicker on the passports... I think this is just some randomness, and I am optimistic that they will eventually do the right thing. 2021-08-12 15:06:21 @IvaZovkic https://t.co/PPLiAzFgUO 2021-08-12 15:04:33 RT @neurograce: Lobby your Reps to put a price on carbon: https://t.co/aTD9Qzu4Di 2021-08-11 21:46:44 RT @boazbaraktcs: Our ML seminar touched on inference ⇔ statistical physics connection. Now @blake__bordelon and @haozheshan (with some i… 2021-08-11 21:46:11 @itamarlandau @haozheshan Not I, a different Blake! :) 2021-08-11 20:20:15 @bradpwyble This is amazing... how old are you here? 2021-08-11 17:12:14 RT @DocMCohen: I wonder if there's anything the rest of the country could learn from this. https://t.co/UFUcrO81Jz 2021-08-11 17:11:40 This is sadly true... The alternate realities where we didn't fuck up the climate change file are those where Bush didn't get the White House. https://t.co/R7yv0JpuCd 2021-08-11 17:09:06 @TallITGuy I did, and the university said no! 2021-08-11 15:48:02 Great little thread... Also, Canadian politics would be so much better if we still had more Red Tories, and fewer wannabe Republicans, in the Conservative Party. https://t.co/Mj3wXvQw89 2021-08-11 15:40:21 @mnrajah One thing that is really frustrating for us, though, is that our faculty is no longer issuing P-cards, thereby removing the one route I used to have to occasionally pay for some such things in advance. 2021-08-11 15:38:58 @andpru @dysonsphere @WesternU Yup. But, this is the level of distrust re academic expenses. There is so much anxiety about us spending money we shouldn't... That, and the universities seem to think grad students don't need money to live or something, as I have found when trying to get back pay for students. 2021-08-10 20:14:06 @bradpwyble I honestly have no idea... I just haven't been able to explain why the local taxi companies don't have better apps otherwise. 2021-08-10 19:28:01 @bradpwyble I wonder if the problem is that if you went that way, and didn't do the Uber bezzle, then every ride would be a lot more expensive and people would balk. Because, normal taxi + ride app means all the fees of regular taxis plus the costs of a big team of software engineers. 2021-08-10 18:50:16 This is some straight up bullshit... and totally normal. A perfect example of the classism embedded in academia. Dear universities: if a PI has the money in their grant, let them cover their students in advance. It's not okay to ask a grad student for a months long loan of $Ks. https://t.co/S0obMwTMb2 2021-08-10 18:16:47 RT @ChiefSciCan: Bravo @uOttawa and @SenecaCollege on taking this sound, science-informed decision. Hopefully all postsecondary institution… 2021-08-10 18:16:11 RT @keithedwards: Sobriety is required for driving — here's how drunk people feel about that https://t.co/JgRXJEZrB6 2021-08-10 18:09:44 RT @neuralreckoning: Reminder that @hisspikeness, @SanderBohte, Chiara Bartolozzi and I are organising a workshop on ML methods in spiking… 2021-08-10 18:02:07 RT @Val_Plante: (1/2) L'annonce d'un passeport vaccinal par le ministre @cdube_sante est une bonne nouvelle pour assurer que nos restaurate… 2021-08-10 17:48:07 @dlevenstein @neurograce @neuroecology That does look like a cool paper! I do really believe that the first (phylogenetically speaking) reward signals were related to homeostasis. 2021-08-10 16:27:53 RT @IP_policy: .@uOttawa first @U15ca university in Canada to require proof of vaccination or strict testing across the board. Thank you, O… 2021-08-10 16:11:24 I think some people are wired so as to not need children, and will even be much happier without them, while others will feel some emptiness without kids. The real message we need to propagate is: you do you. Have kids if you want, don't if you don't! https://t.co/929yUZxE9b 2021-08-10 00:23:30 @JamesMHyman @GunnarBlohm Thanks! :) 2021-08-10 00:23:08 @NeuroPolarbear @neuralreckoning @TimKietzmann I'm inclined to agree, and I have used preprints precisely for this purpose in the past (i.e. planting a flag cause I'm afraid of getting scooped). But, that doesn't mean this isn't what people are worried about. If they don't see preprints as valid, then it is a poor flag. 2021-08-09 21:02:46 RT @nathanieldaw: We have an exciting, immediate postdoctoral opportunity with me, @yael_niv, & 2021-08-09 20:21:59 RT @mabuice: Interested in the interface of machine learning and computational neuroscience, with large data sets and a team science approa… 2021-08-09 20:17:12 RT @misicbata: Learning function from structure in neuromorphic networks | https://t.co/PqmUOwaVu1 Led by @LauraESuarez24 w @g_lajoie_ @ty… 2021-08-09 20:16:53 The final version of our paper on rate versus synchrony coding in interneuron subtypes is now officially out in Communications Biology! https://t.co/8UrMjWt8jw (You can see the original tweeprint here: https://t.co/IujVCyugNN) 2021-08-09 20:12:27 RT @GretaThunberg: The new IPCC report contains no real surprises. It confirms what we already know from thousands previous studies and rep… 2021-08-09 20:12:01 RT @zek3r: my first peer reviewed paper was published last week in @SciReports! https://t.co/EKR9mge0XZ Big thanks to @NeuroNaud for being… 2021-08-04 17:58:30 @SashaMTL @soniajoseph_ @Mila_Quebec The neuro culture is old, back to the early 20th century... I don't know enough about how it developed! The ML culture is easier: (1) A decent number of software companies, (2) Lot's of well educated people, (3) Yoshua and his energy, (4) Influx of great people! 2021-08-04 17:56:25 RT @soniajoseph_: How did a cutting edge research culture develop in Montreal for both machine learning and neuro? What is the history? W… 2021-07-30 16:15:12 RT @KordingLab: Got a baby? Want to help us understand how babies develop and in the future make tools to detect if parents need to be conc… 2021-07-29 21:25:37 RT @neurograce: Reading this paper by @KriegeskorteLab and @weixx2 for lab meeting & 2021-07-29 21:07:12 @KordingLab There's a simple solution to that: Means testing for debt forgiveness. 2021-07-29 21:06:30 @Mila_Quebec is looking for a lead on their start-ups program: https://t.co/k62fCGhwgG Come help us build entrepreneurship in AI in Montreal! 2021-07-28 20:40:37 @DrYohanJohn Perhaps AI will eventually be able to do that kind of real science (and if it does, I bet it will require a shit-ton of training data), but we're not there yet... 2021-07-28 20:40:06 @DrYohanJohn OK, if that's the kind of thing you're looking for, I don't think a vanilla big data approach is going to be fruitful... All these required the sort of insights that come from the scientific process of hypothesis-trial-and-error-and-error. It's not just pattern detection! 2021-07-28 20:00:51 RT @OpenAI: We’re releasing Triton 1.0, an open-source Python-like programming language for writing efficient GPU code. OpenAI researchers… 2021-07-28 19:58:42 @kendmil Sadly, you're right... That still mystifies me... 2021-07-28 19:54:11 @DrYohanJohn So, I don't understand exactly what you mean by "discovery of phenomena"... Can you give an example of a traditional science case you think counts as a "discovery of phenomena"? 2021-07-28 19:52:47 Imagine you don't have cancer, and then you pay taxes to treat someone else's cancer. You may not be happy about that. Or, imagine you don't have kids, and then you're paying taxes for other people's kids to go to school. You may not be happy about that. This logic, oh dear... https://t.co/I34w0mhW4x 2021-07-28 18:55:09 RT @mcgillu: #Montreal ties with Boston for top student city in North America in #QSWUR 2022 rankings released today https://t.co/rkeXCqFSy… 2021-07-28 18:52:12 RT @ylecun: Largest private funding round ever for a biotech startup in Canada. Congrats @frey_brendan and the @deepgenomics team. https://… 2021-07-28 17:56:58 @DrYohanJohn Sorry, I should have said: The reason the question is ill-posed is one must distinguish between (1) discoveries in ML that will have an impact outside of ML, and (2) discoveries in other disciplines. I think the case for (1) is clear and positive, (2) much less so... 2021-07-28 17:48:14 https://t.co/mseX3pVpBl 2021-07-28 17:45:03 @DrYohanJohn It's an ill-posed Q... there have been clear advances in ML/AI from big data, and some of those have advanced a different field (e.g. the protein folding model from DeepMind). But, I don't think big data can ever replace the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment, etc. 2021-07-27 21:03:30 RT @patrickmineault: Calling all grad students - I'm giving a couple of workshops tomorrow Wednesday 28th on writing good research code, 10… 2021-07-27 20:03:15 @neuralreckoning I agree, on its own it may not be enough, but I think it would lay the groundwork for the cultural shifts required. 2021-07-27 19:01:40 @patrickmineault Yup! 2021-07-27 19:01:14 RT @maxjaderberg: Very excited to release our new work: Open-Ended Learning Leads to Generally Capable Agents. tldr 2021-07-27 18:46:50 1/2) The solution is both simple, and given the politics involved, impossible: Many of academia's problems stem from a system where one is in constant competition with other ppl, and no one gets a permanent job except a small number of the hyper successful. https://t.co/8LTv4H6RBG 2021-07-27 17:59:59 @neuralreckoning Permanent, guaranteed funding for labs and permanent RA positions! 2021-07-27 17:53:51 @recursus @neuroecology Out of curiosity: why wouldn't they like that term? 2021-07-27 17:34:12 @NOVAChemicals @DowPackaging @ImperialOil @exxonmobil @RPUC_CA are suing Canada because we're considering a single-use plastic ban, shame on y'all! Feds, ignore them... CC @JonathanWNV #plasticfreejuly #cdnpoli https://t.co/AievoM3ibr 2021-07-27 16:45:29 @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain I don't think trial and error alone could account for many human inventions. 2021-07-27 16:43:57 @itamarlandau @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @PessoaBrain Indeed, there are similar studies with Raccoons here in Canada! But for me, this only serves to confirm that these animals are actually quite good at learning. 2021-07-27 16:43:08 @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain Yes, but that doesn't go counter to my point, because my claim is that powerful learning came first, then came language, and both are necessary for the kind of cultural transmission humans do. 2021-07-26 23:59:30 @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain Put another way: You cannot bypass the genomic bottleneck via culture if you suck at learning! 2021-07-26 23:57:23 @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain So, I basically think your premise falls apart because you are proposing propagation of knowledge and skills over generations without sophisticated learning, which I consider an impossibility. 2021-07-26 23:54:53 @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain I still think you're getting this wrong in two critical ways, Tony: 1) Gaining new knowledge to propagate to the next generation requires sophisticated learning. 2) One can only acquire a new skill well via instruction from someone else with sophisticated learning. 2021-07-26 21:17:18 @TonyZador @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain I agree, speed of learning will be a factor that is strongly selected for. But, I think a high level of skill being achievable would also be strongly favoured. The Baldwin effect would presumably select for both... 2021-07-26 21:08:07 @KordingLab @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @TonyZador @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain True! But, it's a lot harder to see how evolution could do that given our current understanding of mutation, selection, etc... 2021-07-26 21:05:17 @DrYohanJohn @itamarlandau There is no reason, a priori, to think that a model with a huge number of parameters trained to, say, navigate in a 3D environment, would necessarily fit neural data, and yet, often, it does! 2021-07-26 21:04:22 @DrYohanJohn @itamarlandau I don't think that's a fair characterisation... Remember: most ANN models are not fit *to data*, which would be like the Ptolemaic model. Instead, they are trained to do something (e.g. some task), and the fit to data emerges naturally. 2021-07-26 21:02:42 @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @TonyZador @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain To bring this incredible thread full circle: Whereas I think it's wrong to think of evolution as being like GD, I am more bullish about learning in individual brains being GD because I think the Baldwin effect would allow any phylogenetic branch that developed it to take off. 2021-07-26 21:00:52 @recursus @ntraft @kaznatcheev @KordingLab @TonyZador @DavidBeniaguev @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain Agreed. The Baldwin effect is clearly Darwinian, but in addition to the Q you asked, I think there is another really interesting Q raised by the Baldwin effect: Given the Baldwin effect, wouldn't natural selection put strong pressure on the evolution of sophisticated learning? 2021-07-26 20:55:55 @DrYohanJohn @itamarlandau However, I don't see any good reason to think that real brains could be described that way either... 2021-07-26 20:55:18 @DrYohanJohn @itamarlandau I actually think the claim that ANNs are unexplainable "black-boxes" is clearly nonsense. We understand a lot about them. But, we understand them via losses, architectures and learning rules, rather than "this neuron does X", which is what people really seem to want... 2021-07-26 20:54:06 @DrYohanJohn @itamarlandau And that's not to say those other models aren't important, or everything in neuroscience should be ANNs. Just that I think they will be the "goldilocks" level of abstraction for many domains. 2021-07-26 20:53:26 @DrYohanJohn @itamarlandau What I would say to that is: look at the track record. We have ANN models that can capture a wide variety of behavioural and physiological phenomena. Much wider a net than other model classes (symbolic models, biophysical models, etc.). 2021-07-26 20:49:00 @itamarlandau @DrYohanJohn Unsurprisingly, perhaps though, my strong bet (based on the trial and error to date) would be that something at the level of abstraction of ANNs will turn out to achieve a lot of explanatory power regarding cognition. 2021-07-26 20:47:14 @itamarlandau @DrYohanJohn Indeed, these are the difficult, practical questions that we as a field will have to address! I think we will only be able to do so through a lot of trial and error, though... 2021-07-26 19:18:29 RT @pj_sjostrom: @NeuroNaud @hisspikeness @tyrell_turing Sorry, no evidence either way. But I will say this: It'd be great if we collective… 2021-07-26 19:17:52 @itamarlandau @DrYohanJohn And whenever I say I am a "reductionist" in neuroscience, this is also what I mean - I think it highly unlikely that we would ever successfully create complete models from sub-atomic physics up to cognition. 2021-07-26 19:16:59 @itamarlandau @DrYohanJohn Yes, this is my take too! I don't think anyone every claimed that a full mathematical reduction had happened, rather, that nothing discovered in chemistry requires an ontological appeal to anything beyond the underlying physics. 2021-07-23 22:00:24 @Bahramani99 Sure, but I'm not hoping to limit philosophical thoughts. I'm hoping to avoid counter-productive conversations with people who are more interested in generating intentionally untestable claims that depend wholly on flawed intuitions. 2021-07-23 21:56:43 @neuralreckoning I love this, list... but I would say our current state is more like "just Popper plus a sprinkling of an incomplete understanding of Kuhn". 2021-07-23 20:56:26 RT @RadioCanadaInfo: Dubé exhorte les jeunes à se faire vacciner pour éviter le recours au passeport vaccinal https://t.co/558kIlSWke 2021-07-23 20:55:10 @anne_churchland @JohnKubie Yes, exactly that. 2021-07-23 20:34:50 @neurograce Yeah, I know, you don't get my zombie hatred... 2021-07-23 20:34:10 @FelixHill84 @dwf @sapinker I was just recounting to my students the other day the funny period of time in the mid-2000's when Tim Lillicrap and I were pleased to see Geoff Hinton's work finally getting some respect again, and us saying to ourselves, "I think Geoff's gonna do well in the end". 2021-07-23 20:29:10 @FelixHill84 @dwf @sapinker Oh man, you're singing my tune here... If I had accepted the arguments against connectionism that I learned in cog sci class I would not have learned the key skills and insights that today form the core of my research program (and which make many of my friends a good living). 2021-07-23 20:23:02 @PessoaBrain This is always my reaction when journalists ask me about killer AI... 2021-07-23 19:44:33 @IP_policy @SenecaCollege This seems like a no-brainer in a country where vaccines are readily available... What are the other institutions worried about, exactly? 2021-07-23 19:43:19 RT @hardmaru: Interesting thread and replies debating about whether language models can be considered to be embodied agents. https://t.co/a… 2021-07-23 18:57:14 @dwf Exactly. Think about how much ink was spilled philosophically attacking a research approach in AI that, in the end, turned out to be key to advancement. 2021-07-23 18:55:12 @NeuroNaud @pj_sjostrom @hisspikeness Indeed, we would love to talk about how to explore the predictions of the model at some point with you @pj_sjostrom ! 2021-07-22 22:14:36 @DrDavidMathers @CoreyJMaley Why we are conscious. 2021-07-22 20:55:54 @DrDavidMathers @CoreyJMaley Right, but that's not the thing many people wish to study. 2021-07-22 20:55:04 @CoreyJMaley @DrDavidMathers I don't agree with that analogy... The incompleteness proofs demonstrate something very different from the zombie argument. 2021-07-22 20:53:31 @DrDavidMathers @CoreyJMaley That was my point. I'm not saying that Chalmers' view is that no empirical work can be done, but that it will not tell us why the brain generates consciousness. So, the empirical study of consciousness to address that question is a non-starter. 2021-07-22 20:22:43 @DrDavidMathers @CoreyJMaley Sure, I agree with you: If you understand and accept Chalmers' position, then the empirical study of consciousness as practised in neuroscience is a non-starter. But that's my point: Chalmers' work, when correctly understood, doesn't help empirical investigation, it kneecaps it! 2021-07-22 20:18:57 @DrDavidMathers @CoreyJMaley No, I don't agree with that. If you accept Chalmers' premises, then demonstrating some neural phenomenon is a consistent correlate of behavioural report of subjective experience is totally uninformative for actual qualia, etc. 2021-07-22 18:07:43 @CoreyJMaley Am I being uncharitable? Perhaps... But I stand by my lack of charity for such theories. 2021-07-22 18:07:14 @CoreyJMaley But there's a difference between identifying a hard problem that could potentially be solved (like Qs of causality, category, etc.), and something which is by design just an argument generation device based wholly on each person's intuitions (like the Chinese Room and zombies). 2021-07-22 18:01:48 RT @josephdviviano: Infinité data is a free lunch? https://t.co/toGzSuMuqk 2021-07-22 17:07:57 RT @ShahabBakht: Science has definitely become more inclusive with the virtual conferences. Someone who hasn't dealt with visa offices ca… 2021-07-22 14:06:24 @CoreyJMaley Which is a shame, because philosophy done well is ultimately really important. 2021-07-22 14:05:53 @CoreyJMaley As a result, when I left cog-sci behind me and went into pure neuro, I at first felt a great sense of relief at no longer having to deal with philosophy, because I had become accustomed to the sort of counter-productive conversations such theorists help to generate. 2021-07-22 14:04:16 @CoreyJMaley Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree. I actually think such philosophers realized at some point (perhaps sub-consciously) that they could make a career out of generating fake problems that are custom designed not to be solved. 2021-07-22 13:50:51 At face value, yes, definitely! But, there is also a tradition of philosophy in cog sci whose MO is to confuse, obfuscate, and impede progress. So, yes to more philosophy in neuroscience, but no thanks to bringing in ppl from the Searle, Chalmers, etc., ilk. https://t.co/a7iqzoNQOh 2021-07-22 13:41:24 @josecyc @kayteeflick Yes and no... It's at deployment in many areas, but the systems involved are still not up to meeting all of the demands of our society. Air/sea transport, plus concrete & 2021-07-21 21:03:54 @kayteeflick Renewable energy 2021-07-21 15:54:11 RT @Ben_Bergen: This is the reality Canadian innovators face every day. But instead of just giving up, we should modernize procurement so… 2021-07-21 15:47:07 @CAMHResearch That link doesn't work! 2021-07-21 15:46:34 RT @neuralreckoning: Postdoc job alert! Please RT. Applying machine learning to spatial audio. Part of @SONICOMproject. Get in touch if yo… 2021-07-21 14:25:57 @shoddy_robots @arna_ghosh @Mila_Quebec Hey man, I picked this handle when I was 16 and never looked back... 2021-07-20 21:01:15 @anne_churchland Y'all should become standard international English IMO! I use it all the time! And I'm Canadian, eh? 2021-07-20 20:44:13 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yes, but the architectures function as an inductive bias. 2021-07-20 18:08:27 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Here's what I will give you: different people think we need different *degrees* of inductive biases, and yes, I agree with you that Yann and others believe we need fewer than someone like Marcus believes. But no one takes the "no inductive biases needed" stance. 2021-07-20 18:07:19 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Well, sorry, I should say that is a sloppy definition I gave. An inductive bias is a bias you put in to help with induction (hence the name) but in practice that means you're putting priors on what sorts of data your learning algorithm can work with and find solutions for. 2021-07-20 18:05:12 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador No, I'm sorry, that is the definition... but, you're right that one way to put a prior on your learning system is to provide it with certain pre-determined features. I just think that's generally not a good strategy for AI. 2021-07-20 18:01:43 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador The nature/nurture debate is dead... we all know it's a mixture of evolution and learning in the brain, and we all know that ANNs do best when they are designed well with good inductive biases. 2021-07-20 18:00:47 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yup, you got it. I think (based on my conversations with him) that Yann thinks inductive biases are an important thing to consider for AI, but that the ones Marcus is calling for (hard-wired symbol processing abilities) are not the right ones. 2021-07-20 17:59:15 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Nor does it need to involve evolution. You can create inductive biases with architecture, loss fns, regularization, etc. None of this need involve evolution or innate features. 2021-07-20 17:56:36 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador No, dude... I feel like we can't have these discussions on Twitter together because we keep talking past each other. Inductive biases are *by definition* a way of putting a prior on your learning algorithm. That does not need to involve hard-wired features at all. 2021-07-20 17:54:54 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yes, but you can do that stuff (abstraction and composition) with ANNs. What you can't do (easily) with ANNs is define a rule, provide some symbols, then manipulate those symbols with those rules no matter whether you've ever worked with those symbols before. 2021-07-20 17:52:49 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Inductive biases are important, but hard-wiring is a bad idea. Put another way: You seem to think inductive biases == hard-wired features, Jeff. That is *false*. 2021-07-20 17:52:05 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador No. Again, you seem to confuse "not hard-wired" with "no inductive biases". This is apparently why you and I keep talking past each other, so let me reiterate for you, and perhaps you can accept this as an actual position that I and others hold: 2021-07-20 17:50:03 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador You're not getting it because you're apparently unwilling to accept my (repeated) assertion that you are mis-characterising Yann and Gary's disagreement. 2021-07-20 17:27:45 Fun short video on what happened to house dancing: https://t.co/379ILSFFOb 2021-07-20 17:26:33 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador In fact, I would suggest that if you look at most people's "common sense" reasoning, it looks a lot more like a bunch of heuristics and extrapolation from personal experiences than formal logic. 2021-07-20 17:25:04 @jeffrey_bowers @neuralreckoning @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Right, but this is exactly why "X claims Y" is such a poor way to do science. People used to claim ANNs couldn't possibly do syntax, and yet, GPT-X does syntax pretty damn well! Similarly, I simply do not buy the idea that common sense reasoning requires symbolic processing. 2021-07-20 17:22:12 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yeah, I agree. Maybe "scavengers" is the wrong word. Predator or disease might be better: their role in the ecosystem is in part to help kill off the ideas that are on shaky ground. But, predators and disease can sometimes go too far and kill off good ones too... 2021-07-20 17:19:07 @DavidBeniaguev @KordingLab @itamarlandau @TonyZador @PessoaBrain Yes, this I agree with! Evolution would be like GD if the mutations were guaranteed on average to be adaptive. But killing off those mutations that weren't adaptive after all (natural selection) is *not* GD. 2021-07-20 17:18:07 @KordingLab @TonyZador @itamarlandau @PessoaBrain Yeah, I'm not with you on this one Konrad... To me, claiming that evolution is doing something like GD is expanding the definition of GD to a near-meaningless one. 2021-07-20 17:15:45 @bradpwyble But, I don't see why we would need to actually find a way to make it possible for brains to do convolution, per se. That seems like it's confusing the abstract model we use because its tractable for the goal of the brain itself. 2021-07-20 17:14:32 @bradpwyble I'm ultimately inclined to agree with you, actually. I view convolution as (1) a clearly useful operation for image processing, (2) a super rough approximation to what happens in the visual system, allowing one to build tractable models of visual processing. 2021-07-20 14:49:02 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yes, agreed. And I think the evidence shows (1) most animals don't do symbolic reasoning, (2) humans do it but require lots of training. Both of which suggest to me that the brain does not have hard-wired symbol processing capabilities. 2021-07-20 14:47:12 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador They're entertaining, and very helpful! In the same way that scavengers are a key part of the ecosystem... 2021-07-20 14:46:10 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador I'm not sure which specific debate you're speaking to, but I can tell you that Yann's research involves a lot more than simply building bigger convnets and training on bigger datasets. 2021-07-20 14:44:02 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador It might be, and it's an interesting Q. But the way to show that is to either (1) prove there are unreachable solutions with SGD, or (2) build an evolutionary model that finds solutions no one has been able to find with SGD. To-date, no one has done either (to my knowledge). 2021-07-20 14:42:08 @neuralreckoning @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yes, I agree with this assessment. I am more ambivalent about (1), but likely agree, and like you, I do not agree with (2). 2021-07-20 14:36:47 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador For example: https://t.co/k4EfTejpP0 2021-07-20 14:34:27 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador No, it is not. The debate is about whether you need to hard-wire in symbol processing capabilities. People like Yann and Yoshua argue you don't need to and can use appropriate inductive biases. Gary claims you need hard-wired symbol systems. Y & 2021-07-20 14:33:22 @josephdviviano @tsonj This is the real issue. The one solution that could make everyone's lives easier would be to have all of a profs grant money go into one account from which everyone is paid. But, that would require funding agencies trusting profs, which is apparently not a thing. 2021-07-20 14:31:56 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador No, I don't. That is not Marcus' claim. He claims that AI researchers should hard-wire in symbol processing capabilities, which is IMO, a terrible idea. 2021-07-20 14:30:55 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador I just don't think you're characterizing the debate accurately. 2021-07-20 14:27:23 @tsonj Yeah, I see that. But I also find the same problems with postdoc pay, and they are employees... I think the real complications stem from the diversity of funding sources, which means there is no central payroll for trainees. And no one has worked out a system to deal with that. 2021-07-20 14:25:47 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador And if the question is how best to model the brain, then I and many other people think that the answer is a combination of really good inductive biases, a few built-in fns, and optimization with appropriate loss functions. 2021-07-20 14:24:42 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Marcus is also making claims about AI, and that is the focus of his debate with Yann. I don't know how many different ways I can say this to you, but *no one argues that evolution didn't shape the brain*. No one. Zero people (at least, zero serious researchers I know of). 2021-07-20 14:22:43 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador No, because (a) Yann doesn't claim that, (b) their discussion is about AI not neuroscience, and I was talking about neuroscience. 2021-07-20 14:21:48 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador And also: I said I *didn't know* whether SGD could find the same solutions evolution can, not that I agree it cannot. That essay you shared didn't help change my agnosticism either... As I've said to you before in other ways: a convincing case is mounted by doing, not claiming. 2021-07-20 14:20:00 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador The reason I don't agree with Gary, and do agree with Yann, is that Marcus' proposal is unrealistic for AI. You cannot know in advance which features will be best for solving a task, you need optimization. And evolutionary algorithms are too inefficient, so for AI, SGD it better. 2021-07-20 14:18:45 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Jeff, I hate to repeat myself, but you seem stuck on this: Yann is an AI researcher. His claims are about AI. Our discussion was about brains, and therefore, the question of the role of evolution is very different. 2021-07-20 14:16:47 @jeffrey_bowers @TonyZador @PessoaBrain @KordingLab Solving what problems? It may be that you can always find decent AI solutions with SGD, but that it will not explain every facet of the brain. 2021-07-20 14:14:49 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador Yann is an AI researcher, not a neuroscientist. Your essay does not address the question of whether we need evolution to find *any* good solutions for AI. 2021-07-20 14:13:44 @jeffrey_bowers @KordingLab @PessoaBrain @TonyZador I'm not sure who you think claims these things in neuroscience... Yes, there are people in *AI* who argue we will be able to make a great deal of headway by scaling up existing architectures, but I don't know anyone who thinks we can ignore evolution for explaining the brain. 2021-07-20 14:08:43 @itamarlandau @KordingLab @TonyZador @PessoaBrain The Q was: is evolution a form of optimization? And on that, again, I think we all agree it is. 2021-07-20 14:08:04 @itamarlandau @KordingLab @TonyZador @PessoaBrain Sure, but to clarify, I don't think anyone in this thread was ever arguing that optimization is always equivalent to GD. 2021-07-20 14:03:55 @analog_ashley Seriously, I would estimate, no exaggerating, that I spend around 10-15 hours each summer trying to work it out, followed by another 10-15 hours throughout the rest of the year dealing with complications as they arise. 2021-07-20 14:02:22 RT @chelseabfinn: Does your neural network struggle with spurious correlations? Check out Evan’s long talk at #ICML2021 on why they should… 2021-07-20 13:36:07 I am so tired of dealing with complications around trainees' pay... Why can't universities make this a little bit easier? 2021-07-19 21:01:44 @jeffrey_bowers @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @TonyZador To clarify, the question is not: Evolution or end-to-end training? The question is: Evolution and what kind of learning? 2021-07-19 21:00:29 @jeffrey_bowers @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @TonyZador Except no one rejects the idea that evolution also shaped the brain, so I don't see why that is an important question. 2021-07-19 20:55:42 @jeffrey_bowers @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @TonyZador Honestly: I don't know. It's possible that if you did SGD infinity times you would cover all possible local minima (e.g. all decent solutions), but that's stretching beyond my intuitive capabilities... 2021-07-19 20:54:12 @ed_ruthazer It was in 2004, so no... 2021-07-19 20:53:47 @NoahGuzman14 If I'm honest with myself: Yes, ambition was part of it. I was also very much curious, but it was ambition that drove me to try applying to competitive grad schools, etc. 2021-07-19 20:50:16 @jeffrey_bowers @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @TonyZador No, certainly, not all types of optimization approximate gradient descent. My claim is not that evolution is gradient descent, just that it is a process of optimization. 2021-07-19 20:49:22 @ed_ruthazer No, no, ha ha ha... I'm already married. I was just mindlessly quote tweeting and publicly humiliating myself with my choice of television. 2021-07-19 20:48:18 @TonyZador @PessoaBrain @KordingLab https://t.co/xToXjwp7z7 2021-07-19 19:38:27 @PessoaBrain @KordingLab @TonyZador IMO that just describes a particular style of optimization. This is another semantic issue that comes up again and again on Twitter (and elsewhere): what is optimization? People have wildly different perspectives on this. 2021-07-19 19:15:48 RT @patrickmineault: New tweeprint time! The brain is exquisitely sensitive to complex motion... how can it learn how to do that? TL 2021-07-19 17:46:13 RT @TonyZador: How many animals have ever lived on this earth? Ie since the first multicellular organisms arose about 600M yrs ago, how m… 2021-07-19 14:30:12 @neurograce I gave up milk, cause I find oat milk is a totally fine substitute. But, to be honest, I have this amazing cheese store near me and I don't think I could give up really good blue cheese... 2021-07-19 13:52:18 @TPVogels @behrenstimb The only time I dislike it is when the comment is so fundamentally unrelated that it is actually clear they weren't listening to the talk at all... 2021-07-18 23:30:06 I am super embarrassed to say that Elena, Stephan and Damon from the Vampire Diaries are planning my wedding... https://t.co/4AXRHI5QNz 2021-07-18 23:27:46 @KordingLab @sidgwicked Yes, I think this is ultimately the cause of the trends you're observing, Konrad. 2021-07-18 14:27:39 RT @WiringTheBrain: Why think of consciousness as a property that something has as opposed to an activity it does? 2021-07-17 20:19:19 RT @hwitteman: Scientists: 1970s: We’re seeing concerning patterns. 1980s: Yep, definitely worrisome. 1990s: Seriously folks, this could… 2021-07-17 20:18:58 RT @TrackingActions: I've been noticing more and more that people are using DeepLabCut sub-optimally: don't train a network per animal. 20… 2021-07-17 18:17:31 A great new #tweeprint out from our lab by @dongyanl1n! https://t.co/8KXD1g4qfj 2021-07-17 18:15:43 RT @Fran_Sacadura: 2 new exciting preprints on how recurrent networks trained on behavioral tasks encode time⏱ One relevant to hippocampu… 2021-07-17 18:15:15 Example: I can conceive of the moon being a conscious entity. But, I would never then claim that we have to consider the possibility that all large rocks are conscious. 2021-07-17 18:15:14 So much this!!! Thank you @WiringTheBrain! Please y'all, remember: just because you say "I can conceive of this", doesn't mean that it's an important case for philosophical consideration. It is literally the weakest kind of thought experiment... https://t.co/BATgy2aNgr 2021-07-16 23:42:11 @SashaMTL I assume this is for an academic job? Cause in academia there is this weird idea that everyone should want to constantly uproot their lives to move to the place with the biggest startup on offer... 2021-07-16 20:32:06 RT @andpru: Neuroscience faculty position using small animals models. Come join us at @westernuPsych @BMI_WesternU. https://t.co/pVL759TAEZ 2021-07-16 20:21:23 @RobinMazumder I don't remember that section of the Communist Manifesto where Marx and Engels discuss golf courses... 2021-07-16 20:16:42 RT @WiringTheBrain: Towards Reproducible Brain-Wide Association Studies https://t.co/d2nnF1WG9c (thread follows...) https://t.co/1uIS92g1IK 2021-07-16 20:16:36 @jmacshine @WiringTheBrain Totally, great thread Kevin! 2021-07-16 16:59:23 @introspection @deepernix @ChuSteJustine Awesome, congratulations to you and your partner! 2021-07-15 23:00:43 @ChenSun92 @arna_ghosh On that I have no doubt! 2021-07-15 22:07:28 @BWJones I mean, this is from the bright minds that brought us the press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping garage, so yeah, I think it's potentially 1, 2, and 3 at once. 2021-07-15 20:47:46 @josephdviviano Ha ha... what? Stop tweeting out short descriptions of my alternate reality self. 2021-07-15 20:14:26 Official announcements are here: https://t.co/kQMHxq0xSn https://t.co/G9MhAAXa7I 2021-07-15 20:14:25 I am super proud to announce that two people from our lab have won major awards: 1) @ChenSun92 is a newly minted Banting Fellow (he was 1st ranked in the country!)! 2) @arna_ghosh is a Vanier Scholar! Congratulations y'all!!!! I feel like I've gotta up my game as a PI now... 2021-07-15 16:14:20 RT @cian_neuro: deep learning, computational neuroscience, computational cognitive science, mathematical neuroscience https://t.co/KykKzqaM… 2021-07-15 14:47:28 RT @patrickmineault: My old team at FB and researchers at UCSF unveil state-of-the-art results in decoding attempted speech in a locked-in… 2021-07-14 21:10:19 RT @danilobzdok: Awesome collaboration with @galenballentine (SUNY Downstate HS, NY) & We explore word usa… 2021-07-14 19:04:01 @andpru @cian_neuro I think the concern is: Most other people do it with these tools, therefore they're more reliable and easier for others to build off of. Which isn't crazy, but also not the concern of a reviewer. 2021-07-14 18:59:52 @cian_neuro Yes, it was harsh, and silly. If you were, I dunno, using Lisp or something, then maybe. But Julia? 2021-07-14 15:05:22 RT @NeuroLibre: #KCNISpeakerSeries talk July 21 w/@tyrell_turing on webex. For more info and to register: https://t.co/RnlS2detEL https://t… 2021-07-13 20:11:32 @IrisVanRooij @Radboud_Uni @DondersInst @AI_Radboud Congrats, awesome! 2021-07-13 20:11:17 RT @KordingLab: cold spring harbor is hiring in comp neuro. I think that us computational folks can have a lot of fun there... https://t.co… 2021-07-13 19:32:26 @willmasonmusic I'm sorry, but this doesn't actually cover me. None of these people are wearing sweat pants... 2021-07-13 19:29:19 @nickcammarata Completely agree! Q: is there much research into MDMA derivatives that could be used frequently in a safe manner? I have often thought this should be a major goal in pharmaceutical research (but one which most scientists likely had a blind spot on pursuing). 2021-07-12 22:39:24 @JulioMTNeuro @jmourabarbosa The situation is indeed complicated, but it seems like we all agree that, on balance, the embargo probably does more harm than good. 2021-07-12 22:05:31 @JulioMTNeuro @jmourabarbosa True, but the gov has every reason to make sure ppl are getting basic necessities so they aren't marching in the street. I'm sure a lot of the increased trade from ending the embargo would be siphoned off by party apparatchiks, but I'm also sure a lot would benefit regular Cubans 2021-07-12 18:42:56 @neuro_data @NeuroStats @neuralengine @Andrew_Solomon Understand the positives in a person? Sure, of course. But why try to understand the positives in a disease? To be clear: as I noted, I think you can find positives in "disorders" like autism, or bipolar, etc. But there are no positives to your medial temporal lobes dying... 2021-07-12 18:39:29 RT @ChenSun92: Hello friends, for your leisure, check out our recent paper about discretizing communication in ANNs :) Supplementing @anir… 2021-07-10 13:20:36 RT @bradpwyble: Paper fresh out of our lab.. people can attend/select a target face and yet be unable to clearly remember what it looked li… 2021-07-09 22:15:42 RT @tomgoldsteincs: My lab is building neural nets that emulate human “thinking” processes. They increase their intelligence after training… 2021-07-09 17:57:56 @neuralreckoning I'm also not clear on this... 2021-07-09 17:25:44 @o_guest @DondersInst @AI_Radboud @CCS_donders Awesome, congrats! 2021-07-09 15:55:10 RT @CAMHResearch: Save the date for this month's #KrembilNeuroinformatics speaker series, featuring Dr. Blake Richards (@tyrell_turing) on… 2021-07-08 20:20:56 RT @alfcnz: In this lecture, we learn about Optimal Control (OC), the connection between RNNs and control, and the fact that OC is simply a… 2021-07-08 16:35:45 @FelixHill84 @recursus Marge Livingstone once explained to me that Boston is a place where people go to get brainwashed into thinking there is still a battle going on between nativism and empiricism. So, we'll forgive you since you went to Harvard, @recursus... (Joking... ) 2021-07-08 16:31:03 @recursus @EliSennesh @FelixHill84 Ha ha... that's a good example. But, I would argue it's due to the sensors. I bet a pig's nose still beats any of our other chemical sensors out there. 2021-07-08 16:28:53 @recursus @FelixHill84 Sure, but then so does your strawman "all learning empiricists", who also don't exist. At the end of the day, we actually largely agree on the path forward, and it is only a matter of degree to which we emphasize different parts of the same research program. 2021-07-08 16:27:36 @recursus @FelixHill84 Disagree. Innate chemotaxis is easy. I'm sure we can already engineer such a system if desired, it would be a piece of cake with the right sensors. 2021-07-08 16:26:36 @recursus @FelixHill84 There are no "all learning" empiricists. That is a strawman, dude. 2021-07-08 16:26:00 @recursus @FelixHill84 I would fold that into number 2. For me, all this statement says is: We need to identify the appropriate inductive biases for our AI systems. Which I agree with! But it is not the nativist position, and it is literally the core program in current deep learning research. 2021-07-07 22:01:41 RT @KordingLab: I managed to read in detail through the @reziliusReza paper "Population coding in the cerebellum: a machine learning perspe… 2021-05-21 20:49:26 RT @CameronTEllis: How does the infant brain support rapid learning? Jazzed that our paper about this is out today. 1/10 https://t.co/0… 2021-05-21 17:54:28 RT @jsnsndr: Hippocampal neurogenesis promotes preference for future rewards. https://t.co/OqZOIQu7Px Latest from Snyder lab, led by @Desi… 2021-05-21 17:35:42 @DrYohanJohn @beausievers But, but... ANNs use representations*. *If by "representation" we mean the neuroscientists' version. 2021-05-21 17:08:49 @DrYohanJohn Yeah, exactly. 2021-05-21 17:02:44 @DrYohanJohn Here's my take: Most neuroscientists use it to mean non-zero mutual info (e.g. a correlation). Most philosophers and many psychologists want it to mean something much more than that, but few of them actually know what that "something more" is. 2021-05-21 17:00:13 RT @uMontreal_news: @UMontreal postdoc @SashaMTL gets a little help to "move the needle forward" in combatting the #climatecrisis: https:/… 2021-05-21 16:58:03 @SashaMTL Seriously... 2021-05-21 15:11:33 RT @neuralreckoning: Are deep nets good brain models? Psychometric testing of automatic speech recognition systems shows they're not like h… 2021-05-21 15:11:02 @SashaMTL Did the not cancel your journée pedagogique next week? Our school did... 2021-05-20 20:07:52 RT @Val_Plante: La vaccination pour les jeunes de 12 à 17 ans est arrivée! Sensibilisons nos jeunes à cet effort collectif, et rappelons-le… 2021-05-20 20:06:47 @talyarkoni @neuralreckoning Okay, sure, lemme make a stronger statement: I think an inter-disciplinary background in systems/cognitive/comp neuro will still be one of the most useful backgrounds for AI for a while, only tied by physics or stats. 2021-05-20 20:00:11 @neuralreckoning @talyarkoni Agreed, I don't think the inspiration has been exhausted yet. 2021-05-20 19:59:17 RT @YunzheNeuro: Pleased to see this out in @ScienceMagazine !(https://t.co/V9GG2nj17g), an enjoyable journey with @marcelomattar @nathanie… 2021-05-20 14:16:15 RT @urbanthoughts11: If you wouldn't build your house like this, why would you build your city this way? https://t.co/Qh8jvxLr72 2021-05-20 14:14:12 @neuralreckoning @neurograce @jeffrey_bowers And that's why arguing over whether they're "the best" model is kinda silly. What we need to do is ask how to make them better. And, I still maintain, that should involve, in part, providing clear benchmarks and metrics. 2021-05-20 14:13:00 @neuralreckoning @neurograce @jeffrey_bowers Sure, agreed. But this is kinda the point: they capture some relevant things, so arguably, it's reasonable/appropriate to build on what they provide. 2021-05-20 14:12:00 @neuralreckoning @neurograce @jeffrey_bowers Ack, no, first spike, just, no... Also, I reject the idea that we have *no idea* what matters. Spike rate surely does carry information. There are likely other considerations (neurophysiology tells us spike synchrony is also critical), but we can use rates with some confidence. 2021-05-20 14:06:48 @neuralreckoning I would agree with the caveat that there are many ANN models from the cognitive science and computational neuroscience literature that I think are decent models of the brain. :) 2021-05-20 14:04:59 @achristensen56 I would be surprised if there isn't some evolution endowed inductive biases this way. But, I would also be surprised if an immobile person had the same richness of shape representations as a mobile person (if we're talking from birth). 2021-05-19 21:41:37 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce I mean a proper, quantitative benchmark that other people can use to compare different models in a formal, rigorous manner. Which is what they're trying to do with BrainScore. 2021-05-19 21:14:56 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce And in my mind, that is a much better tactic than arguing about the semantics of the word "best". If you develop an alternative benchmark that includes more about human shape processing and judgement, then presumably, you could show that on this benchmark CNNs are not as good. 2021-05-19 21:13:45 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce Well, your complaint is with their benchmarks! Again, they're being very clear about what they're doing (building benchmarks). But, your point is that the benchmarks should include something about the importance of shape. Which is a valid point, and something one could develop. 2021-05-19 21:09:50 @neurograce @jeffrey_bowers That precision is the key. Your point is valid Jeff: we know shape is important, so a really good model would take shape into consideration more. But, if we apply specific metrics like this, and define "best" in that way, then there's no arguing with the data... 2021-05-19 21:05:51 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce I take their claim to be precisely what they say: CNNs are the most "brain-like" of the models trained on object recognition (wherein they define "brain-like" concretely via their benchmarks). 2021-05-19 21:03:30 RT @francoislegault: Ça me fait plaisir de vous annoncer que les festivals et les événements artistiques, culturels et récréatifs vont bel… 2021-05-19 21:02:32 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce Check the wording, Jeff. That says, "which ANN model *trained on object recognition* is most brain-like", not "which ANN model is best for human object recognition" 2021-05-19 21:00:24 @neurograce @jeffrey_bowers Agreed. I don't think I've heard anyone say that CNNs provide the best model of human object recognition, per se (particularly wrt behaviour). But, perhaps I'm misremembering (entirely possible). Who knows, maybe I even let this misstatement slip somewhere... 2021-05-19 20:40:54 RT @jesseGlab: Also , we are recruiting multiple postdocs to work on lingual motor control in mice and mechanisms of social learning in par… 2021-05-19 20:32:38 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce Sure, but that doesn't negate what I said: If your goal is to understand the representations in IT broadly, then you shouldn't start by assuming that you know it's all about shape. 2021-05-19 20:05:39 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce No, that would only hold if you start by assuming that you *know* that shape is the primary determinant of representational geometry in IT, which you shouldn't, even if the behavioural data shows humans rely on shape a lot. 2021-05-19 20:03:37 @neurograce @jeffrey_bowers Precisely. The RSA results tell us that though shape is important to human perception there is a lot more that determines the representational geometry in IT, and that other stuff is captured by CNNs (at least in part). 2021-05-19 19:36:39 @jeffrey_bowers @neurograce I think you're getting hung up on the word "best", Jeff. As Grace said, it depends on your goals. So, if your goal is good RSAs, yes, they're the best. If your goal is a model of shape processing, no, they're not the best. 2021-05-19 19:01:38 @JasonSynaptic Hahaha... nice. Only one problem: Since when do biologists not love lasers? 2021-05-19 18:53:03 @skornblith I wouldn't bet that... but I guess we'll see! 2021-05-19 18:52:18 @jeffrey_bowers When they say that they are referring specifically to the ability to match the representations, e.g. via regression or RSA, etc. If you take that definition of "best", then they are correct. 2021-05-19 18:04:24 @DylanRMuir My guess is that is learned in humans. 2021-05-19 17:52:58 @VenkRamaswamy Yup. My intuition: being able to move around an object and touch it makes a *huge* difference in the extent to which shape gets incorporated into our representations of visual stimuli. 2021-05-19 17:51:39 @alexjkell @neurograce @neuroecology That's why I think we have to determine, through research, which architectural principles matter and which don't. We can't prejudge that... 2021-05-19 17:51:01 @alexjkell @neurograce @neuroecology The problem is that defining what is a more "brain-like" architecture is sometimes a bit funky. Consider: transformers may be very different in many ways, but the brain is full of attention mechanisms that many convnets don't have. 2021-05-19 17:48:45 Nonetheless, my bet is no architecture trained on still images would ever focus on shape to the extent humans do unless forced to by some really strong inductive biases. 2021-05-19 17:48:44 I find it slightly odd that anyone is ever surprised that ANNs trained using nothing but still images focus on shape less than humans (who live in a 3D world where they can actually *feel* shapes with their hands)... Still it's interesting that transformers do that a bit less. https://t.co/UrbtHFrCT3 2021-05-19 17:42:49 RT @CA_Mosser: I will present an e-poster at #NeuroFrance2021 on Thursday, May 20 (2:00-3:00 PM CEST) Poster P4.43 The emergence of struct… 2021-05-19 15:03:51 RT @CellTypist: I am looking for a #phdstudent at the intersection of #neuroscience and #machinelearning jointly supervised with @jakhmack… 2021-05-19 13:55:20 Two full-time faculty lecturer positions in computer science here at @mcgillu: https://t.co/kr3uEyrW3i 2021-05-18 19:53:58 RT @StanDehaene: Congenitally blind adults share the same core concepts of geometry as sighted subjects. And those concepts — of right angl… 2021-05-18 16:59:34 @neuralreckoning Yeah, exactly. I think people sometimes overestimate how novel things can be for human performance to hold up. 2021-05-18 16:02:11 @LLogiaco @behrenstimb @gershbrain @summerfieldlab I'm not sure where we're disagreeing then. My point is simply that the idea that animals/humans can generalise well when learning on data that is unrelated to either their evolutionary history or life experience is false. 2021-05-18 15:59:36 @blake_camp_1 @neuralreckoning Indeed, and that's a whole topic unto itself. 2021-05-18 15:58:45 @neuralreckoning I'm struggling with this right now too. We have a couple of great papers we're submitting that I'd love to do a tweeprint on, but I worry that's courting wrath for breaking anonymity... 2021-05-18 15:48:15 @neuralreckoning Ah, my point is not about ML, but about neuroscience. Yes, that's missing in ML. But, when we are trying to understand the brain, should we understand this capability as one of generalising to a totally novel distribution? 2021-05-18 14:26:10 RT @SebBovetSRC: NOUVEAU Version préliminaire (sujette à changements et ajouts) du plan de déconfinement au Québec. Recoupe des infos pub… 2021-05-18 14:25:43 @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning Yes, we do, but: 1) We're not always good at using those abstract mechanisms. 2) We require a lot of training to get good at those, and they depend on passed down knowledge from previous generations. We don't discover those mechanisms de novo, most of the time. 2021-05-18 14:24:09 @LLogiaco @behrenstimb @gershbrain @summerfieldlab If you have an inductive bias that makes you good at a particular set of tasks, that is not OoD in the sense most people mean/want in ML. Also, we don't know what signals are relevant. It's entirely possible, e.g. that touch signals help to shape the perception of calls. 2021-05-18 13:58:08 @neuralreckoning No, I don't think so... The key to video games is in part that they copy the physics of our world. When they don't, we suck at them! 2021-05-18 13:45:12 @dileeplearning @jeffrey_bowers I'm glad you don't work at the DMV... 2021-05-18 13:44:35 @GunnarBlohm @PaulMinda1 Well, per Paul's point, I want to distinguish between in-distribution and out-of-distribution generalisation here. And yeah, you could cook a new recipe, but that's ID - if you have *zero* experience cooking, and you try to cook something, chances are you would fail hard. 2021-05-18 13:42:36 @bradpwyble Yeah, I suppose that I would be okay with saying that is not an error, but I would still assert that people's ability to do that depends on their past experience with those exceptions. I think it can be very hard for people to self-correct in a totally novel situation. 2021-05-18 13:30:19 @roydanroy @summerfieldlab Yes, agreed - the cultural heritage cannot be emphasised enough. No human being would ever have discovered computer programming all by themselves. 2021-05-18 13:28:02 @LLogiaco @behrenstimb @gershbrain @summerfieldlab I don't agree. In the situation you're imagining the ANN doesn't actually get the *full* training set of the mouse, which includes not only the audio signals, but also all the other senses, and all of evolutionary history! So, we're not even close to comparing apples to apples. 2021-05-18 13:25:58 @neuralreckoning Yeah, but this is part of the point: Humans have a lot of data on small translations like that, ML systems don't. When they do, they don't fail... 2021-05-18 13:24:44 @SMBrocklehurst @neuralreckoning I think those situations could change if we were ever to give AI the same sort of training data that humans get: rich, multi-modal, embedded in a world with consistent laws of physics, and lots of social interactions. 2021-05-18 13:23:08 @shibl Not if you have years of experience with enumerating things using the alphabet. 2021-05-18 13:22:08 @neuralreckoning @jerem_forest Indeed, but the more different those rules are the harder you will find the game, and the more in-game training you will require! 2021-05-18 13:20:49 @achristensen56 Precisely. And I would argue it is the same with math: Even when we do math in a rule-based manner, that is only possible courtesy of the knowledge passed down to us. A single human being rarely discovers more than one or two semi-generalisable rules in their life (if any). 2021-05-18 13:18:01 @bradpwyble Probably? It's hard to deal in the abstract like this... 2021-05-18 00:20:13 @dileeplearning @jeffrey_bowers Ha ha... fine, a couple of decades of experience. 2021-05-18 00:18:59 RT @erikphoel: Missed this great review of the overfitted brain hypothesis that accompanied the article by @tyrell_turing and Luke Prince.… 2021-05-18 00:18:46 RT @erikphoel: My paper on the Overfitted Brain Hypothesis is officially out today! And it's on the latest cover of Cell Patterns. Why do w… 2021-05-18 00:17:53 @ankesh_anand Not yet, but it's on my reading list! 2021-05-18 00:16:49 @FelixHill84 Precisely. One of the things that got me thinking about this was realizing that kids literally have to *memorize* their times tables. 2021-05-18 00:15:39 @bradpwyble Agreed! But, that was why I included the "robust" modifier. My point is that people actually make a lot of errors in a true OoD situation, most of the time. That can be *enough* sometimes, but doesn't match the way it gets discussed in the literature. 2021-05-18 00:14:24 @anirudhg9119 @alexhdezgcia But is that really OoD? We got a lot of such training data as kids, covering many different objects, colours, sounds, etc. I'm not convinced it's a true OoD situation. 2021-05-18 00:13:03 @AlbertBuchard I literally have no idea what I'm looking at... 2021-05-18 00:12:41 @GunnarBlohm I mean: Actually performs with little error, and reliably. 2021-05-18 00:11:19 This is a super well-deserved reward, congrats @SamBerenz and @aidanhorner !!! https://t.co/rdSBRxbvSp 2021-05-18 00:10:18 @neuralreckoning That's thing, I don't actually buy that... I think that when you change the distribution in any serious way, we start to suck. We are just lucky to have an incredibly rich training distribution (childhood) that covers most distributions we would care about. 2021-05-18 00:07:55 @minhle_r7 You're just sensitive to a different set of image perturbations - which makes sense, cause you weren't trained with cross-entropy loss on ImageNet. :) 2021-05-18 00:06:57 @minhle_r7 https://t.co/mwwyF3zQVA 2021-05-18 00:06:23 RT @SamBerenz: Thank you, @BPSCognitive. I am really honoured to receive this award with my co-authors @aidanhorner and @tyrell_turing. htt… 2021-05-14 20:09:29 RT @denisejcai: Check out #Minian, our new open-source #miniscope analysis pipeline to enhance accessibility, transparency and usability fo… 2021-05-14 19:25:40 Okay, I think I've found my next aural obsession for the coming weeks: Jayda G! And she's a fellow Canadian to boot! https://t.co/INmUHvKAgL https://t.co/MJ2SVaIPjA 2021-05-14 19:09:05 @vineettiruvadi That's another good point: good surgeons are hardly representative of the broader population. Indeed, I think we over-estimate how often humans engage in OoD in daily life. 2021-05-14 19:08:19 @vineettiruvadi But, let's be clear: a novel set of variables is not by-itself OoD. If you have seen other variable settings that span the novel one, then it's perfectly in-distribution. 2021-05-14 19:02:46 @lavoiems Yes, but I think even with fluency there are clear failures of OoD. Another thing I've noticed as a new speaker of a language is that if I don't use the usual phrasing with a fluent speaker it increases the chances that they will misunderstand me significantly. 2021-05-14 19:00:33 @jeffrey_bowers I agree that OoD is what makes self-driving cars hard. But, I don't think human driving relies on OoD. I think that our lifetime of sensorimotor experience, and general experience with the physical world, actually renders the problem much more in-distribution for us. 2021-05-14 18:58:11 @vineettiruvadi I'm not sure I agree... Anatomy is often broadly similar, and I'm sure that the least risky surgeries are those where the surgeon is least likely to encounter true OoD situations. 2021-05-14 18:50:19 @sharbat_c No! I think kids, like new speakers of a language, easily get confused by unusual wording. 2021-05-14 17:42:50 Learning a new language, in particular, has really convinced me of this. Some researchers cite language as the ultimate in OoD capabilities in humans, and yet, without full fluency, one is likely to be tripped up by a slightly unusual or novel phrasing. 2021-05-14 17:42:49 The more I think about it, the less I am convinced that humans and animals engage in really robust out-of-distribution generalisation frequently... 2021-05-14 17:36:13 @graemedmoffat I've been looking for the right term for me and my wife... this is it! 2021-05-14 14:32:01 @dysonsphere @apeyrache @Adobe @inkscape Yup, I love inkscape, and it can indeed read in .ai files (not always perfectly, but usually no problem). 2021-05-14 14:11:35 RT @mossy_fibers: We are hiring! @NeuroNaud and I are looking for a Ph.D. student and a postdoc to explore how neurons integrate synaptic s… 2021-05-14 13:26:45 RT @patrickmineault: Many classical dimensionality reduction techniques, like PCA, can be expressed as maximum likelihood over latent facto… 2021-05-14 13:17:58 @YiotaPoirazi @NeuroNaud @NatureNeuro @hisspikeness @guerguiev Thank you for your incredibly constructive reviews! 2021-05-13 20:49:25 RT @NeuroLibre: A collective of Canadian researchers has developed a series of Neuroimaging lessons under The Carpentries Incubator to teac… 2021-05-13 20:43:47 RT @alexeyguzey: I spent more than 2 years trying to figure how to improve the institutions of basic science. I decided we need new ones.… 2021-05-13 19:35:59 Prefrontal deep projection neurons enable cognitive flexibility via persistent feedback monitoring: https://t.co/tFDqLeq9yq 2021-05-13 18:57:15 RT @somnirons: Really cool stuff on combining bursting, dendrites and synaptic plasticity to approximate backprop in the brain making some… 2021-05-13 18:57:06 @somnirons Oh, damn, you're gonna leave me in anticipation here, huh? 2021-05-13 18:09:50 RT @mossy_fibers: This is a great article from @NeuroNaud and @tyrell_turing about how biological/synaptic processes combine and lead to le… 2021-05-13 17:37:32 @ampanmdagaba Ha ha... no, it says roughly: "In fact, it's Google that put the confinement in place in order to update Google Streets (they hate blurring people out)" 2021-05-13 17:27:37 RT @NeuroNaud: And very grateful for the perspective from @nspruston and colleagues! https://t.co/CAnmyB2IMq 2021-05-13 16:51:03 @TomChivers Thus, we cannot test their claims against reality, because their claims are often designed to make this impossible. This is why the label pseudoscience often gets applied to them. 2021-05-13 16:49:35 @TomChivers I think you have misunderstood the criticism that most scientists have of evolutionary psych. The issue is not that we object to considering how evolution shaped human behaviour, the issue is that evo psych practitioners make far too few falsifiable, or even quantifiable, claims. 2021-05-13 16:32:48 RT @NeuroNaud: How can synaptic plasticity lead to meaningful learning? Our recent work makes some headway in that direction. I am so excit… 2021-05-13 16:32:22 @paulgribble Wow, the reactions to this were surprisingly harsh... But I'm with you... 2021-05-13 16:22:16 Now this is a COVID conspiracy that makes sense... https://t.co/CRqoIJHRPl 2021-05-13 15:57:36 @graemedmoffat @bradpwyble I don't fully agree... Yes, fitting in is still a thing. But, different societies place different emphasis on it. I definitely think our society has come to place less emphasis on it. My grand-parents were far more concerned with fitting in than my parents are. 2021-05-13 15:41:32 @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat Ha... quite... But, yes, I do. It was far more the case in the past. 2021-05-13 14:59:11 @graemedmoffat Seriously, it was never a rational practice to make it mandatory - a vestige of a time in history when your worth was judged partly on your ability to fit in. 2021-05-12 22:01:20 RT @mpd37: 7 Fully-funded PhD positions in data science for Africans @AIMS_Next https://t.co/3zTrMckaaz Application deadline: June 1 Sta… 2021-05-12 21:53:19 RT @lorenlugosch: Walk-in vax clinic at Palais des Congrès starting tomorrow, no appointment needed: https://t.co/VOznGyHlBr 2021-05-12 21:41:55 @WillettNeuro @ayirpelle We shall hopefully get back to you on this... :) CC @g_lajoie_ 2021-05-12 20:45:26 @_joaogui1 @neuroecology I think it's ability to get reward. 2021-05-12 20:19:38 RT @neuroecology: The sensory system maximizes FITNESS, not information https://t.co/oycRaaI4xu https://t.co/PS6pea4HA1 2021-05-12 18:32:31 @IvaZovkic Congrats Iva!!! 2021-05-12 17:36:34 RT @NeuroLingoMTL: We are excited to announce our fantastic speaker lineup for NeuroLingo Summer 2021! Nous sommes ravis d'annoncer notre… 2021-05-12 17:18:55 RT @CogCompNeuro: The #CCNGAC papers are rolling in from last year’s exciting workshops, to be published in @NBDT_journal after review alon… 2021-05-12 15:40:52 RT @TaraViegen: My first first author paper (with equal con.) is out and freely accessible until 30th of June: https://t.co/BNB8SjK6a3 Tha… 2021-05-12 15:38:25 RT @WillettNeuro: Our new study is out today in Nature! We demonstrate a brain-computer interface that can turn thoughts about handwriting… 2021-05-12 15:37:55 @GunnarBlohm They really are kinda magical feeling! https://t.co/7loQjxeJPF 2021-05-12 15:20:52 @personalitygeni @psurya1994 It's not an easy question to answer in the abstract! But, as the old adage goes for obscenity, I think when we see unfair expectations from a family we know it. :) 2021-05-12 00:49:42 @psurya1994 I don't actually agree... Sometimes it can be true. But, it always depends on whether the family's expectations are rational and fair. If not, then the happiness of the individual should not be overridden. 2021-05-11 20:46:33 @jjodx Oh, I see in a later reply, that is indeed your point... ha ha ha.. Sorry... 2021-05-11 20:45:49 @jjodx Shouldn't that be "ZZZ did not significantly differ between groups"? I assume the means and variances were not identical... 2021-05-11 20:00:56 @GunnarBlohm @queensu Luckily, with current vaccination rates it should be fine. But, I think declaring it mandatory at this point is a bit odd... 2021-05-11 19:56:39 @criticalneuro @hugospiers @JohnKubie @mariam_s_aly @aidanhorner @DanielaJPalombo @g_lajoie_ Yes indeed! :D 2021-05-11 19:53:59 @hugospiers @criticalneuro @JohnKubie @mariam_s_aly @aidanhorner @DanielaJPalombo The folks at DeepMind did do some follow-up with it: https://t.co/bV2VzsUNvz Also, stay tuned for something from our lab this summer relating this idea to forgetting. :) 2021-05-10 17:49:02 RT @meganakpeters: this will be a super amazing program — very pleased to be working on organizing this. apply to lead a GAC workshop, or… 2021-05-10 17:19:57 RT @tdverstynen: Do you have experience with MRI research? Are you interested in doing science AND teaching? Want to work in a cutting-ed… 2021-05-10 16:40:33 RT @TonyZador: BARseq2 now published and hot off the presses! Great work by the team, including @JesseAGillis and @starfishlu, and the othe… 2021-05-10 15:58:08 It's trillium season! https://t.co/liBI4p3hg7 2021-05-10 15:56:49 RT @Mila_Quebec: We are thrilled to be amongst those who have participated in this great collective which aims to illustrate the strength o… 2021-05-10 15:52:24 @apeyrache @SQUnderWire @dlevenstein @Heather_L_Read Second that. Also, it's two blocks away from Mila! 2021-05-10 15:51:04 @andpru I don't think the term is meaningful any longer though... 2021-05-10 15:50:18 @andpru I always took it to be the subsection of neurosci that traced it pedigree to behaviourism in psychology, and which as a result, continued to focus primarily on training animals in classical and instrumental tasks. But, it was "neuroscience" bc they also sometimes poked brains. 2021-05-08 02:21:11 RT @SashaMTL: Probably not at all surprising, but there's a lot of sketchy content online and it's being used to train language models. @jo… 2021-05-08 02:01:30 RT @BWJones: I watched Connections 1978 series as a kid, which inspired a deep love of science. I watched Connections^2 in 1994 and Connec… 2021-05-08 01:02:06 @andpru @cafreeland I honestly think they're *half* listening to everyone. Example, I think they have heard these statements, but only attended to the un-bracketed halves. "ECRs are struggling [bc of low success rates]" "Interdisciplinary research is good [and best funded by open competitions]" 2021-05-07 21:07:05 @aeronlaffere @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data Either: (1) You're suggesting that these scientists were lying about their goals and their inspirations in order to frame their work, or (2) You're postulating that it doesn't matter bc in some alt history there could have been diff inspirations. Both are weird stances to take. 2021-05-07 20:16:42 @aeronlaffere @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data I'm really not sure what to tell you other than that you're trying to re-write history here. The ppl who came up with the key ideas were explicit: they were inspired by the brain. Your claim that it could have gone the same way without that inspiration is pure speculation. 2021-05-07 19:46:10 @NeuroNaud Sure, but I'm still left asking: why not submit my CV plus my teaching evaluations? Does my waxing lyrical about my "teaching philosophy" really make a difference? 2021-05-07 19:43:52 @aeronlaffere @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data So, I don't think your argument can stand, based solely on what the authors at the time expressed as their own inspiration and goals. Here's an old tweet of this on mine in relation to Rosenblatt: https://t.co/LLWULHCcXZ 2021-05-07 19:43:10 @aeronlaffere @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data I'm sorry, but what you're saying simply doesn't fit with the history. If you go read Rosenblatt, or later on McClelland, Hinton, etc., they explicitly state that they are trying to model the brain, and their work is full of references to the psych and neurosci literature. 2021-05-07 17:57:37 @jcrwhittington @behrenstimb Congratulations James! 2021-05-07 17:03:41 @K_M_M_Walker I mean, yes, it is worth effort! That's why we all bust our asses leading up to tenure! But that doesn't mean we should be forced to engage in additional unnecessary effort. And as far as I can see, that's what tenure packages are... 2021-05-06 20:50:32 @paulgribble @andpru Sure, that's why new programs are desirable. But why different web portals and CV formats??!?!?! How does that help their press releases?!?!?!? 2021-05-06 20:49:43 @jbimaknee @dileeplearning @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data I completely agree! And I have often been the one arguing for the neuroscience roots of modern AI. :) I just think it has largely been at a level where it is less obvious whether we call it "biological" inspiration, unless we take any neuroscience inspiration to be "biological". 2021-05-06 20:47:42 RT @andpru: If you're running a funding agency please stop making new bespoke programs with too broad a mandate and too little money and cu… 2021-05-06 20:47:37 @andpru Seriously... why are they so keen to reinvent the wheel constantly? 2021-05-06 19:43:04 RT @Mila_Quebec: Nous souhaitons combler un poste de scientifique en recherche appliquée en apprentissage automatique. Pour plus d'informat… 2021-05-06 19:29:22 @MHendr1cks That's honestly what it kinda feels like... It's sort of like, "You wanna us to commit to you? Well, first you gotta commit to us by showing us that you're willing to re-write your CV in a long-winded format" 2021-05-06 19:26:58 RT @Mila_Quebec: We are currently looking for an applied machine learning research scientist. For more information: https://t.co/OKz7uZRNx… 2021-05-06 19:07:40 @NunezKant @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data Yes, precisely. 2021-05-06 19:07:19 Why do we *require* people to submit tenure packages? If your CV doesn't accurately reflect your contributions, then you should be given the option to supplement with additional info. But, if your CV reflects your work fairly well, why add the extra overhead for everyone? 2021-05-06 18:42:35 @dileeplearning @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data So, honestly, you will get two different answers from me on different days depending on my mood, because I think you can paint this either way. 2021-05-06 18:41:35 @dileeplearning @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data Example: lateral connections. Is that neurobiological inspiration? Maybe, I could go along with that. But, at the same time, that's a very high-level understanding of the biology, if one doesn't explicitly incorporate details of cell types, synapse types, etc. 2021-05-06 18:40:10 @dileeplearning @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data It's less a matter of how we define specific researchers or experiments, and more a matter of what you wanna call "neurobiological inspiration". I honestly don't feel strongly about this... 2021-05-06 18:37:53 @jbimaknee @dileeplearning @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data Obviously I agree with your assessment of what has been successful. :) Really, I think we're just debating definitions (welcome to Twitter). If we wanna say that connectionism was neurobiology-inspired than I'm happy to follow along. But, that was pretty high-level inspiration. 2021-05-06 18:13:02 @dileeplearning @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data In agree neurobiology can potentially help, but I think it's hard to claim it has done much to date, unless one takes a fairly loos interpretation of what constitutes "neurobiology". 2021-05-06 16:30:55 @roydanroy Seriously though: do you consider it bad form to post a pre-print that you intend to submit to a conference? 2021-05-06 16:28:57 RT @graemedmoffat: Should you wait for your preferred vaccine? That ain't the way to have fun, son. https://t.co/78XqPbTGbf 2021-05-06 14:31:39 @KordingLab @hb_cell @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @skornblith @neuro_data Ha ha... you know they don't... 2021-05-06 13:31:58 @andpru @KordingLab @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @skornblith @neuro_data No, I think you're right that historically there was a lot of focus on that, but I would say that the focus started to shift away about 4-5 years ago. That's my anecdotal assessment, anyway... 2021-05-06 13:12:32 RT @criticalneuro: Nice paper at #ICLR2021 by @TaylorWWebb & "Emergent Symbols through Binding in External Memory" In spite of c… 2021-05-06 12:44:30 @andpru @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data I agree there is an issue with benchmark obsession in ML, but that is problematic for discovery in general, not biological inspiration specifically. Also, I would note that many ppl over-estimate how image categorization obsessed ML is. A majority of ML is not image cat. 2021-05-06 12:27:33 @danilobzdok @criticalneuro @KordingLab @skornblith @neuro_data There aren't any, I'm inclined to agree with Chris. Neuroscience can (and has) provided high-level inspiration for AI. But neuro*biology* has not. And this makes sense, arguably. @neuro_data put it well in this reply: https://t.co/3CFV5hd1zR 2021-05-05 21:38:48 RT @Matt_R_Angle: Ever wonder what it would have been like to work at Fairchild or Bell Labs back in the day? That opportunity exists no… 2021-05-05 20:52:41 @DrRubidium No need to @ you here. Note: I Feel Love is also a perfect song. 2021-05-05 20:08:30 @hakwanlau @KordingLab Ha... it's not a question of "success" in the scientific or humanist sense, but the financial sense. And in that sense, yes, sadly, crypto is very successful. 2021-05-05 20:07:34 @KordingLab Indeed, and there has been no "aviation winter" (at least, not until COVID...). The first AI winter really was a result of AI having produced almost nothing useful for industrial or military purposes over several decades... 2021-05-05 18:33:33 @neuralreckoning I'd say that this is my experience 50% of the time, and the rest of the time, the curve is inverted. 2021-05-05 18:28:17 @jbimaknee @KordingLab Because there are definitely no problems with missing resources in certain labs/institutes/companies right now. 2021-05-05 18:27:22 @jbimaknee @KordingLab I would say that's less of an AI winter and more of an AI oligarchy... 2021-05-05 17:58:28 @andpru @BButlerTweets Agree with this. 2021-05-05 17:50:24 @TPVogels @gottapatchemall @TimoWitten If it takes more than 6 months, they probably left the lab too early... 2021-05-05 16:13:05 @josephdviviano @KordingLab Yes, this I can buy. I suspect that the days of people being paid huge money by industry to try to come up with creative ways to achieve AGI will fade at some point. But, there will be lots of money in the ML industry well into the future. 2021-05-05 16:02:42 @KordingLab No, people are already making real money from modern ML in a way they never did leading up to the first AI winter. 2021-05-05 16:01:40 RT @ArmineYalnizyan: Thank you for writing this piece on the normalization of "inferiority" @bill_easterly "The importance of the right t… 2021-05-05 14:54:11 RT @DamienQuerlioz: Our new work, "Synaptic metaplasticity in binarized neural networks", in @NatureComms ! https://t.co/BMKwI1wxPM @AxelL… 2021-05-05 14:42:54 RT @CIHR_IRSC: #ICYMI: Canada’s research funding agencies released the Tri-Agency #EDI Action Plan. We firmly believe that equity, diversi… 2021-05-05 14:40:09 @TPVogels I prefer the big push. I don't like the feeling of harassing someone who is no longer in the lab and is surely busy with other things, and so prolonging the interaction feels crappy... 2021-05-04 18:33:44 RT @andpru: "Domestic cats treat the Kanizsa contour illusion as they do real square contours by spontaneously sitting or standing inside."… 2021-05-04 18:29:18 @_r_o_n_e_ @neurobongo I'll mute this now, because you're clearly not here to have anything like a productive conversation... Also, if you wanna spend your time on Twitter trying to dunk on random people, here's a pro-tip: you need to be a lot better at it than you are. 2021-05-04 18:19:06 @_r_o_n_e_ @neurobongo "if they were that poorly argued, and didn't recognize that I was right, sure" 2021-05-04 18:18:28 @neurobongo @emmaogreen I don't know why any individual person is choosing the set point that they are. I have just observed - on a personal, *anecdotal* level on social media - that a lot of the more cautious set point narratives involve politics. 2021-05-04 18:14:07 @_r_o_n_e_ @neurobongo You could literally do this with any arguments... 2021-05-04 18:12:26 RT @andpru: The severity of the decline in first doses is startling and worrisome. Canada must not fall into this same trap — we need much… 2021-05-04 17:52:34 RT @svlevine: Can regular *supervised* learning solve RL problems from scratch (no demos, no prior data)? Does that even make sense? Well,… 2021-05-04 17:40:17 @neurobongo @emmaogreen I quite enjoyed the article, and think @emmaogreen did an excellent job. Yes, it's choosing a different risk set point. But, I think if people were more honest with themselves, they would admit that a major reason for selecting a different set point is political identity. 2021-05-04 15:32:11 RT @marcgbellemare: Jacob and I will be poster-presenting "The Importance of Pessimism in Fixed-Dataset Policy Optimization" at ICLR today,… 2021-05-03 22:10:27 RT @Noahpinion: The first line of the Bible should be God saying this: https://t.co/O6OCCt56Cr 2021-05-03 21:50:23 @graemedmoffat @andpru https://t.co/OYCMsZmasB 2021-05-03 21:35:38 @graemedmoffat Thank goodness Evan Solomon was challenging her a bit... JFC... 2021-05-03 20:42:08 RT @NYTScience: A new study shows that MDMA, the illegal drug popularly known as Ecstasy or Molly, can bring relief when paired with talk t… 2021-05-03 19:34:52 RT @DrValiante: Many many years in the making supported by our fearless #Epilepsy and #braintumor patients, an amazing Epilepsy Program, th… 2021-05-03 19:02:21 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision And here we agree: The problem is not technical, solutions exist. But, they would require taking on existing oligopolies and NIMBY home owners. 2021-05-03 19:01:11 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision Like, the funny thing about your argument here, Graeme, is that you're undercutting your own point... Me: We should build more HSR rather than highways You: No, that's silly, because we can do it with normal rail, so build highways Me: ???? 2021-05-03 18:58:12 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision *doesn't get delayed. :P 2021-05-03 18:56:46 @andpru @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision Yes, agreed. 2021-05-03 18:56:28 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision Fine, why don't we have a *decent* rail link between those regions? You know, one that runs more often than every few hours and gets delayed every time there's a freight train? 2021-05-03 18:53:34 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision How about all of Southern Ontario? For example, how in god's name is there no good high speed rail link between Toronto, London, Waterloo, etc.? 2021-05-03 18:51:11 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision I must be hallucinating? 2021-05-03 18:50:58 @graemedmoffat @dwf @mdcvision https://t.co/PW54ycIEiS,(120%E2%80%93220%20mph). 2021-05-03 18:49:44 @graemedmoffat @mdcvision I don't agree. China has built a massive high speed rail line in record time. Are we just that much less competent than the Chinese? 2021-05-03 18:28:41 @mdcvision @graemedmoffat Build public transit. Much, much more. 2021-05-01 21:52:44 RT @IlennaJ: Join me in signing up as a TA for this great experience! I learned so much last year as a TA and now I'll be TAing the deep le… 2021-05-01 21:52:07 RT @SamLemonick: With apologies to @xkcd and all my science writing colleagues. https://t.co/lXHNG2ysNi 2021-05-01 21:49:23 @ChenSun92 @PJCNeurobiology @MIT I'll just correct the public record here and note that you are in fact a great scientist. 2021-05-01 21:47:04 @KordingLab Aren't those the same thing? 2021-05-01 17:07:54 @graemedmoffat @andpru @fordnation Yeah, I mean, the request as presented in the headline would be an insane thing to do... 2021-04-30 21:36:13 RT @ChenSun92: Very beautiful paper from @dileeplearning! Deep insights regarding brain computations incl cloning ops, approximations of… 2021-04-30 20:11:01 @neuralreckoning I actually think that's a good idea. :) 2021-04-30 20:10:30 I hate to say it, but welcome to publishing in high-impact neuroscience journals! All sorts of technically sound papers are rejected in those venues on a daily basis... https://t.co/RuURhlnYHV 2021-04-30 20:09:11 RT @natashajaques: I couldn't resist. With contributions from @maxhkw https://t.co/3J7fz6dQut 2021-04-30 19:44:46 @neuralreckoning I think this is why you should use a variety of methods. I would recommend supplementing the linear readout thing with RSA analyses, plus maybe doing some dimensionality reduction to visualize the representations and see if they "look" more specialized. 2021-04-30 19:17:44 @neuralreckoning True, good point. But, again, that's about the suprathreshold response. I think (maybe I'm wrong) it should be easy enough to get a similar size of PSP out of two simultaneous inputs with weak synapses and one single input with strong synapses. 2021-04-30 19:14:51 @neuronJoy @Franklandlab Second this. Michigan is a close second, but I think Illinois wins. 2021-04-30 19:03:28 @graemedmoffat @andpru @fordnation I don't know of any political party that isn't hungry for nothing-burgers that they can score points with. 2021-04-30 19:00:22 @graemedmoffat @andpru @fordnation That's what *politics* is about, sadly... 2021-04-30 18:23:41 @neuralreckoning Like, you don't have to work hard to get a neuron to do linear stuff in the subthreshold regime. 2021-04-30 18:22:46 @neuralreckoning Oh, wait, I don't agree with this... There are linear things in neurons interleaved with non-linear parts! Passive integration in dendrites is linear, after all... 2021-04-30 18:07:51 @neuralreckoning Sure, neurons are chock-full of non-linear processes, but even in that case, it's easier to learn from linearly separable representations. Example: learning a linear problem with a deep ANN (which is also very non-linear) is easier than learning a non-linear problem. 2021-04-30 17:24:44 RT @TBBake: @KordingLab @benlansdell and I digested the feedback on our "representations-in-neuro" pre-print and posted a revised version!… 2021-04-30 17:24:27 @introspection Yes, this is the key thing. Also holds for some of the other self-supervised learning techniques related to predictive coding. The biggest difference is often that more than prediction errors are passed along. Indeed, I would argue this was the biggest flaw of predictive coding. 2021-04-30 17:21:37 @neuralreckoning Oh, that I can answer: the brain should care about linearity because if representations render a problem linear then it makes it easier for new learning. This holds both in brains and ANNs. :) 2021-04-30 15:14:48 @neuralreckoning You can use RSA to show that two subnetworks have different representational geometries, which indicates different specializations. Determining what those are requires comparisons to networks where you know the specialization. 2021-04-30 15:13:53 @neuralreckoning Re RSA: https://t.co/fzFogXLZtk 2021-04-30 15:13:23 @neuralreckoning Example: a network trained on MNIST will have better linear separation of MNIST characters in the top-layers, than a network trained on Fashion MNIST. 2021-04-30 15:12:33 @neuralreckoning I see your point, but the intuition is that if the representations are linearly separable, that indicates that the subnetwork has something pushing it to factorize on that basis, which does suggest that was the cost function shaping it. 2021-04-29 20:44:12 @neuralreckoning Others will surely mention RSA, I would also add: Training linear systems on new tasks using the subnetworks. If you get much better results with one region than another on a given task (e.g. motion discrimination), then arguably you have some specialization in the subnetworks. 2021-04-29 20:38:36 RT @LecoqJerome: We are hiring a software engineer @AllenInstitute for the next phase of the OpenScope project. This is an exciting project… 2021-04-29 18:17:12 RT @sante_qc: Information importante concernant la campagne de vaccination contre la #COVID19. Voici la séquence prévue par groupe d'âg… 2021-04-29 18:13:00 RT @IanSudbery: Me: *Designs grant to test specific hypothesis* Reviewer: If your hypothesis is not true your grant will be a failure. Me:… 2021-04-29 18:10:09 RT @patrickmineault: Ephys tech is doubling in capacity every 4 years, and it's accelerating. My post on accelerating trends in neurotech h… 2021-04-29 14:03:17 RT @UriCohen42: Types of neuroscience papers https://t.co/sOWpXp84yI https://t.co/vx9MvMmbAv 2021-04-28 21:33:37 RT @theJagmeetSingh: Selon le rapport du DPB, un impôt sur les profits excessifs permettrait de récupérer 8 milliards $ pour financer la re… 2021-04-28 18:46:26 RT @BrentDoiron: Today I am starting a short reading course focusing on some of my favorite, classic papers in theoretical neuroscience. I… 2021-04-28 17:05:33 @andpru @alvaretas @JAlGallego @AndrewJWatrous When does Twitter not involve begrudging? 2021-04-28 17:02:17 @alvaretas @JAlGallego @andpru @AndrewJWatrous Agreed. I was being to harsh on blockchain in some parts of the thread. It may indeed have uses. But, I don't see any good uses for cryptocurrencies. 2021-04-28 17:01:22 @MathKyle Yes, that's what I meant. As opposed to their stated goal of non-hallucinogenic therapeutics. 2021-04-28 16:54:09 RT @cazencott: "Bayesian Optimization is Superior to Random Search for Machine Learning Hyperparameter Tuning: Analysis of the Black-Box Op… 2021-04-28 16:52:16 "The advent of psychLight will enable... the development of 5-HT2AR-dependent non-hallucinogenic therapeutics." I guess you can do that if you want, but you could also go in the opposite direction. Seriously, though, looks like a very cool paper! https://t.co/HmsWDKJTiW 2021-04-28 16:20:14 RT @neuromatch: Interested in Computational Neuroscience or Deep Learning? Learn it in one of our 3 week summer schools (July/ August). Gro… 2021-04-28 16:07:36 @andpru @alvaretas @AndrewJWatrous @JAlGallego No, I agree, it does. And, I also agree, regulation is a reasonable approach to crypto. 2021-04-28 16:05:38 @andpru @alvaretas @AndrewJWatrous @JAlGallego Unless it benefits a small group of people a huge amount, in which case, it can live on... 2021-04-28 15:50:57 RT @ubi_works: #Motion46 for a Guaranteed Livable #BasicIncome will be presented in House of Commons this afternoon. We made this tool wit… 2021-04-28 15:45:50 @SashaMTL Yeah, I dunno... I wondered if maybe it was that my brain is interpreting the spring weather as a sign that things are changing, and those expectations are not being met... 2021-04-28 15:39:07 @SashaMTL I am totally with you... I was doing fine until about a month ago, at which point my mood started to take a downward trajectory... 2021-04-28 14:05:58 @neurograce @neuralreckoning Yes, I concur 2021-04-27 19:59:26 RT @_joaogui1: Thread of things being ruined by cryptocurrency 2021-04-27 19:30:02 @JAlGallego @AndrewJWatrous @andpru @alvaretas Yeah, I'm kinda confusing two issue with the way I worded it, this is important clarification. 2021-04-27 19:28:25 @neuro_data @aeronlaffere @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith Yes, couldn't agree more! 2021-04-27 19:27:33 @andpru @graemedmoffat @JAlGallego I don't think ML and crypto are close in terms of the value added so far... Maybe that will change, but I suspect not. 2021-04-27 17:41:03 @andpru @graemedmoffat @JAlGallego The point is: People *have* had time, there has been lots of talk and lots of investment, and so far, we mostly just have Ponzi schemes. Perhaps things will change with *more* time, but I don't see any clear reason to take that optimist's perspective on this issue. 2021-04-27 17:39:01 @dlevenstein @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data Not that we will always be right, but the point is, we can make our bets before hand and then see how the cards fall... And that is precisely what the PDP group did (and their bets have largely been correct, I would argue). 2021-04-27 17:38:10 @dlevenstein @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data Ha ha...yes and no. There is a real Q thanks to the distinction bw algorithms and implementation. The two aren't completely separable, but they are partially, so we can say in advance which aspects we *suspect* are algorithmically important and which are implementation details. 2021-04-27 17:25:13 @ShahabBakht https://t.co/Q5c0CseM3z 2021-04-27 17:20:07 @NeuroMinded I'm very surprised at the current results, given that statisticians on grants is not super uncommon and philosophers' entire job is to problematize things... 2021-04-27 17:17:52 @hakwanlau @andpru @JAlGallego Maybe, but I think that we would have been better to avoid the dot com bubble and similarly, we would be better off without the crypto bubble. 2021-04-27 17:14:21 @hakwanlau @andpru @JAlGallego Did it? Could an Amazon not have come about from a healthy stock market that invested in promising companies with good ideas? (As opposed to our current one focused on extracting money out of stock value fluctuations?) 2021-04-27 17:12:00 @graemedmoffat @andpru @JAlGallego Yeah, I don't find this convincing. Quote from the article: "Even if the project you’re working on is totally cool ... there are 100 other projects pretending to be like yours which are ultimately concerned with transferring money from their users to their founders." 2021-04-27 17:09:15 @graemedmoffat @andpru @JAlGallego Except that: 1) We don't need other currencies. 2) It is destroying the GPU market and related services. 3) It is unjust in a non-transparent way that will take a lot of money from naive people, unlike modern centralised monetary systems which have more clarity and regulation. 2021-04-27 17:06:14 @graemedmoffat @andpru @JAlGallego So, again, it's not about energy waste (though that's part of it), it's about a technology with no inherent value that is fucking up a lot of other systems and dooming many people to lose a lot of money in ponzi schemes. 2021-04-27 17:05:19 @graemedmoffat @andpru @JAlGallego Cause this is the key point of the article, @graemedmoffat: people say blockchain is great for lots of stuff, and then never actually seem to have the receipts to back that claim up. 2021-04-27 17:04:04 @hakwanlau Well, don't get me started on the state of the stock market... 2021-04-27 17:03:25 @graemedmoffat @andpru @JAlGallego How are they useful? 2021-04-27 17:02:29 @ShahabBakht I actually found it surprisingly easy to remember the spelling of your last name because it was surprising to me while also being short (not too many letters to remember). Damjan's last name on the other hand... 2021-04-27 17:00:08 @andpru @JAlGallego Like, seriously, step back for a moment and ask yourself: 1) Why would we need these currencies? 2) Currencies aside, in what circumstances is a blockchain system actually doing something useful that couldn't be done in another way? 2021-04-27 16:57:59 @andpru @JAlGallego But that's the point of the article: No one can point to actually useful crypto applications that haven't just devolved into a commodity (one with no inherent value in the real world). 2021-04-27 16:55:30 @nicholdav Ha!!! https://t.co/oExPYv5x5Q 2021-04-27 16:54:32 @andpru @JAlGallego Yeah, the energy waste is actually one of the *smaller* points in this article, and not my biggest concern either (because I truly believe we can green the grid in the coming decades). The problem is that crypto is a smouldering pile of shit ponzi scheme with no value. 2021-04-27 16:50:03 @JAlGallego It's a pretty great screed, isn't it? 2021-04-27 16:44:14 This article on why cryptocurrency sucks is pretty convincing: https://t.co/YJWcFkDEoX How to get rid of these ponzi schemes? Would it even be possible to legislate such things? Or do we basically need to wait for the pyramid to collapse and have a lot of people lose money? 2021-04-27 16:32:51 @aeronlaffere @KordingLab @neurograce @AlGoulas @KriegeskorteLab @skornblith @neuro_data In other words, the development of ANNs and DL was more about inspiration from psychology and high-level comp neuro, not neurobiology. 2021-04-24 00:54:27 @mraginsky @WiringTheBrain No it doesn't. Ever heard of something called oral history? Yes, we can also use other means of transmission, e.g. books, but those things are just extensions of the information encoded in the biological system. 2021-04-24 00:50:16 @mraginsky @WiringTheBrain A bunch of animals got together and put some rocks in a structure based on the activity in their brains. It happens all the time... 2021-04-24 00:47:23 @Jakob__B @WiringTheBrain No, I don't think so... The Mona Lisa is a painting. Interpretations of the Mona Lisa are something related, but not the Mona Lisa itself. 2021-04-24 00:45:17 @JohnKubie @WiringTheBrain All of which is ultimately just changes in people's brains. 2021-04-24 00:44:48 @WiringTheBrain No, I disagree. You're confusing "is also something more" with "is not identical to". The moon is a large rock orbiting the Earth, period. At the same time, the moon is something more to many people. Doesn't mean it's not a rock orbiting the Earth, though... 2021-04-24 00:42:25 @WiringTheBrain It is according to most common sense definitions of the word "is"... 2021-04-23 20:11:55 @WiringTheBrain Yes, that is exactly what it's saying. Because, at the end of the day, literature is words and the Mona Lisa is a bunch of paint on a canvas. 2021-04-23 20:11:07 My first reaction was: Ha ha ha ha... is she trying to do satire? My second reaction was: Oh man, this woman is actually an MP... https://t.co/mKXS4pEEx7 2021-04-23 18:52:15 @WiringTheBrain That depends on what "reduces to" mean to you. I agree, from a practical perspective, we will never successfully reduce culture to biology. But, culture *is* biology, since there exists no other substrate for the culture. So, there is a reduction, even if we can't find it. 2021-04-23 18:49:31 RT @andpru: Thank you @KirstyDuncanMP. https://t.co/2q0HogPslv 2021-04-23 18:40:19 @WiringTheBrain Culture is dependent on biological substrates (brains) and so necessarily reduces to biology in a trivial way. But, I think what you mean, and what I certainly agree with, is that cultural differences do not imply genetic and/or easy to identify biological differences. 2021-04-23 18:35:18 RT @NeuroNaud: Hey comp-neuro twitter, I am looking for a post-doctoral fellow to join our team. If you (or know someone who) are intereste… 2021-04-23 00:55:33 @SashaMTL There are the occasional, rare gems that hold up though... and even some that seem better. Last Days of Disco was one such movie for me. 2021-04-22 16:18:49 @graemedmoffat My guess: the main reason that gov IT often sucks is that they insist on keeping all of their complex, insane, bureaucratic systems in place and grafting the IT onto that. See, e.g., Pheonix. In contrast, COVID vaccine deployment has likely benefited from it being a new system. 2021-04-22 16:09:41 RT @patrickmineault: A recent wiring diagram of the visual cortex - a little easier to read than the classic Felleman and van Essen (1991)… 2021-04-22 16:09:02 @graemedmoffat Quebec's Clic Santé is pretty easy to use and works well, actually, far better than what I've heard about in Ontario. Sometimes it *is* more efficient for the government to do something, particularly if it is something that the government is primarily responsible for. 2021-04-21 20:16:55 RT @NBakhache: I moved to Canada 9 years ago. It snowed in April that year and every canadian was aghast So I concluded that April snow… 2021-04-21 19:00:20 RT @alfairhall: @TPVogels and I are starting a world wide neuro book club. Read, join, meet the authors, ask questions (not necessarily in… 2021-04-21 16:28:25 RT @cian_neuro: very nice paper showing surprisingly that sensory-evoked and spontaneous neural population activity become more different d… 2021-04-21 15:22:08 @osmoland Cycling *sucked* this morning... 2021-04-20 19:05:27 @ryanqnorth Very few keep to their guarantees as well as you do, well done ol' chap! 2021-04-20 16:28:01 I have yet to go through #Budget2021 in detail, but I will say that I think the child-care measure (nationwide $10/day childcare) is fantastic. It is important for gender equity and will help economic recovery, both of which are key post COVID. Well done on that @cafreeland! 2021-04-20 16:21:39 @carlyziter I do careful, line-by-line code review with students early in their degree, not later. Rarely do it with postdocs, though have sometimes. 2021-04-20 16:05:31 RT @jen_keesmaat: Starting in 2021, developers in Montreal will be required by law to set aside 20% of new housing units for social housing… 2021-04-20 14:16:10 This is my take too, based on numbers like these: https://t.co/Xcjq4yRyLF I see some people wanting to pretend we're basically a failed state, and the gov wanting to paint it as a total cake walk, but it's essentially OK. https://t.co/T4fiIvgQGO 2021-04-20 01:20:39 RT @CGalipeauTJ: Premier budget du gouvernement canadien depuis le début de la pandémie Ottawa investit massivement dans une relance au fé… 2021-04-19 18:39:48 RT @TheTweetOfGod: When I do it it's omnipresence. When you do it it's stalking. 2021-04-19 18:32:49 RT @KordingLab: 3 week @neuromatch DL Summer course - a truly amazing faculty. We will teach everything from the ground up. https://t.co/aj… 2021-04-19 18:06:42 @setofarsonist Congrats! 2021-04-18 14:42:12 RT @achristensen56: A lot about psychedelics recently! Inspired to watch a scientist - friendly view into the cultural (and chemistry) of p… 2021-04-17 02:27:42 RT @neuroecology: Training a neural network on odor tasks recapitulates the biological olfactory system, down to distinct pathways for inna… 2021-04-16 19:06:25 RT @patrickmineault: Is early vision like a convolutional neural net? My long overdue blog post https://t.co/2yKaJZ5R6p @neurograce @tyrel… 2021-04-16 18:48:09 RT @graemedmoffat: Canadian neuroscience grad students & 2021-04-16 17:12:42 RT @Fran_Sacadura: Awesome review by @s_y_chung & 2021-04-16 17:02:46 @jsnsndr @michaelhoffman @canna_brain @neuroecology That is our go to nutritional supplement as well! 2021-04-16 17:02:27 RT @ai_unique: Save the date for this year's UNIQUE Student Symposium, 7-8 June! We're looking forward to an exciting program on new dir… 2021-04-16 17:02:21 @psurya1994 https://t.co/iyolmbOOSZ 2021-04-15 21:05:45 RT @KordingLab: Want to learn computational neuroscience? Not just the superficial ideas but all the implementations? Want to learn how to… 2021-04-15 20:49:06 @canna_brain @jsnsndr @neuroecology Sorry, I shall avoid shattering the veil of truthiness here and let you continue to think you're eating something wholesome when you make pasta with powdered cheese sauce... 2021-04-15 20:45:25 @canna_brain @jsnsndr @neuroecology I think it's cute that you guys think Annie's is much of an improvement... 2021-04-15 18:51:52 @neuroecology Trust me, no one understands both the perfection, and the travesty of cuisine, that is KD better than a Canadian... 2021-04-15 18:51:04 @neuroecology Also, Imma just leave this here: https://t.co/z3zWUxc1sJ 2021-04-15 18:39:00 @neuroecology Have you ever watched a non-North American eat it? It is not the reaction any person should have to the greatest achievement of civilisation... 2021-04-15 18:07:10 @neuroecology This is both 100% accurate and 100% wrong, simultaneously. I think this is an interesting scientific discovery of a fundamental paradox... 2021-04-15 17:23:01 RT @mvladymyrov: New paper! We introduce BLUR (Bidirectional Learning Update Rules), a novel optimization framework that parametrizes fo… 2021-04-15 17:21:14 RT @neuromatch: Applications for NMA-CN and NMA-DL opens NOW! Applications for interactive students and teaching assistants stay open u… 2021-04-15 14:15:21 RT @michaelhoffman: Canada to accept 40,000 applications for permanent residency by 5 November for international students who graduated fro… 2021-04-14 21:33:02 RT @TPVogels: We have 2 open positions in the lab. So if you liked our @NeurIPSConf '20 paper (https://t.co/y9jDVVwnsr) on #ML #plasticit… 2021-04-14 19:53:58 @mattsiegel True, it would likely be better for more people, but I think it's super naive to think that you could design a schedule that ensured that no one had to get up at a time that wasn't ideal for them. 2021-04-14 19:39:46 This is impressive, but it is still obviously CG, IMO. Something subtle is wrong, but I'm having trouble articulating what it is... https://t.co/s1k4IIZk3S 2021-04-14 19:35:03 @vrijomslachtig @mattsiegel And this would be different if the means of production were not owned by private individuals? One would still need to organise work schedules under socialism... 2021-04-14 18:03:28 RT @KordingLab: Haven't you been happy that I have not asked for volunteers for @neuromatch for a while? This is changing now: https://t.co… 2021-04-14 18:00:10 Wow, congrats @sjo09 !!! https://t.co/POq5UiT0zz 2021-04-14 17:58:48 @JAlGallego @neurograce Agreed, perspectives > 2021-04-14 17:53:11 @neurograce However, I think that the real answer for your practical purposes are that yes, research papers count for more in e.g. grant applications. 2021-04-14 17:52:35 @neurograce My take: Review articles are on average more valuable, and are a better indication of someone's actual expertise as a researcher. BUT, a really good research paper is way, way more valuable than any review. 2021-04-14 17:41:27 @ariehkovler @linopolis @mrbiffo Insert joke about your sex life here... 2021-04-14 17:40:04 @david_madras Yes, thank you for pointing this out! 2021-04-14 17:38:47 RT @marius10p: Wisdom of the crowd in populations of 50,000 neurons! Now out in @CellCellPress. Tweeprint by @computingnature, art by Chris… 2021-04-14 17:38:33 RT @Mila_Quebec: #CIFAR AI Chair @gfarnadi, Mila researcher and Assistant Professor at @HEC_Montreal, named among 2021 recipients of the Go… 2021-04-14 17:36:24 RT @_enjorlas: Foucault trending post forbidden Foucault memes https://t.co/d0XXceNpsq 2021-04-14 17:17:49 Signed and unsigned reward prediction errors dynamically enhance learning and memory, new from @yael_niv's group: https://t.co/4QVA6dj3sA 2021-04-14 15:53:18 @tsawallis @PaulMinda1 I never understood this until now... 2021-04-14 15:52:59 @azhir_io Caffeine is interesting though in that for some people (e.g. me) it's stimulant effects are almost non-existent. I can fall asleep no problem even if I have coffee after dinner. 2021-04-14 15:51:09 @andpru @NGrandvaux Same here. Never had any issues. 2021-04-14 10:43:16 @GunnarBlohm @JonAMichaels But, it's not completely... At least if you're like me, it was reducing my quality of life at the rate I was drinking. 2021-04-13 21:06:03 RT @shenoystanford: Neuralink MindPong Deconstructed https://t.co/uk0up9wDBI via @YouTube 2021-04-13 20:46:21 @graemedmoffat I don't agree - they've hardly solved affordable housing in Manhattan. The market simply will not produce enough affordable housing by itself. You have to mandate X% or have govs build it. And, IMO, the former is better, because it prevents neighbourhoods of failing projects. 2021-04-13 20:22:38 @GunnarBlohm Interesting... how much and what were you drinking? I realised I had gotten to the point where I was drinking a litre of strong (5-7%) IPA every night. It was way too much... 2021-04-13 20:07:13 @graemedmoffat On this we agree! It always drives me nuts when progressives baulk at high-rises... Just add in a rule for X% of affordable housing, and you've got a win-win (sans the hippie baby boomers upset that their detached Victorian house they bought for $10k is now in shadow sometimes). 2021-04-13 19:42:30 Excellente idée!!! C'est simple, et j'imagine que ce serait très efficace. https://t.co/QZpUwLiexQ 2021-04-13 19:39:07 RT @NicLoizou: Check out our #AISTATS2021 paper: "Stochastic Polyak Step-size for SGD: An Adaptive Learning Rate for Fast Convergence." Jo… 2021-04-13 16:40:51 @AmarSahay_ I've been trying to cut down on that too... 2021-04-13 16:40:09 @graemedmoffat Sure, I buy it. As I said in my reply, there's just no way this would have happened to a university where the admin and faculty were making good decisions. Regardless of the government's handling, this is necessarily an own goal... 2021-04-13 16:32:26 @SashaMTL Indeed, but I was falling asleep too easily! It's nice to actually be able to stay up a few hours after the kids are in bed now. 2021-04-13 16:31:38 @WiringTheBrain https://t.co/Bj00q8OKz2 2021-04-13 16:30:45 @graemedmoffat This is such a bizarre story... I haven't followed the details, but I think there's simply no way that the admin and faculty at this university could have made good decisions leading up to this. 2021-04-13 16:19:47 Over the pandemic, I let my alcohol consumption go. I've now stopped drinking on the weekdays, and the effects are clear! I've lost a few pounds, I don't fall asleep on the couch by 10, and I can occasionally beat my wife at video games again. Alcohol is not a benign drug... 2021-04-13 16:15:41 RT @Mila_Quebec: On April 23, Yoshua Bengio will give a keynote talk on machine learning for drug discovery against infectious diseases dur… 2021-04-13 16:09:53 RT @Mila_Quebec: Le 23 avril, Yoshua Bengio présentera l'apprentissage automatique pour la découverte de médicaments contre les maladies in… 2021-04-12 16:46:24 RT @pratt_ed: Academics, what is your favorite escapist fantasy, and why is it buying a deserted cabin in the woods? 2021-04-12 16:42:59 RT @Fran_Sacadura: Awesome new paper from Daniel McNamee & 2021-04-12 16:20:29 RT @dileeplearning: Yes, a neuroscientist can understand a microprocessor...a rebuttal thread on the popular paper by @stochastician and @K… 2021-04-12 14:54:57 The image results when one searches "Chinese Room Argument" on Shutterstock are not helpful... 2021-04-11 23:29:29 @neuro_data @KordingLab @skornblith @RobertRosenba14 Yes, though that is very tough in the absence of a shared knowledge base and lexicon, which is what all of us here are trying to build right now. 2021-04-10 21:37:10 RT @neuroamyo: 2 quick observations on the latest Neuralink discussions (against my better judgement? ) 1) Why do so many folks frame thi… 2021-04-09 20:13:26 RT @HBHLMcGill: PhD student @arna_ghosh is working to build brain-like intelligent learning systems using AI and #neuroscience. Read the #F… 2021-04-09 20:13:00 RT @kuintzle: If you’re a PhD student worried about your fertility, but also afraid of the professional consequences of starting a family w… 2021-04-09 20:12:14 Hear hear! Any journals still demanding MS word files, please get your act together... https://t.co/4K22GIgEEV 2021-04-09 13:31:30 RT @behrenstimb: One good thing about neuralink making a bmi is that it shines a light on what's possible, and what has already been achiev… 2021-04-08 19:03:55 I always taught my students this when I taught a physiology course at @UtscBiology. Plus, I would add for context: Menten was a Canadian, trained at the University of Toronto. She was one of the first woman to receive an MD there. https://t.co/xf5ZFaYzE7 2021-04-08 16:59:02 RT @GunnarBlohm: I just finished teaching a basic intro to stats for neuroscientists and all course materials are open here: https://t.co/… 2021-04-07 16:45:06 @ed_ruthazer @canna_brain @andpru @MHendr1cks 2021-04-07 16:34:48 @canna_brain @ed_ruthazer @andpru @MHendr1cks Pfft... #teamalldressed 2021-04-07 16:34:03 @canna_brain @ed_ruthazer @andpru @MHendr1cks And given the situation you've just described, I honestly think that they will have to on this matter at some point. Unless they're smoking some really high-grade shit in Ottawa these days... 2021-04-07 16:33:11 @canna_brain @ed_ruthazer @andpru @MHendr1cks Well, maybe I'm always the optimist, but like I said, they do relent sometimes. 2021-04-07 16:32:19 @canna_brain @andpru @MHendr1cks LOL... There's been an ongoing uncontrolled experiment in Canadian society for a while now, so I have no idea how they can rationalize this hole. 2021-04-07 16:29:21 @ed_ruthazer @canna_brain @andpru @MHendr1cks True, but it's hard for a bureaucrat to understand why you need these little fishies to do science. But who couldn't understand why we need studies on the impact of cannabis on the human brain? 2021-04-07 16:26:54 @maximoprado @andpru @canna_brain @MHendr1cks Totally, but they eventually caved, as I recall, no? 2021-04-07 16:26:17 @canna_brain @andpru @MHendr1cks Well, yes, it's so stupid that surely they must relent at some point, no? 2021-04-07 15:30:45 @andpru @canna_brain @MHendr1cks That's insane. If it's any consolation, a few years ago, Health Canada was forcing us to get a license for CNO, a pharmacologically innate molecule. But, after a lot of criticism, they relented. So, they will listen, just keep up the pressure. 2021-04-06 20:29:55 I hadn't thought of myself as capable of murder, but I guess I haven't really been tested... https://t.co/zHqvRqgSXw 2021-04-06 17:14:15 RT @SashaMTL: Join us for a fascinating discussion with @shibl and Yoshua Bengio at the @techaidecafe ! https://t.co/1S3VgiYFOe 2021-04-06 16:15:23 RT @ZitaPatai: A synaptic novelty signal to switch hippocampal attractor networks from generalization to discrimination https://t.co/Bn0eRO… 2021-04-06 16:13:25 RT @xaqlab: Want to work with me and @kjosic on methods to understand how and why brain networks are wired as they are? If you have a stats… 2021-04-06 16:08:54 RT @InAnOther: We are starting the search for a postdoc to join our lab! If you are interested in memory, neuronal circuits and spatial rep… 2021-04-06 15:39:25 @adamsafron @dileeplearning A lot of plasticity does not follow the STDP template. Cell-types, depolarization, NL activity, dendritic location, and neuromodulation all affect plasticity in a manner that the classic STDP curve can't explain. STDP is arguably just a small window onto the true plasticity rule. 2021-04-03 23:47:30 RT @gershbrain: Just looking: the innocent eye in neuroscience https://t.co/87E4y0QNbt Looking forward to any feedback! 2021-04-03 23:44:48 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla Thank you, I really appreciate that. 2021-04-03 21:18:57 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla I see. It feels like I personally can't make a comment regarding convnet models of vision on Twitter without you stepping in and replying to repeat your past critiques on the matter. Perhaps that is an unfair perception on my part, but it is how it feels to me... 2021-04-03 19:22:09 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla I'm just being candid with you that I don't understand your motivations, given that I have recognized in the past the validity of your points. 2021-04-03 19:20:58 @SaraASolla @dileeplearning Yeah, I don't do this... 2021-04-03 19:18:06 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla It's not that I don't understand what you're saying, Dileep, or even that I disagree with it. It's that I don't understand your motivations for consistently repeating your point to me on Twitter. 2021-04-03 19:12:55 @SaraASolla @dileeplearning That is literally what I do, thanks. :) 2021-04-03 19:12:21 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla After all, I have recognized the limitations of convnets as models of the visual system *every time* we have discussed this. So, I don't really get what your goal is, TBH... 2021-04-03 19:10:48 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla Um... well, all I can say is that almost every time I discuss convnet models on Twitter with people, you drop in to tell me again that the brain doesn't do convolution. So, that's my best attempt at explaining your motivations... 2021-04-03 19:08:44 @SaraASolla @dileeplearning Okay, but I'm not trying to get the entire community to go down that path either... Why do you think I am? 2021-04-03 19:03:24 @SaraASolla @dileeplearning I 100% agree!!!!! To clarify, I have never said, and do not believe, that no one should use alternative models. 2021-04-03 19:02:26 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla Okay, I'm confused then... What are you attempting to do in these Twitter conversations, if not to convince people that we shouldn't use convnets as a model of the visual system? 2021-04-03 19:01:15 @IntuitMachine @dileeplearning @SaraASolla There is, actually: https://t.co/frRekRpWrw 2021-04-03 19:00:42 @dileeplearning @SaraASolla To be clear, that's not to say that I disagree with your assessments of the ways in which convnets are different from the real visual systems in the brain. I actually agree. I just don't think that renders them totally useless. 2021-04-03 18:58:17 @SaraASolla @dileeplearning And this is precisely my take on convnets as models of the visual system. I think we can use both their failures and successes to guide research. We don't need to just "move on", as it were. 2021-04-02 20:16:15 @dileeplearning @recursus @eshedmargalit https://t.co/7AsbaxHu5Q 2021-04-02 20:14:55 @pfau I'm not sure, can you give me a detailed example? Wait, fuck... no! Don't do that! 2021-04-02 20:12:09 RT @jhamrick: Model-based planning is often thought to be necessary for deep reasoning & 2021-04-02 14:52:51 1/2) Another cool looking pair of papers from #PLOSCompBio: Optimal prediction with resource constraints using the information bottleneck https://t.co/W005G6KOPa 2021-04-02 14:46:32 Hierarchical sequence learning in a spiking neural network, from the Clopath lab: https://t.co/m4CS58qkj9 2021-04-02 14:29:26 @neurograce @DrYohanJohn @patrickmineault Also, this from us: https://t.co/2V9PHuqfKC 2021-04-02 14:23:01 I'm a lumper, and I always have been. It's how I operate as a scientist. I would estimate that 80% of the debates I have on sci-Twitter are splitters showing up to point out various details I'm ignoring. What they fail to realize is, as a lumper, I don't care... 2021-04-02 14:16:18 @LucasPCaccia @ilyasut Hint: it was April 1st yesterday. 2021-04-02 14:15:22 @josueortc @patrickmineault No, it was a model my supervisor, Wyeth Bair had developed. I forget its name... 2021-04-02 14:14:42 @SaraASolla @dileeplearning I agree, and I never said they were "very similar", so I'm not sure who you're debating with. 2021-04-02 14:09:22 RT @graemedmoffat: 18 million doses. 30 blood clots. One chance in a million of an adverse event. On your way to get the AstraZeneca vacci… 2021-04-01 20:23:20 RT @ilyasut: symbolic AI feature engineering is the future 2021-04-01 20:03:35 @patrickmineault I agree with all this. My point was simply that when you stated "Early vision is nothing like a CNN", you were over-stating a bit. A better statement of the facts would be: CNNs only offer a poor approximation to early vision. But this holds for all current comp neuro models. 2021-04-01 20:00:32 @dileeplearning Uh-huh, but there are many models that don't fit V1 at all, so all you're really saying is that there is a fairly large set of models that do meet some loose criteria... 2021-04-01 19:26:55 @dominikstrb @patrickmineault I'm not sure what you're misunderstanding about my point? I'm not saying there aren't differences. I'm saying there are some similarities, that is all. 2021-04-01 19:25:52 @dileeplearning Which, for the record, holds for most models in computational neuroscience too. 2021-04-01 19:25:15 @dileeplearning Again, you're driving past my point, Dileep... In the OT, Patrick wrote "Early vision is nothing like a CNN." My point is that a more accurate statement is something like, "A CNN is a only a poor approximation to early vision". 2021-04-01 19:22:30 @dominikstrb @patrickmineault Sure, but the point is not that they're *identical* the point is that they're not *completely* different. 2021-04-01 19:17:14 @dileeplearning I know, I know, and I have cited that paper many times... We've had this debate before, Dileep. My point now, as before, was that convolutions capture some of what V1 does, so saying they are *completely* different is simply an exaggeration. 2021-04-01 19:08:43 RT @AllenInstitute: On this important April 1st holiday, we've decided to make available all of our data visualizations from https://t.co/1… 2021-04-01 18:57:28 @patrickmineault Yes, there are these issues of resolution, distortion, etc. But, at the end of the day, convolutions are different but not *completely* different from what V1 does. 2021-04-01 18:56:16 @patrickmineault In the lab I did my MSc project in we used a convolutional model to model V1 (not a backprop trained net, just a convolution with different Gabor filters). It actually captured a decent amount of V1 behaviour, even just a simple convolution. 2021-04-01 18:55:13 @patrickmineault I don't agree. There is nothing to tie weights, but if you start with with similar response properties across the retinotopic and data received across visual space is similar (which sacades would predict), then you will wind up with something like weight sharing anyway. 2021-04-01 18:52:13 @pfau Oh, definitely. And that was to be expected, as the top-performing ML models have less and less resemblance in their architectural biases to real brains. 2021-04-01 17:29:16 @_rdgao I'm sorry you got this, this is a fucking garbage fire of a review. Sometimes, one is just unlucky with the reviewers one gets, and I'm afraid you rolled a snake eyes here... 2021-04-01 17:05:48 @PessoaBrain Specifically, I think it's important to recognize that there is an asymmetry related to how proximal a region is to the action-selection versus sensor systems, and that has important implications for learning. 2021-04-01 17:04:23 @PessoaBrain I agree, and I don't... an overly strict hierarchical interpretation stymies us, yes. But, hierarchy helps us to understand the different levels of abstraction in the representations, and to think about learning differently, and in an important way. 2021-04-01 16:45:49 @PessoaBrain Sure, activity will not always propagate in one direction of the hierarchy in naturalistic behaviours, but that doesn't mean the architectural constraints of the hierarchy are not still in having an effect. 2021-04-01 16:43:33 RT @psychopy: In PsychoPy release 2021.2.a1 we are introducing Post-Empirical Cognitive Science (PECS): an advanced deep learning algorithm… 2021-04-01 16:29:20 Bringing spiking data together with anatomy to understand the hierarchy of mouse cortex: https://t.co/NYIv7SZgj6 2021-04-01 16:28:11 RT @ShahabBakht: Great indication that finding the right inductive biases matters when modeling the brain with ANNs https://t.co/fTmURVz6… 2021-03-31 19:03:56 @andpru @AdamHantman @graemedmoffat @bradpwyble So, this suggests that it may actually be possible to learn to control motor units individually then? (Am I interpreting the abstract correctly?) 2021-03-31 18:59:54 @KordingLab Yeah, you should still teach it. You never know what will happen in 10 years. Moreover, it's obviously very relevant to neuroscience. 2021-03-31 13:12:44 @andpru I agree, but the problem is time... Really reading a dissertation in the way it deserves takes a really long time. 2021-03-30 21:45:27 RT @rajankdr: Last month, I had the honor of hosting the #COSYNE21 Tutorial on RNNs for Neuroscience! I’m pleased to be able to make the… 2021-03-30 20:57:54 @LisaDeBruine If there isn't money to pay them, I always offer people the chance to do the work as a credited research course, which allows them to take fewer classes. As a plus for this approach, it also counts on my CV too. 2021-03-30 19:19:50 RT @shibl: Major congrats @SashaMTL and Charles Onu for being selected by Harvard as AI for Social Good rising stars! https://t.co/OERwCyz… 2021-03-30 16:44:12 RT @JasonSynaptic: Paper accepted!! This one literally took a decade all up. Super proud of @madeleineqks for carrying it over the finish l… 2021-03-30 16:42:12 @HajerNakua @ar0mcintosh Theoretically, yes, but it would likely require very sophisticated decoding algorithms. And, it's not clear to me that we could get the data required to build these (e.g., it would be nigh-impossible to get a large enough sample of thoughts paired with spikes). 2021-03-30 16:14:38 RT @matplotlib: New release! 3.4 has all sorts of goodness, including: * Subfigures, supx/supylabel * Centered norm/FuncNorm * stairs plot… 2021-03-30 16:12:33 RT @bdanubius: How do innate behaviors emerge? In “Complex Computation from Developmental Priors” @taliesinb and I explore an AI model for… 2021-03-30 00:43:21 RT @jehosafet: I am so so excited to see this work published in @NatureNeuro! "Learning is shaped by abrupt changes in neural engagement"… 2021-03-29 20:23:27 @recursus @AndrewLampinen @KordingLab @dyamins Yeah, but, I worry that most nativism claims/theories are unhelpful for ML, because hard-coding stuff is really hard!!! It's very easy to say, "nature gives animals innate abilities", it's very hard to say, "and here's how to give a digital computer that w/o optimization". 2021-03-29 20:13:10 @recursus @KordingLab @dyamins @TonyZador Meh... I don't agree for ML. If your goal isn't modelling biology, then who cares whether its Lamarckian or not. Nature probably didn't use Lamarckian mechanisms due to physical constraints, not cause it's a useless approach. 2021-03-29 17:43:04 @recursus @AndrewLampinen @KordingLab @dyamins You'll get different answers from different people, but I do know that some ML researchers 100% see the links with evolution. 2021-03-29 17:18:52 @graemedmoffat If there's one thing that will get older Torontonians vaccinated quickly, it's letting them do it from their cars... 2021-03-29 17:17:02 @recursus @AndrewLampinen @KordingLab @dyamins But, to be clear, we actually agree on what's going on in the brain @recursus. My only objection is to the claim that ML rejects evolution - it's just that they can't actually run an evolutionary algorithm (too inefficient), and hard-wired features often haven't worked. 2021-03-29 17:14:35 @recursus @KordingLab @dyamins @TonyZador I think that's a false dichotomy... Evolution would be any optimization process that determines the initial settings of the network, whether architecture, weights, learning rule, whatever. Learning is then the optimization process that leads to the final model. 2021-03-29 17:08:04 @recursus @dyamins @KordingLab @TonyZador Again, I don't think that's fair... I can maybe agree that there are fewer people doing that than, say self-supervised learning or RL, but optimization of architecture is also a sub-field in ML. 2021-03-29 17:00:15 @recursus @AndrewLampinen @KordingLab @dyamins I just think this is kinda tilting at wind-mills... Anyone should readily admit that evolution has endowed us with useful priors and inductive biases. I don't personally know anyone who would not. 2021-03-29 16:57:55 @recursus @KordingLab @TonyZador @NandoDF And, with all due respect to @TonyZador, their work is indeed a different algorithm, not a different theory. The modern ML community is less interested in these old debates, they just want something that works. They avoid hand-crafted features cause those generally don't work. 2021-03-29 16:54:34 @recursus @KordingLab @TonyZador I'm not talking transfer learning, though. I'm talking about meta-learning. When I was first introduced to meta-learning (by @NandoDF at a CIFAR meeting years ago) he explicitly cast the outer loop as being akin, potentially, to evolution. 2021-03-29 14:29:27 @recursus @KordingLab I disagree with that assessment. It's just that they think that it is better to recapitulate evolution via the outer loop of meta-learning rather than hand-craft those features, which has generally not worked well in AI. 2021-03-29 14:18:11 @IntuitMachine I don't think there's any consensus on that, actually. It's also probably very different for different types of tasks and species. 2021-03-29 14:14:28 @tdverstynen You're fired, get the hell out of my sight... 2021-03-29 14:09:47 PSA for Neuro-AI foks: there is a whole field of research on few-shot learning in ML (just type "few shot learning neural network" into Google Scholar). Of course, we may be able to learn more from brains about how to do it better, but it is by no means a blind spot in ML. 2021-03-29 13:59:52 @recursus @KordingLab Agreed that ANNs can do this (@KordingLab, you should know that...). But, since when are deep learning researchers not on-board with this? There are a decent number of papers in the DL literature on few-shot and even one-shot learning... 2021-03-28 00:39:33 RT @neurograce: Computational neuroscience feels seen. https://t.co/QNHddVIShX 2021-03-27 22:30:17 @andpru @paulgribble Yeah, that's my understanding too. We bought a lot of vaccine, but not on an accelerated schedule of any sort. 2021-03-27 01:38:03 @graemedmoffat @MikePMoffatt That's not to say that there won't be grey region issues (there always are), but climate change clearly passes the bar of being a matter in which the ability for the feds to negotiate international treaties represents a matter of grave concern for the provinces. 2021-03-27 01:36:09 @graemedmoffat @MikePMoffatt Nonsense. If cheese names don't present grave consequences for the provinces then cheese naming doesn't meet the test that the court ruled on. 2021-03-27 01:33:30 @graemedmoffat @MikePMoffatt Almost anything. We're talking about an issue where, unlike any other, international agreement is literally the only path by which the provinces will not face an ecological disaster in the future. This isn't like an international agreement on land mines or cheese naming... 2021-03-27 01:28:28 @graemedmoffat @MikePMoffatt That's why few legal observers (at least that I've read) thought the provinces had any real chance of winning this. Which is why it was a huge waste of money that they should never have engaged in. 2021-03-27 01:27:06 @graemedmoffat @MikePMoffatt What? Clearly that test is met, easily. If one province fails to implement a carbon tax/price, then it will put those that do at a strategic disadvantage and impair their ability to negotiate with international actors. 2021-03-27 01:10:43 @graemedmoffat @MikePMoffatt But, even in the court's decision, my understanding was that the central issue was whether this was a matter of national, supra-provincial interest that allowed the feds to encroach on provincial powers, no? So, isn't this just a semantic argument of no practical import? 2021-03-27 00:48:25 RT @PhilCorlett1: Great thread on The New Behaviorism. Will def give it a read. I too am inclined toward Tolman’s neo-behaviorism. It lends… 2021-03-26 21:36:05 @paulgribble Yup, you're getting it now... 2021-03-26 19:37:14 @paulgribble All of this is why we should never have let our vaccine making facilities die... 2021-03-26 19:34:02 @paulgribble My understanding is that we're actually still in a good position to vaccinate everyone over the course of this year, but at this time, we just don't have the doses to do the sort of pace they're doing in the US. 2021-03-26 19:33:15 @paulgribble Well, we bought the vaccines, but delivery has yet to occur, cause the companies are too busy providing vaccines to the countries that house their factories or that made specific deals with them for early access. 2021-03-26 19:28:57 @ShahabBakht But, that they also can! 2021-03-26 18:10:43 RT @CIFAR_News: Attention tous les canadiens : Dites-nous ce que vous pensez de l’intelligence artificielle (IA). Participez à #DialogueO… 2021-03-26 18:10:40 RT @CIFAR_News: Calling all Canadians: Tell us what you think about artificial intelligence (AI). Participate in #OpenDialogue, a series… 2021-03-26 15:41:15 RT @MatteoCarandini: And it looks like the number of Principles is finally starting to decrease! At least according to the Wolpert graph: h… 2021-03-26 00:48:43 @IntuitMachine @peabody124 @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg Cause there are some inductive biases. 2021-03-26 00:48:07 @IntuitMachine @trottiest @peabody124 @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg That's cause people talk a lot of shit on this subject... 2021-03-26 00:47:42 @IntuitMachine @theBjornErik @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain Hmmm... that's odd terminology, with all due respect. Inductive biases are by definition innate. "Strong" indicates that they fully determine the final outcome. 2021-03-26 00:46:53 @IntuitMachine @bradpwyble @theBjornErik @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain But that's my point: it's not 100% consistent. Not all people lateralize in the same way, and plasticity can change it. 2021-03-25 23:45:34 @IntuitMachine @peabody124 @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg I think "effectively decoupled" is too strong. Also, I never said they were identical, just that the differences are not so strong that characterizing them in this way makes any sense. 2021-03-25 23:44:21 @IntuitMachine @theBjornErik @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain Well, they do have different inductive biases, but the reason I say they are "subtle" is because if they were strong then we wouldn't see the variability and plasticity in individuals that we do. 2021-03-25 23:31:14 @IntuitMachine @peabody124 @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg No, that sounds very unlikely to me. 2021-03-25 23:29:12 @theBjornErik @IntuitMachine @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain Yeah, and I may be guilty of just such a reaction. But, the data as far as I know it (this is not my area of expertise) does not suggest gross differences in the computational capabilities of the left and right brains, just subtle inductive biases. 2021-03-25 23:27:14 @IntuitMachine @DrYohanJohn @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain No, the evidence does not support that assertion, as far as I know. 2021-03-25 23:26:31 @peabody124 @IntuitMachine @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg So, long-story short: yes, the human brain exhibits some lateralization, but no, we don't "think rationally" or "think creatively" with one side or the other, that's a gross mischaracterization of the data, IMO. 2021-03-25 23:25:36 @peabody124 @IntuitMachine @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg Is he incapable of logical thinking? Is he less rational or systematic in his thought? Not that I can tell. If the effect is there, it is very small. He's always been very successful academically. 2021-03-25 23:24:27 @peabody124 @IntuitMachine @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg Moreover, plasticity renders some of this a moot point. I have a friend who suffered massive stroke in his left brain when he was a kid. Lost the ability to speak, etc. But, now, as an adult, the only thing you can really detect is that he still has some paralysis on his right. 2021-03-25 23:22:22 @peabody124 @IntuitMachine @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain @SamHarrisOrg Yes, but let's even look at this classic asymmetry of language. Little known fact: many people are not left-brain dominant for language. Among left-handed people it's a large percentage, but even for right-handed people, some rely more on the right brain (I do, I happen to know). 2021-03-25 22:46:30 @IntuitMachine @KordingLab @WiringTheBrain I don't know his theories, but pretty much the entire left-brain versus right-brain thing is overblown and ridiculous in the way it is dealt with in popular science. So, my bet is I would not like his theories... 2021-03-25 19:25:29 @michaelhoffman @andpru @tfburns @GunnarBlohm He blocked me too, I have no idea why... 2021-03-25 17:49:04 @graemedmoffat On one level, I agree, what do we actually gain by such arguments? It's like when I make the mistake of trying to argue religion... On the other hand, the ppl still denying climate change are doing a lot to hold back the consensus we need, so how can we not engage with them? 2021-03-25 17:36:49 RT @gottapatchemall: Fast and statistically robust cell extraction from large-scale neural calcium imaging datasets https://t.co/StrtiCOXnk… 2021-03-25 17:14:33 I'll be curious to see what "reset" really means, but this sounds very intriguing... https://t.co/9i8OkyY6LH 2021-03-25 17:13:24 Excellent. Wonder how the tax payers in AB, SK, ON, etc. feel about their govs having wasted their money on this? https://t.co/ueVUCY5Sfb 2021-03-25 17:12:19 @graemedmoffat I agree, this decision isn't about science, it's about what the feds are allowed to do or not. The science has already been settled, by scientists. 2021-03-25 00:49:39 @nicholdav @AstroTraviesa @gordonberman https://t.co/CeFPKLUUuk 2021-03-25 00:44:55 @AstroTraviesa What?!?!?? No, no one does this... Whoever told you that was messing with you or out of their minds on something. 2021-03-24 23:50:26 @recursus Congrats on your much larger than a rabbit brain bundle of joy! 2021-03-24 21:50:48 @KordingLab @graemedmoffat @NeuralEnsemble Well, indeed, we actually do pretty good in basic research! The trouble is that this doesn't translate into industrial R & 2021-03-24 21:43:34 @ShahabBakht @graemedmoffat @JustinTrudeau Yup. So, we need government policy that doesn't take it easy on this Q, and really goes the extra mile. 2021-03-24 21:40:41 RT @sylvain_baillet: [RT please]  One great job opportunity @mcgillu: Senior Advisor, Research Data Management. APPLY NOW! https://t.co/… 2021-03-24 21:32:58 @graemedmoffat @ShahabBakht @JustinTrudeau Yeah, number 1) is a particularly good point. Imagine if our telecoms, engineering, or agriculture firms actually had to compete fully? They may actually, you know, try to innovate sometimes. 2021-03-24 21:26:41 Petition calling on @RBC to stop funding big fossil fuel projects in Canada. At the end of the day, things are only gonna change when the money runs out... https://t.co/pizqWAzgqs 2021-03-24 21:21:46 @ShahabBakht @JustinTrudeau @graemedmoffat So, we need to come up with strategies for how to make our market and/or environment more attractive to companies for research. Something other than poorly thought out tax breaks (which has been the traditional strategy). 2021-03-24 21:18:14 @ShahabBakht @JustinTrudeau My understanding, though @graemedmoffat can correct me if wrong, is that two big things were (1) some big Canadian companies failed (Nortel, Blackberry), and (2) there is a bigger market for high-tech stuff in the US, so that will sucked in companies in North America. 2021-03-24 20:52:17 @ShahabBakht @JustinTrudeau So, the actual take-away is there there are more important policy changes that should be made with respect to industrial policy and gov purchasing, as opposed to questions of funding to scientific labs. 2021-03-24 20:50:42 @ShahabBakht @JustinTrudeau My understanding is that this is actually driven by less and less research in companies, as opposed to just being about grants. And companies can move those research activities elsewhere. But, the government doesn't do the things that would make them want to do research here. 2021-03-24 20:25:49 @AlexUsherHESA Sounds about right for Ford's MO... 2021-03-24 19:10:47 @graemedmoffat @NeuralEnsemble @JustinTrudeau I'm still all about the simple approach, crazy carpets, discs, etc. I see no need to innovate on throwing your body down a hill at high speeds... 2021-03-24 19:04:00 RT @neurograce: TIL Wikipedia keeps a list of open neuroscience datasets. Pretty cool. https://t.co/YVOxPTsdWU 2021-03-24 17:06:14 @JustinTrudeau, your government claimed to be committed to science, and yet the decline continued apace under your watch... https://t.co/ykEzBi7LAi 2021-03-24 15:45:10 RT @blsabatini: 1/n Now for something fun and really cool https://t.co/W8O3lCtEIp Our latest preprint... 2021-03-24 15:18:40 RT @KohlLab: Delighted to host this week's @UofGPsychology seminar. Please join! Dr Ida Momennejad @criticalneuro – "Navigation Turing Test… 2021-03-24 15:16:00 @jbrendanritchie @lavoiems True, it's more an indifference... Though, many Quebecois seem to feel like they are judged by the rest of Canada (there are semi-frequent articles in the French press about anti-Quebec sentiment in anglo-Canada). 2021-03-23 19:28:52 @jsnsndr @jbimaknee @SammySammyStagg @danilobzdok @WiringTheBrain @NatRevNeurosci @hugospiers @doellerlab https://t.co/QzAhMiu6sB 2021-03-23 19:27:53 RT @graemedmoffat: A Canadian tech company run by some friends just released their first product. It is, frankly, some of the sickest high… 2021-03-23 19:11:43 @jsnsndr @jbimaknee @SammySammyStagg @danilobzdok @WiringTheBrain @NatRevNeurosci @hugospiers @doellerlab You mean you didn't want me to tag you on a thread that could lead to a bitter, protracted debate on Twitter?!?!?!? 2021-03-23 19:10:21 @lavoiems Ha ha... true. Les Montréalais ne possedent pas la même self-loathing comme ceux qui viennent de Toronto... 2021-03-23 17:47:53 RT @TrackingActions: Want to tackle the motor system with machine learning? New *review* on machine learning approaches for behavior & 2021-03-23 16:56:59 @jbimaknee @SammySammyStagg @danilobzdok @WiringTheBrain @NatRevNeurosci @hugospiers @doellerlab Ha... My point is not that this paper is *correct*, I don't know enough about these techniques to make such a pronouncement. My point is just that the controversy that exists stems from it and similar papers, not just an assumption in the field. 2021-03-23 16:35:21 @jbimaknee @SammySammyStagg @danilobzdok @WiringTheBrain @NatRevNeurosci @hugospiers @doellerlab @jsnsndr could tell you much more about this controversy than me, though. 2021-03-23 16:34:53 @jbimaknee @SammySammyStagg @danilobzdok @WiringTheBrain @NatRevNeurosci @hugospiers @doellerlab It's controversial for more reasons than that though... There was this paper a while back that claimed they found no evidence of adult neurogenesis in the DG of either human brain samples or macaques: https://t.co/nbJggKxfaw 2021-03-23 16:31:53 @roydanroy So do I, I grew up there! But, legit, Canadians (including many in Toronto) love to shit on Toronto. 2021-03-22 21:40:52 @josephdviviano Notice that there's not even a green dot around Toronto... 2021-03-22 20:36:59 RT @patchurchland: Jackson made an impact with his ‘knowledge argument' for spookiness of consciousness. Analogy. I can learn everything… 2021-03-22 20:18:15 @lessc0de Anyway, we discussed this at length in our perspective piece: https://t.co/aYwHN1bBFD It's really not a "fundamental problem" at all, there are plenty of reasons, both theoretical and empirical, that loss functions are applicable to brains. 2021-03-22 20:15:53 @lessc0de Heh... did you just like your own tweet? 2021-03-22 19:53:57 RT @NeuroNaud: Thinking about information processing in single-neurons (and synapses) I find this linear-nonlinear framework quite helpful.… 2021-03-22 16:48:39 We just did the Barlow Twins paper in Journal Club: https://t.co/4lW34IIpAt I really like this paper, lovely example of old-school neuroscience ideas guiding ML development. In turn, I think all the SSL work in ML is starting to converge on some very brain relevant solutions! 2021-03-22 14:14:51 I'm looking forward to digging into this! A rapid and efficient learning rule for biological neural circuits https://t.co/1HuBDqMV6M 2021-03-21 19:41:13 RT @GaelVaroquaux: New paper in @NeuroImage_EiC "Decoding with Confidence: Statistical Control on Decoder Maps" https://t.co/PNjnK8SDAc… 2021-03-21 19:40:32 RT @leavittron: Going to search + replace "machine learning" with "neuroscience" then submit the manuscript to a neuroscience journal with… 2021-03-21 19:20:34 @graemedmoffat Indeed, this weather is the sweet spot!!! 2021-03-21 19:19:44 @neuralengine @TPVogels Is "bag of dicks" the technical term for this behaviour in political economy research nowadays? 2021-03-20 22:48:38 @bradpwyble @AdamHantman Anything where you would like many degrees of freedom of control, is I guess what I'm thinking of... Imagine being able to, say, fully control many characters at once, or the limbs of your avatar independently. BMI could open the door to a different gaming experience, IMO. 2021-03-20 21:46:05 @bradpwyble @AdamHantman The reason games can be so taxing, IMO, is precisely because the input/output mechanisms are less intuitive and lower band-width. I dunno about you, but I can't get my hands to do what I want, when I want, at a fast enough rate. If I could, I would be a lot better at video games! 2021-03-20 21:43:39 @bradpwyble @AdamHantman I don't buy that. Your body has far more degrees of freedom then a mouse does, and your brain controls that pretty well and at a very fast rate. 2021-03-20 20:15:03 @jeeminhrhim Thanks! :) 2021-03-20 18:05:37 @andpru @graemedmoffat @bradpwyble @AdamHantman Ah, that's too bad... I was kinda hoping that with practice you could do it. As you say, though, will still be cool for VR. 2021-03-20 18:02:17 @andpru @AdamHantman Right away? No. But, you don't think that with practice it's possible? 2021-03-20 17:59:04 @andpru @graemedmoffat @bradpwyble @AdamHantman This is the key Q: can people, with practice, learn how to control the full high-D space of motor unit activity effortlessly. 2021-03-20 17:58:15 @graemedmoffat @bradpwyble @AdamHantman I think you could still increase your band-width for things like gaming. 2021-03-20 17:57:15 @bradpwyble @AdamHantman You seem to think that the only thing we do with computers is write stuff, Brad. You're such an academic... But, I'm serious, I don't think this will be useful for writing your paper, but it will be useful for gaming and music. 2021-03-20 16:25:36 @bradpwyble @AdamHantman I think that's a safe assumption, actually. Although purely conscious control may be just as slow, with practice, if you can get your fast, high-bandwidth procedural systems to do a lot of it for you, then I'm sure your brain could keep pace. 2021-03-20 15:44:38 @graemedmoffat @erinotoole True. I just hope it doesn't give the leadership cold feet when building the platform. Also, it's still a sad sign of a lack of progress... 2021-03-20 15:43:23 @AdamHantman Ha ha ha... true. But, I have seen these wrist bands in action, and they are pretty cool! With practice I think you could control your computer at a much higher bit rate, cause they've managed to get individual motor units isolated. 2021-03-20 15:41:54 RT @ElDuvelle: Brand-new review of the role of prefrontal cortex in navigation: https://t.co/8L0qSsZKRs Kudos to the talented @ZitaPa… 2021-03-20 15:40:56 @ed_ruthazer @CPC_HQ Sadly, I think it's a tougher nut to crack... As Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." 2021-03-20 15:31:32 @erinotoole, you were right to push your party in this direction, and you are also right that this attitude is gonna lead to you losing elections for the foreseeable future. Keep pushing your party, for their own sake... 2021-03-20 15:28:26 This is really sad... I was hoping we were starting to get past this, but apparently the @CPC_HQ membership are still in total denial. How can we get this demographic to accept that the science is rock solid and this is something we *must* to have all parties working on? https://t.co/dSMELBKuIr 2021-03-20 15:25:19 @GunnarBlohm Yeah, luckilyit's under control for me right now. In addition to the core work and standing desk, I've found stretching my legs is a huge help, interestingly. I only suffer pain now when I let my hamstrings get too tight... As you said, everything in the body is connected!!! 2021-03-20 13:27:05 @GunnarBlohm That's terrible, really sorry to hear that. I suffer from similar issues sometimes, it really can be agony... Just remember: no sitting!!!! 2021-03-19 21:36:18 RT @KordingLab: The @Neuromatch Academy offers brilliant training in computational neuroscience, underwritten by an inspiring and inclusive… 2021-03-19 18:40:01 @IntuitMachine @nicholdav @lukesjulson You're literally misinterpreting every component of my point, so we're done here... 2021-03-19 18:10:04 @nicholdav @IntuitMachine @lukesjulson And per Luke's original comment, arguably the relevance of race to this crime has more to do with why so many Asian women are trafficked into these places and why this is systematically ignored, and less to do with whether this specific guy was a white supremacist. 2021-03-19 18:07:52 @nicholdav @IntuitMachine @lukesjulson I actually don't know think arguing about labelling this as a hate crime is useful. In fact, calling it a hate crime may even distract from the systemic issues we were discussing, because it implies that this one specific guy was just some asshole nazi. 2021-03-19 18:03:09 RT @anilkseth: BOOK NEWS. The complete manuscript for Being You: A New Science of Consciousness has been sent to the printers for the bound… 2021-03-19 13:10:53 @IntuitMachine @nicholdav @lukesjulson @lukesjulson's original point was precisely that attempts to view this purely as an individual hate crime perpetrated by a white supremacist misses the broader systemic problems related to race and sex trafficking that are actually revealed here. 2021-03-18 16:33:46 This is just amazing: https://t.co/TdADJi03aO I can't decide which is my favourite, but the "Hates Toronto" and "Hates Montreal" ones are probably my top two. ("Aware of Manitoba" is a strong runner up...) 2021-03-18 13:58:36 I'm teaching in person for the first time in over a year, which is an odd, but pleasant sensation. However, the weirdest aspect of it is that I'm wearing something other than sweat pants for the first time in over a year, and I'm not sure how I feel about it... 2021-03-18 13:49:10 @lukesjulson Yes, thank you. I'm finding the common take very odd, and it seems to be missing the forest for the trees... 2021-03-17 19:05:34 @ChombaBupe @stenichele @risi1979 That's not my point, I'm not claiming that since GD can zero synapses that it isn't vulnerable to interference. The point is simply that synaptic pruning is not necessarily distinct from GD. 2021-03-17 16:56:20 @ChombaBupe @stenichele @risi1979 Gradient descent is just another way of making that selection. If GD says, "zero out this synapse", that's another way of saying, "prune this synapse". Again, there is no a priori reason to think that GD is the root of catastrophic forgetting, and some evidence that it is not. 2021-03-17 16:49:54 @AcerbiLuigi @KordingLab I was gonna mention this! 2021-03-16 21:28:56 @risi1979 I don't think the issue is backprop... The issue is the architectures and cost fns most people use, which do not promote any preservation and/or reuse of past knowledge. 2021-03-16 18:01:43 I put the chances of someone being able to put the chances on something like this with any scientific credibility at around 0.0001%.... https://t.co/zJpAEEnKV6 2021-03-16 17:31:02 I for one welcome our new silicon overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted researcher and public persona, I can be helpful in rounding up others to build and maintain new wind farms and hydroelectric dams to power their GPUs. https://t.co/yvqdgVxINe 2021-03-16 17:24:30 Looks pretty cool... Dynamic Predictive Coding with Hypernetworks https://t.co/zTdZSDEheb 2021-03-16 17:12:13 @cian_neuro @neuralengine Yes and no... DeepMind is a loss leader, but many of the other AI labs contribute to the bottom line of the companies. However, unlike DeepMind, those other labs typically put less value on comp neuro. Not that it doesn't help, but it has to be an addition to basic CS training. 2021-03-16 17:07:49 @NeuralEnsemble @KordingLab @ra2174 I think it's just a guess, as it currently stands... If someone on Twitter know otherwise it would be great to know! 2021-03-16 16:48:30 @NeuralEnsemble @KordingLab @ra2174 I mean, surely there's a big apical component to it! I like the idea in one of those articles that it may reside in the thalamo-cortical projections in to the supragranular layers. 2021-03-16 16:46:43 Dear @justintrudeau: Canada needs a basic income so we can all afford to live a decent and dignified life. https://t.co/L1pLKGNm9t #cdnpoli 2021-03-15 16:42:32 RT @iclr_conf: It’s time for a big drum-roll … today we are announcing our invited speakers for #ICLR2021! Read about our amazing speake… 2021-03-15 16:17:25 RT @pfapostolides: You think Ca2+ imaging is plagued with measurement errors? wait till you hear about whole-cell voltage-clamp 2021-03-15 01:11:21 @benrossiter Wow, that's surprising... I totally assumed the PCs were back down to mid-to-low 30s... 2021-03-15 00:57:58 @benrossiter Yeah, but people thought Ford handled it well in the beginning, so he went from high approval, then lost it. So, did it not move the needle in Ontario, just from a high baseline? Mind you 50-30 for the NDP in Alberta is pretty mind-blowing... 2021-03-14 01:37:20 RT @DouglasResearch: CIC IMAGING SEMINAR Wednesday, March 17, 2021 - 11:00am by Elizabeth Dupre "Finding similarity across neural divers… 2021-03-14 01:31:37 RT @jesslynnrose: Get in nerds, we're doing a thread about coconut crabs. https://t.co/kLVzssRdcn 2021-03-14 00:48:27 @ShahabBakht @arna_ghosh I'm pretty sure I've added or removed 'the' in both your writing... I couldn't even tell you why. It truly is nonsensical. 2021-03-14 00:44:13 @choldgraf @KordingLab Yeah, the dirty baby strategy only works if you yourself are a slob... 2021-03-14 00:38:26 RT @siminevazire: It seems a particular academic who does not especially appreciate my existence has taken his revenge by suggesting me as… 2021-03-14 00:28:57 @DavidSabatini2 Congrats! It's always a bit anti-climactic, but I imagine it is much more so in a pandemic... 2021-03-12 16:28:16 RT @TheNeuro_MNI: Want to learn how to make your work #openaccess? Join this session with @McGillLib on March 16 at 12:00PM. Check it out … 2021-03-12 16:28:09 RT @karimjerbineuro: A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains / Lucas et al 2021 @Natur… 2021-03-12 01:05:04 RT @ylecun: @ykilcher dissects and explains the blog post on Self-Supervised Learning that Ishan Misra and I recently published. Our blog… 2021-03-11 22:09:54 RT @ak_gillespie: My first preprint is up! The hippocampal field often speculates that awake replay *could* be planning upcoming behavio… 2021-03-11 19:56:11 @neuromusic But... they have the second best bagels... 2021-03-11 19:03:11 RT @nicognitive: We have a new preprint! tldr: we found a general relationship between neural dynamics in the frontal cortex and temporal s… 2021-03-11 16:57:02 RT @g_lajoie_: Fantastic blog post from and about the burgeoning Neuro-AI (student) community at Mila --> 2021-03-11 16:53:16 @joe6783 @neuroamyo @CapricePhillips Yeah, I get your point, and don't disagree... The only thing I would say, though, is that it is a bit different in computer science, where some students are very clear that they have no interest in staying in academia. 2021-03-11 15:04:05 @DylanRMuir @danilobzdok @ykamit @TheNeuro_MNI @pkdouglas16 @koerding It's an abstraction. 2021-03-11 15:03:19 @CapricePhillips For grad students I think that you can decide whether or not to tell them about all this stuff if they seem really keen on staying in academia. Cause, if they aren't, it is super boring... For postdocs I think we absolutely should discuss how this stuff works. 2021-03-11 01:24:14 RT @IMordatch: What are the limits to the generalization of large pretrained transformer models? We find minimal fine-tuning (0.1% of par… 2021-03-11 01:22:04 RT @ElDuvelle: New #Replay preprint from @ak_gillespie et al, looks really cool! need2read "replay was decoupled from subsequen… 2021-03-10 22:52:56 RT @neurograce: The ability to visualize concepts is a fun side-effect of building multi-modal neural network models. It's a neat distillat… 2021-03-10 22:15:14 RT @DrGBuckingham: Rotate your phone Particularly horrifying version of the Thatcher effect https://t.co/g7MXdqhjb8 2021-03-10 20:24:46 RT @AllenInstitute: Our study on the relationship between fluorescent calcium indicators and action potentials is now on eLife. This study… 2021-03-10 20:21:02 RT @INCForg: Join us virtually for the 2021 INCF Assembly on April 19-28! Exciting program covering different practical aspects of FAIR neu… 2021-03-10 17:31:27 @neurograce @anilkseth Whatever, don't let the man tell you what to do! 2021-03-10 16:41:53 @danilobzdok @ykamit @TheNeuro_MNI @pkdouglas16 @koerding I mean yes, this makes sense! If we consider a layer in an ANN to be equivalent to a region, then the ventral visual stream is nowhere near as deep as modern DNN architectures. 2021-03-10 16:39:59 There is no one who I would rather discuss consciousness and AI with than the amazing and always insightful @anilkseth! If you're interested in these topics, please register and then tune in on June 8th at 1PM! https://t.co/d7sgmV1z2p 2021-03-09 21:52:36 @FundanJacob @Noahpinion That's what I meant by it. 2021-03-09 21:52:10 @PaulMinda1 Totally... I would love to see an easy to understand analysis from some legitimate sources about what went wrong with Canada's vaccine roll out. Given that we pre-ordered a lot, and from multiple sources, why the fuck is it going so slowly? 2021-03-09 20:28:27 @FundanJacob @Noahpinion My point was not that the invasion was to *get* oil (nor was that Chomsky's point, as you note). My point was that Iraq, and the middle east as a whole, were geopolitically important *because of oil*. So, if there had been no oil, then there would have been no invasion. 2021-03-09 17:25:13 @Noahpinion I dunno man, there were other countries they could have looked tough with. The Project for the New American Century folks were always pretty open about the fact that Iraq had some strategic pluses, including oil, that made it their ideal target. 2021-03-09 16:56:31 @Noahpinion Really? That's a stretch... As Chomsky once said: Do you think the US would have invaded Iraq if their major export was asparagus? Clearly, control of oil and the geopolitical implications of oil were key motivators. 2021-03-09 16:50:59 RT @graemedmoffat: For the past year, @sam_mack and I have been building the next generation of non-invasive, wearable neurotechnology at @… 2021-03-09 13:55:03 RT @CIFAR_News: En juillet, nous réunirons des experts en #ApprentissageAutomatique pour 6 jours de formation intensive. Venez à l’école d’… 2021-03-09 13:54:58 RT @CIFAR_News: This July, we're bringing together the world'sbrightest minds in #MachineLearning for 6 days of intense learning. Join us… 2021-03-09 13:45:50 @ryanjhcho @gottapatchemall Yes! Should be ready very soon, and will come with the tweeprint. 2021-03-09 13:45:21 @JCashaback @gottapatchemall Yup, similar to what @SussilloDavid did in the original LFADS paper, we used the Lorenz attractor to generate synthetic calcium data and show we can then recover those dynamics. 2021-03-09 13:43:25 RT @KordingLab: You learned deep learning and are ready to help others learn it too? @neuromatch may run a large super didactic DL summer s… 2021-03-09 13:42:32 RT @IlennaJ: In our previous paper, we show that a neuron model with dendrites can do interesting machine learning problems. But is this st… 2021-03-09 13:38:58 RT @JonAMichaels: "It is possible to explain any behaviour as ‘optimal’ if the cost function can be chosen without restriction. To avoid ci… 2021-03-08 19:06:14 @gottapatchemall Thanks! Tweeprint will be coming soon! 2021-03-08 15:22:46 @andpru @JustinTrudeau @pfragiskatos Big time... 2021-03-08 00:06:56 @andpru @neuro_data Alright: it's info processing for hierarchical optimal control. Happy now? 2021-03-07 21:05:19 @martin_dinov @neuralreckoning Uh... did you read the thread, or are you just trolling based on a single word? @neuralreckoning and I were taking opposing positions on the matter. What part of us respectfully disagreeing with each other looks like an "ideological echo bubble" to you? 2021-03-07 20:22:01 @dysonsphere Ha ha ha... get back in the kitchen you slacker!!! 2021-03-07 20:21:26 @dysonsphere No, it's not. I will just say that in my experience, there are many people in academia who are more than willing to be the parody of postmodernism that people like Dawkins like to harp on about... 2021-03-07 20:14:47 @Dr_Palamarchuk 2021-03-07 20:13:00 RT @behrenstimb: From the amazing @nikasamborska. mPFC neurons generalise task representations across related problems. Hc neurons also hav… 2021-03-07 19:52:41 @dysonsphere I dunno man, I have legit had conversations with people in academia about things like, "are there alternative ways of knowing that may be counter to western conceptions of objective truth?", etc. 2021-03-07 19:48:23 @neuralreckoning What hand has he shown? He's shown he's arrogant, insensitive, and unaware of his own biases. But, does that mean he has nothing of interest to say ever? I quote tweet a lot of people, even people who I consider personally odious. 2021-03-07 19:45:44 @neuralreckoning Various people we both follow have been discussing/debating just this Q on Twitter recently, so apparently it's not just a banal and uninteresting point. 2021-03-07 18:57:57 @neuralreckoning Because he had a big impact on many people, including me, earlier in his life. And, I don't believe in reacting to such people with a single dismissive note based on some of their social media behaviour. 2021-03-07 18:54:59 @neuro_data Depends on what you mean by "the brain". If you intend only vertebrate style, centralised organs, then I would say information integration and processing for optimal control. If you mean the nervous system more generally, then arguably it's movement and rapid homeostasis. 2021-03-07 17:46:14 @dysonsphere Oh, no, such people exist. Have you spent much time with critical theory people? There is a non-trivial strand of academia that argues precisely that there is no objective reality. 2021-03-07 17:40:30 @LucaAmb @atypical_me Precisely! 2021-03-07 17:40:05 @waterlego Yes, I agree. I like the analogy of confusing the map with the territory too, it describes well what he's done here. 2021-03-07 01:46:28 Taken literally, this is clearly wrong: science itself is a human activity and therefore necessarily a social construct. What I think he's *trying* to say is that there are facts that are independent of our society/culture that science can help us to understand. https://t.co/D4liKxCLzg 2021-03-07 01:33:25 RT @NeuroNaud: uOttawa's physics department is looking for a new faculty member! Topic: theoretical neurophysics/artificial intelligence. I… 2021-03-06 23:58:35 RT @LexKravitz: The Kravitz Lab is looking for a research technician. Good fit for someone looking for a 1-2 year position before grad scho… 2021-03-06 20:10:39 @ira_hyman @RobynFivush Certainly, and school too, though probably parents have a bigger impact. 2021-03-06 15:46:02 @NoraNewcombe Oh, that's very cool! I'll be curious to hear what you find. My anecdotal experience is that high skill in generating entertaining and easy to follow stories are developed fairly late relative to episodic memory, but the basic structure of episodic memory is narrative like. 2021-03-06 02:36:05 @fbraithw8 That was totally the best part... 2021-03-06 01:46:11 There are few things harder to follow than a young child's recounting of a movie/show. It's a fascinating window into the basic structure of episodic memory, which appears to consist of a long series of: agent X did Y then agent A did B then agent X did C with object Z etc... 2021-03-05 20:32:49 RT @ErieBoorman: The Learning and Decision Making Lab at the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis is hiring! Two NIH-funded postdoc positi… 2021-03-05 19:33:06 @Raamana_ @NeuroMinded Well, what it is clearly is someone who thinks that a "computer" is equivalent to a modern digital Von Neumann style machine, with a CPU, registers, etc. If that's your understanding of what a "computer" is, then it's true, you could never split a computer like that. 2021-03-04 21:06:20 RT @OpenAI: We've found that our latest vision model, CLIP, contains neurons that connect images, drawings and text about related concepts.… 2021-03-04 20:50:41 @andpru @JasonSynaptic @TrackingActions @GunnarBlohm @rmgrieves @ElDuvelle @Publons Well, yeah, that's true. I just get three scores, one for "research", one for "teaching", and one for "service". The reviews I've done count towards "service", but exactly how is admittedly opaque. 2021-03-04 20:04:29 @TrackingActions @GunnarBlohm @rmgrieves @andpru @ElDuvelle Really? Interesting... When I submit my performance dossier every year I am asked to list all the reviews I did. They are counted towards my merit rating, which helps determine the level of raise I get. Both U of Toronto and McGill do this... 2021-03-04 19:51:44 @behrenstimb @GunnarBlohm @rmgrieves @andpru @ElDuvelle By that logic, a Harvard prof is also paid 10x more than an Indian prof for publishing papers. So, should journals pay authors? I don't think payment for review would help with the problems you're identifying Tim. They're endemic to academia, and require larger cultural changes. 2021-03-04 19:47:10 RT @ncguilbeault: 1/n Excited to announce that our manuscript on BonZeb is out now on bioRxiv! #BonZeb is a zebrafish tracking package buil… 2021-03-03 01:30:26 @gottapatchemall Meh, computers are great, the internet was the mistake... 2021-03-03 01:26:34 RT @woodforbrains: David Rubin's legendary model of episodic & https://t.co/k0sEED3VST 2021-03-02 19:19:14 Very excited to read this! Potentially quite interesting in relation to our our recent paper, @colleenjgillon and @LecoqJerome. https://t.co/PMweGjA4Ug 2021-03-02 19:13:40 @GunnarBlohm @rmgrieves @andpru @ElDuvelle Yup, and I literally get a higher raise if I do more reviewing/editing, and that is explicitly told to me as part of our performance review process. That is not the case if I do outside work for Google. 2021-03-02 19:08:05 RT @GunnarBlohm: Paying reviewers is not a good solution. As profs we're already paid for that. Service is part of our jobs! IMHO the solu… 2021-03-01 21:35:24 @neuro_data @KordingLab Yeah, I wasn't sure how to answer that question. I either arrive at entity realism or instrumentalism depending on that Q. Personally, I think this diagram is far too linear... 2021-03-01 21:32:23 @KordingLab I'm at entity realism... 2021-03-01 16:54:41 RT @Mawoodin: An insightful piece about Canada's approach to scientific research. Thank you @MarkLautens for your thought leadership. https… 2021-03-01 15:46:02 RT @ptoncompmemlab: New opinion paper in @TrendsCognSci led by Andre Beukers, with @timbuschman and Jon Cohen: Is Activity Silent Working M… 2021-03-01 15:39:27 @abhii_mit @Estorick I love Italian futurism! Honestly one of my favourite styles of painting ever (next only to wildstyle graffiti). Shame about the association to fascism... 2021-03-01 01:21:14 RT @neuro_data: #LearningSalon (hosted by @criticalneuro, @blamlab, and me) is thrilled to present Randall O'Reilly this Friday at 4PM EST… 2021-02-28 23:45:45 Does lying awake in a panic regarding a control I forgot to run, count? https://t.co/0zbkHTSJXQ 2021-02-28 23:03:28 RT @TodThiele: These larval #zebrafish drawings by Chuck Kimmel (he was part of the original U of Oregon George Streisinger team) are absol… 2021-02-28 00:27:18 @LecoqJerome @TimKietzmann Yes, good point, a neuron-by-neuron count likely *underestimates* the relative compute of real brains to current ANNs due to this. 2021-02-27 22:02:02 @aidanhorner Why didn't you tell me this before, Aidan?!?!?!? I'm totally returning this "Jackass License" I received from the Canadian Statistics Society... 2021-02-27 16:52:31 RT @VaziriLab: Excited to share our new manuscript showing volumetric Ca #imaging of 1 million neurons across the mouse cortex at cellular… 2021-02-27 16:43:12 RT @blsabatini: Are you an ambitious budding scientist looking for a 2+ year technician position to hone your skills? Apply below. This i… 2021-02-27 14:07:58 RT @KordingLab: The illusion of strong specialization is slowly going away. https://t.co/eS0MUcj8gv 2021-02-27 01:31:35 @SussilloDavid @dileeplearning I suspect it's the latter... but who knows, maybe some weirdly cynical culture has been spawned on Twitter. 2021-02-27 01:29:15 @tiagogmarques @jakhmack @jbohnslav @JamesJDiCarlo @TonyZador @AndreasTolias @ilastik_team @SussilloDavid Damn right... 2021-02-26 21:59:26 RT @KordingLab: this will be spectacular! Register now! https://t.co/6cy2fZSHI7 2021-02-26 21:38:08 @blsabatini @landoskape @Raamana_ https://t.co/5rWyXQyzt0 2021-02-26 21:37:41 @jbohnslav @Raamana_ See, @Raamana_, I've said this before... 2021-02-26 20:35:43 RT @jakhmack: Champalimaud Research Symposium #CRS21 on #neural and #artificialintelligence-- will certainly happen in October, hopefully n… 2021-02-26 19:01:18 @NeuroMinded @Raamana_ My favourite thing about this quote is the bald-faced contradiction it carries... 2021-02-26 18:40:43 RT @Neuro_CF: The 2021 Champalimaud Research Symposium #CRS21 is ready for U! This event will promote a worthwhile cross-talk between #expe… 2021-02-26 17:43:18 RT @mjaztwit: Working at the intersection of AI/cogsci/neurosci? We present to you Modular Object-Oriented Games (MOOG), a flexible Python-… 2021-02-26 17:42:19 @Raamana_ Ah, that's old hat for me... 2021-02-26 17:39:01 @g_lajoie_ @JonAMichaels : apparently you recognized this on Zoom? Now that is a Twitter win!!!!!!! https://t.co/P3Sqid8cDu 2021-02-26 14:45:53 RT @geoffreyhinton: I have a new paper on how to represent part-whole hierarchies in neural networks. https://t.co/4hYb7MJ1SF 2021-02-26 14:45:45 RT @NeuroNaud: What computation is performed by the DRN to release serotonin? How can GIF models be applied in the presence of subthreshold… 2021-02-26 14:10:28 @Raamana_ @behrenstimb @anne_churchland @KordingLab @andpru @prokraustinator Why do we need awards? We don't!!! Except for the fact that humans are prestige obsessed apes who love symbolic gestures like this and use them as a short-form way to assess success. See our previous conversation re prestige... 2021-02-26 13:40:36 @behrenstimb @anne_churchland @KordingLab @andpru @Raamana_ @prokraustinator I agree with this approach, it's essentially my play book as well. 2021-02-26 13:35:42 @anne_churchland @KordingLab @andpru @Raamana_ @prokraustinator People I know and respect including, *cough* @KordingLab *cough*, have done (2) with me. And why not? It's hard for a letter writer to know about everything you've done before!!! Given they're doing you a favour, seems reasonable to make it easier for them like that. 2021-02-26 13:33:52 @anne_churchland @KordingLab @andpru @Raamana_ @prokraustinator To play devil's advocate: I think there's a difference between (1) getting someone to fully write a letter for themselves and (2) getting someone to provide draft materials that includes pertinent information that can then be incorporated. I don't really have a problem with 2. 2021-02-26 13:30:53 @danijarh @ed_ruthazer Ha ha.... zero for my daughter... 2021-02-26 01:37:44 @mdcvision Oh yeah... 2021-02-26 01:36:49 @NunezKant @KordingLab Wow, seriously, this means a lot to me. Thank you! I'm beyond happy to have contributed in any small way. Seriously, I'm touched. Also, once again! Congrats Dr!!!!! 2021-02-25 23:21:46 @NunezKant @KordingLab Wow, thanks! That's super kind of you to say!!!! 2021-02-25 23:21:00 @NunezKant Congrats! 2021-02-25 21:07:17 RT @rosemary_ke: Our recent work on "Towards Learning Causal Representations" highlights the important ingredients for causal learning in h… 2021-02-25 20:43:02 @DavidSKrueger Congrats!!! 2021-02-25 18:13:43 @dysonsphere Oh, I do that too... That way, I can easily reference all the papers I haven't read. 2021-02-25 17:43:07 RT @Noahpinion: If I could give one piece of advice to teenagers, it's that unrequited crushes should be savored half-ironically, always wi… 2021-02-25 17:25:17 RT @masanorisaka: Congratulations to Frankland lab! - the best paper in Neuron 2019-2020 (Oligodendrogenesis for memory) https://t.co/ANjZJ… 2021-02-25 17:19:05 In order to avoid that step 4, I very diligently download the pdfs before closing the tab, so that I can have an ever expanding folder on my computer with hundreds of unread papers. https://t.co/crwkcd1Kyh 2021-02-25 17:04:12 RT @ubi_works: BREAKING: Yesterday Canada's first ever bill towards a national Guaranteed #Basicincome was introduced by MP @JulieDzerowicz… 2021-02-25 16:55:49 @MHendr1cks https://t.co/aQminlFN2q 2021-02-25 16:53:21 RT @doctorow: https://t.co/DktmAmqN6n https://t.co/YwTz4N0hGQ 2021-02-25 16:49:57 @MHendr1cks Ah yes, quite. But, in my opinion, the far greater danger to such discussions is not people who say it doesn't exist, but rather, neuroscientists and psychologists who pretend we have anything practical to say on such matters at this point in the science... 2021-02-25 16:46:33 @MHendr1cks Lack of education! 2021-02-25 16:45:52 @MHendr1cks I also think Dennett pretty much settled it. But I don't think people actually want it to be settled! Certainly not in the way Dennett did, as it grates against their a priori definitions, per your point. 2021-02-25 16:44:08 @MHendr1cks Well, do you mean nothing to talk about or nothing to talk productively about? The former is false, but the latter may be true... 2021-02-25 16:42:57 @ed_ruthazer @WiringTheBrain Yeah, I'm not convinced that would save us... As I noted in other tweets, there don't seem to be general mathematical principles of emergence. Moreover, I don't think these would ever give some people want they want with respect to these things, which are metaphysical insights. 2021-02-25 16:40:32 @prokraustinator One tip: even though people sometimes say this is bad practice, if you're really worried about the imposition, offer to give them a draft letter. 2021-02-25 16:39:08 @prokraustinator Yeah, you just have to do it. It's painful, but unavoidable. 2021-02-25 14:20:48 @ed_ruthazer Not necessarily... But, I think how one interprets the question of how to define "free will" and what must or must not be in that definition is very much influenced by culture, yes. 2021-02-24 22:45:51 @shibl https://t.co/wgbxwQcHhy 2021-02-24 21:56:46 RT @DrJKhokhar: Straight from @APNeuro @dr_alexharris @DrAtheirAbbas @GogosLabZMBBI and @NIMHDirector: Reset of hippocampal–prefrontal ci… 2021-02-24 21:26:31 These sorts of debates are plagued by a lack of agreed definitions and host of assumptions that are influenced by one's cultural background. Now, where did I put that 10 foot pole...? https://t.co/aKwr3ula7c 2021-02-24 18:47:39 RT @georgiagkioxari: We added implicit and volumetric renderers to #PyTorch3D, in addition to the existing 3D mesh and point cloud renderer… 2021-02-24 18:40:01 RT @MarinaP63: How does the human brain compute expected value? What is the signature of a transition to consciousness? You can read about… 2021-02-24 17:04:31 RT @apeyrache: Many of you have now seen the Long et al. study showing spatially modulated neurons (place, grid, HD, etc.) in the somatosen… 2021-02-24 15:09:43 RT @SussilloDavid: 1/2 Like understanding neural data? Like reverse engineering of nonlinear RNNs? Like switching linear dynamical systems?… 2021-02-23 20:53:56 RT @danijarh: Excited to present Clockwork VAEs for video prediction! Clockwork VAEs (CW-VAEs) leverage hierarchies of latent sequences, w… 2021-02-23 19:31:20 RT @Franklandlab: Come join us at SickKids in Toronto! We have a faculty position in neuroscience (broadly defined, but especially molecula… 2021-02-23 18:09:28 @nicholdav @KordingLab Um, 'kay... I'm still super confused about your point, TBH. Are you simply saying that there is still work to be done to understand visual search behaviour? 2021-02-23 18:08:28 @nicholdav @KordingLab Who would be tempted to do that? That would be crazy, as it would imply that you have "solved" visual search behaviour with a single early stage model... 2021-02-23 17:02:38 RT @Mixmag: The studio set-up Daft Punk used to make 'Homework' https://t.co/Wals0Mz6Qt 2021-02-23 16:37:43 RT @anirudhg9119: Towards Causal Representation Learning @bschoelkopf, @FrancescoLocat8 , Stefan Bauer, @rosemary_ke , @NalKalchbrenner ,… 2021-02-23 16:37:29 RT @biorxiv_neursci: A massive 7T fMRI dataset to bridge cognitive and computational neuroscience https://t.co/1Ojw6ir4FW #biorxiv_neursci 2021-02-23 16:26:35 @nicholdav @KordingLab I agree, neuro needs behaviour! I still have no idea why you said that these results indicate that one must be cautious when taking our framework as "gospel". What were you trying to express? 2021-02-23 15:01:27 @nicholdav @KordingLab Yes, it would be a notable result! 2021-02-23 15:00:23 RT @francoislegault: Notre gouvernement est déterminé à faire du Québec la batterie du nord-est de l'Amérique du Nord. Très bon reportage d… 2021-02-23 14:22:33 RT @TimKietzmann: Bored of all the dogs in ImageNet (ILSVRC)? Meet ecoset: 1.5m images from 565 basic level categories (selected to be of i… 2021-02-23 01:39:35 RT @gottapatchemall: Volumetric Calcium Imaging of 1 Million Neurons Across Cortical Regions at Cellular Resolution Using Light Beads Micro… 2021-02-23 01:39:27 RT @iandanforth: Summer ML Internship Alert! (Remote w/ in USA) This internship has two possible projects: 1. Natural language -> 2021-02-22 22:49:31 @tiagogmarques Oh, I get this interpretation frequently. I think people see the title and just jump to conclusions, as you say... 2021-02-22 22:47:09 @PsychScientists So jealous... 2021-02-22 22:00:18 @IntuitMachine @blamlab @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm Nope, and I have no problem with that. 2021-02-22 21:44:58 @IntuitMachine @jeroaranda @GunnarBlohm @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @blamlab That's the sound of people ceasing to procrastinate... 2021-02-22 17:59:23 @IntuitMachine @blamlab @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm Dude, I'm sorry, but I don't wanna drive in circles... As with the definition of "computer", one need only examine the definition of "code" to see that the brain literally encodes things. Here's a definition of "code" from MW: "a system of signals ... for communication" 2021-02-22 17:56:19 @IntuitMachine @GunnarBlohm @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @blamlab Hardly, it was an excellent point! 2021-02-22 17:54:47 PSA: if there's a paywalled article you're interested in, search it on Google Scholar and click on "all x versions". Often you will find a pdf posted online by the author and freely available! 2021-02-22 17:53:45 @IntuitMachine @blamlab @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm I never said there was no encoding, where did I say that? 2021-02-22 17:53:04 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab Search it on Google scholar and click on the other versions, there are non paywalled pdfs available. 2021-02-22 17:51:28 @IntuitMachine @blamlab @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm There is nothing about the concept "code" that requires an operation code or a memory location. Do not confuse one means of encoding/processing information with the entire concept of a code. 2021-02-22 17:49:48 @dlevenstein 2021-02-22 17:49:03 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab Read the article, it discusses neural codes at length. 2021-02-22 17:43:03 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab The answer to that must be determined empirically, and lots of work has been devoted to this in neuroscience: https://t.co/WTkIRfjFdU 2021-02-22 17:39:43 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab A code. 2021-02-22 17:38:51 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab https://t.co/8iepwmvdrP 2021-02-22 17:38:16 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab Not a metaphor. 2021-02-22 17:37:43 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab Codes, programming languages, Turing completeness, computation, etc... 2021-02-22 17:36:31 @IntuitMachine @gialdegheri @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm @blamlab Also not a metaphor. 2021-02-22 00:36:59 @Raamana_ Good, but not this good. 2021-02-22 00:07:19 @GunnarBlohm @jmdelgadogarcia Pssst... It's not an analogy, the brain is literally a computer. I'm going away now, I promise, don't @ me... 2021-02-21 22:07:27 RT @iclr_conf: Important #ICLR2021 conference date update: @iclr_conf will take place on May 3-7, with the main conference on May 3-6, and… 2021-02-21 19:32:23 @GnarlyTinmen @GunnarBlohm No one, it's a straw man, IMO... I agree with Gunnar that there are some interesting things in the article though. :) 2021-02-21 19:24:52 @NeuroNaud Yeah, these are destined for eBay... or maybe, I should sneak into one of my colleagues' offices and hang them up there without telling them... 2021-02-21 19:23:23 @dlevenstein @NunezKant @GunnarBlohm @matthewcobb So, in the future, we can just link to the articles and leave the Twitter debates in the past... 2021-02-21 19:22:59 @dlevenstein @NunezKant @GunnarBlohm I am grateful for my team... NB: 1) That Guardian article by @matthewcobb was the trigger for my last foray into debating this on Twitter. 2) Tim Lillicrap and I have agreed to write a piece on this to be published in the same issue with a piece by @matthewcobb. 2021-02-21 00:45:52 RT @TanentzapfLab: Virtually every aspect of the COVID vaccine, from the lipid nanoparticles to the mRNA technology, was developed in acade… 2021-02-21 00:04:44 RT @bradpwyble: Painted bike lines are fucking useless. Pass it on. https://t.co/7E9VP7A1I5 2021-02-20 19:36:54 @NoraNewcombe @TaliaLerner @EllaBatty My condolences, and I hear you. I have had some interesting and productive conversations flowing from this thread that have convinced me that Hart takes this too far, so I will delete the tweet. 2021-02-20 19:34:02 @ampanmdagaba Oh yeah, they're hanging up in the bedroom now to increase the romance... 2021-02-20 19:33:29 @BoninLab I prefer to think it's good ol' Sol... 2021-02-20 19:32:22 @BoninLab Indeed, I think you're right! I remember Sol myself from "Parlez-moi" (https://t.co/BHcDThREO1), a show for teaching French that was on TVOntario when I was young. 2021-02-20 19:16:07 Can you believe my neighbours were throwing these babies out?!?!?!? What has happened to an appreciation for fine art in our society? https://t.co/mSZQZnAtyA 2021-02-20 19:14:53 RT @Dr_Alex_Crimi: How #beautiful ! Finally 10.5 T on humans and not only mice!!! The world’s strongest #MRI machines are pushing human ima… 2021-02-20 16:50:42 @LiisaGalea Totally... 2021-02-20 16:32:51 @ed_ruthazer @NSERC_CRSNG And this year was actually lighter than most, due to COVID extensions! Apparently, my stack was only 2/3 of what it would normally have been, and still it was a lot... 2021-02-20 16:32:10 @ed_ruthazer @NSERC_CRSNG https://t.co/AGJAu2FwM3 2021-02-20 15:29:36 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Indeed, but I think this insight is surprising to many lay people, who imagine that the primary action of the drug itself is often the most damaging thing. 2021-02-20 15:26:08 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Yes, good point, and arguably, for people still stuck in the moral perspective on drugs, the biological perspective may help them to let go of the need to criminalise it. 2021-02-20 15:11:08 @ed_ruthazer @NSERC_CRSNG I consider it well worth it. 2021-02-20 15:10:45 @ScottMacShack 2021-02-20 15:09:56 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi And I also agree with Hart that sometimes scientists may be hesitant to play down the magnitude of any physiological effects as they are the justification for funding. 2021-02-20 15:08:48 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi And here I think Hart has a really good point. Scientists should be clear with policy makers that addiction has a physiological basis, and can induce physiological harm. But the magnitude of the effects do not justify the damage inflicted by sending someone to prison. 2021-02-20 15:04:50 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi We saw this in Canada during the cannabis legalization discussions, when the data showing that there may be some neuro effects for adolescents that don't happen for adults was used to try to argue that we should continue to spend millions on locking people up. 2021-02-20 15:03:28 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Oh, I know Hart's answer to that. He argues (and I am inclined to agree) that data on the biological changes that drugs can induce have been weaponized by policy makers to continue the damaging war on drugs. 2021-02-20 15:02:06 @hugospiers @criticalneuro Indeed... I was sad, but I shall watch the recording, and as you say, hopefully our paths can actually cross in the near future. 2021-02-20 15:01:12 @Franklandlab And, if you've got lots of work that is basic research, but which typically up the significance of by talking about the potential to inform the development of new treatments, just don't do that. Talk about the results and the basic knowledge gained, don't mention treatments. 2021-02-20 14:59:47 @Franklandlab Yes, that makes it a challenge. The key is to use the "significant contributions" section. In that section, avoid discussing explicitly health related stuff, even if it's some of your biggest work. Instead focus on those papers/results that are clearly NSE, and articulate that! 2021-02-20 14:53:16 @pmarignani @NSERC_CRSNG Thanks! 2021-02-19 21:29:03 @criticalneuro @hugospiers I really wish I could have made it today... 2021-02-19 20:59:52 @sylvain_baillet Totally. I know it's easy to think of it as less consequential cause it's less money than some other programs, but it is what will give you the basis to really try new things and, well, discover! But, I do think the gov should double the amount that DGs are worth... 2021-02-19 20:00:47 6/n I almost forget the last key take-away: You must articulate a *program* of research for the long-term, not just a series of studies for 5 years. Make clear what you hope your lab will contribute to science *over your career*. 2021-02-19 19:42:01 2/n Take-away 1: The process is very fair! For every grant *the grid is paramount*. It doesn't matter how many CNS papers you have, or which university you're at, or whether you're using fancy tech, etc. The Q is always, where is this on the grid? https://t.co/GrBhbPQhNK 2021-02-19 19:42:00 1/n Well, I just finished my first ever week as a reviewer for @NSERC_CRSNG Discovery Grants. I'm really happy I participated and I have a few major take-aways I wanted to share with the community: 2021-02-19 19:23:08 RT @jaaanaru: Science is cool as it often makes the impossible possible. Here researchers figured out a novel way how to communicate with… 2021-02-19 19:01:48 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Ah, good point... I wasn't thinking about it from the insurance perspective. 2021-02-19 18:57:31 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Nothing new? That seems an overstatement... He's trying to alter the conversation on addiction in a pretty big way. Whether you agree with him or not, it certainly seems sufficiently novel relative to most portrayals of addiction in science. 2021-02-19 18:56:03 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Yeah, but I think depression is equally complicated! I take your broader complaint with Hart's arguments, and agree with a lot of it. But I also agree with Hart that portraying addiction as a disease carries with it problematic implications that don't fully align with reality. 2021-02-19 18:48:19 @o_guest Wasn't it some old British white dude who first made the complaint? 2021-02-19 18:47:15 @lukesjulson @vineettiruvadi Well, disease definitely implies the need for intervention from a doctor. And this is where the crux of the matter lies. Does an addict necessarily need to see a doctor? Or would a social worker be better? 2021-02-19 18:44:37 @lukesjulson Well, that is precisely one of the problems in psychiatry. It's why homosexuality was in the DSM. It's why some people in the autism community reject the current narratives from physicians on their condition. 2021-02-19 18:42:51 @o_guest For older WASPs avocados are kinda exotic, and I suspect they think of them as expensive... I had family members who didn't even know what an avocado was until the 2000s. 2021-02-19 18:19:50 @DylanRMuir Pffttt.... go sub-atomic or go home. 2021-02-19 18:16:56 @AadilBharwani But, I would personally say that someone who drinks 2 drinks per night is in fact moderately addicted... yet I am uninclined to say that they suffer from a disease. 2021-02-19 18:02:05 @tdverstynen Meh, it's just semantics... There certainly are neural representations according to some definitions. 2021-02-19 17:55:15 @AadilBharwani True, but is a 2 drinks per night person suffering from a "disease" that requires physiological explanation/intervention? 2021-02-19 17:30:03 @graemedmoffat @dgardner I legit do not understand why there aren't huge bitcoin farming operations in QC... 2021-02-19 17:28:06 @AadilBharwani Yeah, I see the contradiction there, good point... if he really wanted to make the point he should admit to being addicted. 2021-02-19 17:00:17 @alphasixtyone @anilananth @pgmid @Pieters_Tweet @dyamins @dileeplearning No, that's not the case. You can do backprop in recurrent networks, they've been doing that since the 80s! You just need to define a time-horizon for gradient propagation. 2021-02-19 16:59:08 @TaliaLerner @EllaBatty I hear you, and I'm very sorry to hear you lost your brother. I don't think Hart is trying to say that anyone who succumbs to an OD isn't a grown up, though. Rather, he's saying grown-ups should be free to judge the risks, and not considered "diseased" if they decide to use. 2021-02-19 16:13:33 @neurograce @lukesjulson True, but that's because we have good treatments! That is not why being rich makes a drug addiction manageable. 2021-02-19 16:13:03 @alain_dagher @lukesjulson I think it's more like the general observation that smokers take on some major risk of dying, but ultimately, are not "brain damaged" or "diseased" in the sense that people often mean when they talk about things like heroin usage. 2021-02-19 16:10:47 @Raamana_ @KordingLab @MHendr1cks Yes, but also, lack of generalization is actually a key step in the process of scientific discovery!!! 2021-02-19 16:08:16 @lukesjulson I mean, yes, definitely. His perspective is one of someone with enough means to not have drugs destroy their life. But, isn't the fact that a wealthy person can have a different experience telling? No amount of money makes migraines, or cancer, or Parkinson's a non-problem.,, 2021-02-19 16:06:07 @lukesjulson I hear you, but I don't think that is quite a fair statement. I take his point to be that if a big part of the ills that one suffers from something are a result of *social* factors, then it's not fair to call it a disease. Migraines obviously are not like that. 2021-02-19 16:03:50 @adamsafron Yes it is! :) 2021-02-19 16:03:18 @KordingLab @MHendr1cks No, I think the problem there is the word "useful". It renders the results less *trustworthy* in terms of the veracity of the conclusions, but the lack of generalization helps to indicate that there are variables that are not being considered, which is useful! 2021-02-18 20:55:07 @Dylonius Oh, there's also lots of neurodegeneration ones, but these seem a more appropriate scrape. 2021-02-18 20:53:42 @crocodoyle @iandanforth https://t.co/ravGr5WNa0 2021-02-18 20:13:44 @crocodoyle @iandanforth Sorry, that "other" was a typo (I was writing "other people" then switched to "society" without removing the "other"...) 2021-02-18 20:12:57 @crocodoyle @iandanforth Yes, I agree! 2021-02-18 20:12:36 "Dear Dr. Richards, I would first like to extend my sincere congratulations on the publication of your high-quality original article, < Well done predatory journal bot, well done... 2021-02-18 20:03:48 @crocodoyle @iandanforth Now, cancer will be a problem for you regardless of how society reacts. But, I'm not convinced that this need be the case for ADHD and it is certainly not the case for high-functioning autism. 2021-02-18 20:02:58 @crocodoyle @iandanforth Yeah, I don't like that definition at all, particularly when the problems are largely induced by other society's reactions. Homosexuality caused lots of problems for people in the past, but that wasn't cause it was a disease, it was because our society didn't accept it. 2021-02-18 19:46:10 @iandanforth @crocodoyle Well, I don't think just being on the extreme end of natural human variability constitutes a disease, and I think that's what ADHD and autism likely are. Do they present problems for people? Most definitely. But, I feel like we mean more than that when we talk about "disease". 2021-02-18 19:44:17 @LucaAmb @iandanforth I know you're not, sorry if that was implied. I more just note that because I think part of what Hart is arguing is that we need to treat opioid abuse more like how we treat alcohol abuse. 2021-02-18 19:43:17 @iandanforth @LucaAmb @J_KoenigGambini I tried, but it's actually hard to find that (in 2 mins of googling...) 2021-02-18 19:41:48 @LucaAmb @J_KoenigGambini @iandanforth Yeah, we at least legalized cannabis, and I'm hopeful we'll see psilocybin legalized in Canada in the next decade too. 2021-02-18 19:16:36 @LucaAmb @J_KoenigGambini @iandanforth And yes, the psychedelics are ridiculously safe, much more so than alcohol, which is what makes their prohibition legit weird/stupid. 2021-02-18 19:15:41 @LucaAmb @J_KoenigGambini @iandanforth Don't get me wrong, so do I. But, when I reflect on those people's lives, it strikes me that the gravest harm was inflicted by their interactions with criminality, the justice system, and lack of access to clean drugs. 2021-02-18 19:13:50 @LucaAmb @iandanforth I don't think he's *advocating* it's recreational use, he's saying that's a choice that should be respected in the same way we respect people's choices to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. 2021-02-18 19:11:44 @LucaAmb @iandanforth The normal doses of heroin would kill a normal person? Dude, that's explicitly false. If you're referring to the chance of choking on vomit, the exact same danger holds with binge drinking, and it can be attended to with proper care. 2021-02-18 19:10:18 @J_KoenigGambini @LucaAmb @iandanforth We shouldn't lie to people to try to scare them off drugs. We should tell them the truth: that there are risks depending on neurotype and psychological health, and that there can be heavy social costs. But, let's not pretend that every drug user is an addict with a damaged brain. 2021-02-18 19:08:30 @J_KoenigGambini @LucaAmb @iandanforth I have also met many drug users, and am one (though not opioids). I can tell you that from personal experience the only people I've known who suffered *direct* harm from drug use (i.e. not social costs related to their drug use) were people with underlying conditions. 2021-02-18 19:06:58 @LucaAmb @J_KoenigGambini @iandanforth What's your basis for that claim? My understanding is that it is false: a majority of heroin users do not actually get addicted. 2021-02-18 19:05:07 @LucaAmb @iandanforth No, I disagree. Heroine can actually be used safely, as Hart notes in the article. 2021-02-18 19:03:35 @LucaAmb @azhir_io @iandanforth It's not about separating the biological and the psychological factors. It's about recognizing that most of the harm to users comes from the way society treats these drugs. 2021-02-18 18:12:17 @iandanforth As David Lee Roth said: "I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money." No one would ever say this about cancer or diabetes... 2021-02-18 18:10:18 @iandanforth The point is that addiction is (1) addiction is not easily reducible to some physiological factors in the brain, (2) it's arguably not a disease. Yes, surely, it must be driven by the brain, as is all behaviour. But, the ills of addiction are mostly sociological, not biological. 2021-02-18 17:29:40 RT @anilkseth: Does the brain do backprop? Great article by @anilananth featuring @BerenMillidge @tyrell_turing @KordingLab Yoshua Bengio a… 2021-02-18 17:25:52 @jbimaknee We are very different people in physiological preferences then... I ski 3 times per week, often at temperatures around -15 deg C (just above 0 F)! 2021-02-18 17:14:25 I really like this thread here from @MHendr1cks. Arguably, we can only say we really understand some phenomenon when we get to the point where results are reproducible. But, as pointed out here, a lack of reproducibility is often the start of an important scientific journey! https://t.co/akDBrHNNbr 2021-02-18 16:59:26 @Noahpinion @TweetsByRobert I'm not saying they're justified, but that is what I take as their argument here... 2021-02-18 16:58:56 @Noahpinion @TweetsByRobert In fairness, I think the interpretation is supposed to be the opposite: they're maligning you as an imperialist because you are willing to consider that some wars may *not* be pointless. They are further assuming that you would use that to justify western imperialism. 2021-02-18 16:52:32 Great article from @anilananth here on biological deep learning. (Featuring myself, @dyamins, @BerenMillidge, @Pieters_Tweet, Yoshua, and others...) https://t.co/bJuQkkBXVx 2021-02-18 16:40:27 @jbimaknee Nah man, the cold is great, as long as it comes with snow and sun! If it does, everything is sparkly and soft and wonderful. :) You just gotta get out there and enjoy it, but that may be hard if you don't have the necessary gear... 2021-02-18 15:50:53 RT @gottapatchemall: Goal-Driven Recurrent Neural Network Models of the Ventral Visual Stream https://t.co/mR93xpZoku https://t.co/Qf9FAoRO… 2021-02-18 14:04:20 RT @LecoqJerome: Excited to present DeepInterpolation at #COSYNE21 next week on February 25th with some new characterization of transfer tr… 2021-02-17 21:41:23 @TimKietzmann Man, you guys are on fire! 2021-02-17 21:41:16 RT @TimKietzmann: New paper & https://t.… 2021-02-17 20:35:54 RT @neurograce: It's happening! My book, "Models of the Mind: How physics, engineering and mathematics have shaped our understanding of the… 2021-02-17 18:36:49 @Raamana_ Yup, pretty much. If it's well aligned to my research program, and worth a lot of money, I would go for it, even if it involved a couple of weeks of overtime and was competitive. One caveat: I wouldn't do that if I really didn't need funding. 2021-02-17 18:28:46 Another cool one linking RL and human neural representations in Neuron this week, this from @behrenstimb and crew: Entorhinal and ventromedial prefrontal cortices abstract and generalize the structure of reinforcement learning problems https://t.co/uU2HxDb8eL 2021-02-17 18:27:07 Relevant to some recent discussions on Twitter re ANNs and dorsal stream: Using deep reinforcement learning to reveal how the brain encodes abstract state-space representations in high-dimensional environments https://t.co/N2rXZrMMz5 2021-02-17 17:46:03 RT @GunnarBlohm: Day 3 of @NSERC_CRSNG discovery grant reviews. A few recommendations... (1) Don't forget to mention your service to the c… 2021-02-17 17:45:44 I'm new to the @NSERC_CRSNG DG committee, and this has been eye opening for me. Neuroscis/biologists, NSERC DG committees will *literally ignore* your contributions to health sciences. You cannot just show you have good papers, you need to show good papers in the natural scis!!! https://t.co/ZnJAPvOYns 2021-02-17 17:36:41 @Raamana_ My rough heuristic: 1) How much does the call align with my research? If I have to propose things I wouldn't actually plan on doing otherwise, I reconsider. 2) How much money is it? If it will fund a few trainees for a few years, it's worth a lot of work, but not otherwise. 2021-02-16 22:04:36 @PaulMinda1 That is in fact the point... 2021-02-16 21:35:27 @jpillowtime @TPVogels @KordingLab @behrenstimb @attninaction @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @neurograce Don't worry, I'm not gonna take this bait... 2021-02-16 20:04:59 RT @micahgallen: Been reading philosophical debates about what representations are and how we use them in neuroscience and psychology for m… 2021-02-16 19:58:32 @neuroecology @jpillowtime @behrenstimb @attninaction @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @neurograce From the perspective of the BMI, yes! We could say, "these neurons provide the BMI with the necessary representation of X"... 2021-02-16 19:05:58 @jpillowtime @behrenstimb @attninaction @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @neurograce I mean, why do you think that doesn't undercut the claim that there is a representation there? 2021-02-16 19:05:28 @jpillowtime @behrenstimb @attninaction @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @neurograce Oh, really, why? 2021-02-16 19:01:41 @jpillowtime @behrenstimb @attninaction @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @neurograce But, to clarify my position, I think we can legit make that assumption often and it's not problematic. Example: I don't really need to see any interventional, causal data to convince me that grid cells actually do something in the brain. 2021-02-16 19:00:21 @jpillowtime @behrenstimb @attninaction @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @neurograce Hmm... I would say that we not only care about that causality, we assume it de facto, and if we can't we wouldn't want to call it a "representation". E.g., there will be many thing with > 2021-02-16 18:32:41 @behrenstimb @attninaction @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @jpillowtime @neurograce God, here I go violating my non-participation, but: Don't you think, Tim, that we assume causality, even if we can't demonstrate it? Don't we care about the activity patterns we observe because we assume the information they carry is being used downstream to guide behaviour? 2021-02-16 17:29:06 Very cool idea. I do love the idea that the phylogenetic history of predictive learning in the brain is via energy minimisation cost functions. https://t.co/CzjxbsSV9f 2021-02-16 17:26:24 RT @TimKietzmann: New preprint alert! We show that predictive coding is an emergent property of input-driven RNNs trained to be energy effi… 2021-02-16 17:26:04 @RogerGrosse Awesome, congrats Roger! 2021-02-16 15:59:22 RT @Babak_Taati: "... during the spring lockdown the average pupil had learned nothing at all. Those whose parents were poorly educated did… 2021-02-16 15:58:13 @cian_neuro I'm okay with it... It is indeed a reflection of the reality of biological measurements, IMO. 2021-02-16 12:01:47 RT @maiheurem: Very excited to share that the project I worked on during my internship @DeepMind got awarded a Distinguished Paper Award @R… 2021-02-16 11:59:23 RT @RavenclawSoc23: This is me, and so many academics I know (credit @masondenverr ) https://t.co/59SpmYk1EQ 2021-02-16 01:45:04 @behrenstimb @KordingLab @PsychScientists @andpru @neuro_data @jpillowtime @neurograce Now Tim, philosophers are literally paid to make problems out of non-problems by engaging in confusing language games... they're only doing their jobs, be nice. 2021-02-16 01:42:19 RT @GunnarBlohm: End of first day of @NSERC_CRSNG DG reviews. Today's lesson: Read the evaluation criteria! And the merit indictator grid.… 2021-02-16 01:42:00 @MHendr1cks I like the second one! 2021-02-15 21:51:07 RT @MelissaJSharpe: Excited to have our paper out in @NatureNeuro. We show that LH GABAergic neurons contribute in really surprising ways t… 2021-02-15 20:52:45 Alex, I'll take: "How to violate my resolution not to get into huge semantic debates on Twitter this year" for 600. https://t.co/0sZgdQY1ao 2021-02-15 20:31:15 @TimKietzmann @kashdogcicero @pebenjamters @KriegeskorteLab @bethgelab @dyamins @summerfieldlab @KordingLab @cpilab Yes, there are definitely ways to get more dorsal-like representations. We have seen it in our lab, and I've heard similar things from others. Of course, it requires the right cost function and data! 2021-02-15 20:29:35 @SashaMTL Almost... Redirect that pandemic anxiety to chilling out and never wearing anything but sweatpants, and I think you're golden. 2021-02-14 16:14:43 @hb_cell @cian_neuro Both are! 2021-02-13 23:41:51 @crocodoyle @GunnarBlohm Yeah, without the aligns, I think it may be a non-starter for me. I do *not* wanna be aligning that shit... 2021-02-13 22:35:56 @JasonSynaptic @andpru Yeah, agreed, I don't actually understand how that's workable @andpru, I need to have in-person meetings with lab members and collaborators, Slack can only do so much! 2021-02-13 22:24:31 @JasonSynaptic There's something about the Zoom meetings that seems more trivial to people, and so we all book more, I think. I've taken to blocking off some time in my schedule every week as unavailable, just so I can get other stuff done. 2021-02-13 22:06:50 @crocodoyle @GunnarBlohm Is it really the same level of capability though? Can you do all the aligns, splits, every amsmath function, etc? If so, then I guess that actually settles it... 2021-02-13 21:25:18 @LucaAmb Oh, I've seen it, I love that movie! 2021-02-13 20:43:52 RT @doctorow: Inequality requires narrative stabilizers. When you have too little and someone else has more than they can possibly use, sim… 2021-02-13 20:39:37 RT @sanjanacurtis: CAN UR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DO THIS i scream, accidentally pouring orange juice into my coffee 2021-02-13 19:58:33 @bradpwyble Oh, that's pure stimulus response, IME. Every time they engage in certain actions, their parents cave... 2021-02-13 19:27:50 @shibl @josephdviviano Agreed, it's more a matter of difference in the richness of the semantics, not that there is an absence of semantics for one of them. 2021-02-13 18:49:06 @TerencePlizga Agreed! 2021-02-13 18:48:33 @josephdviviano Yes, agreed on this - 5 yos have a richer semantics courtesy of their richer experiences. 2021-02-13 18:47:35 @PaulMinda1 Well, quite... And this is how I think it often is with humans - when they give an account of why they said something it is just them generating some potential explanations post-hoc based on what others say, and it may have little to do with their original motivations. 2021-02-13 18:45:28 @DavidSabatini2 2021-02-13 18:44:54 @GunnarBlohm Sorry, yes, looking at your tweet now, I was just repeating what you said. So, uh, I agree!!!! 2021-02-13 18:44:11 @venpopov I dunno, that sounds crazy to me, if we're talking dense pages of equations in a theory (and not like a single tiny equation in an experimental paper). There's a reason theory people use latex. 2021-02-13 18:42:23 @bradpwyble Honestly, not really... 2021-02-13 17:38:38 Seriously though, the ability to introspect and know why you said something, or alternatively, to know why you shouldn't have said something is part of what we learn in higher education. 2021-02-13 17:37:14 True, whereas my 5 year old kid is totally diff.... wait... no... https://t.co/jNNmDIXGPa 2021-02-13 17:33:47 RT @black_in_ai: If you're black and are building an AI company or intend to start one in the next 2 years, fill this anonymous survey by F… 2021-02-13 17:31:46 @GunnarBlohm More importantly, Word and other WYSIWYG editors *suck* for equations. Like, they suck so hard it's difficult to express in words... Maybe I need an equation... 2021-02-13 17:30:20 Now do the analysis for equations... https://t.co/uOfGicaNC4 2021-02-13 16:32:02 RT @Noahpinion: Yes. And I have to say, I've spent much of my life being mad at the conservative movement, and yet this development...worri… 2021-02-13 16:23:11 RT @beenwrekt: I’m excited to share a new textbook @mrtz and I wrote: "Patterns, Predictions, and Actions: A Story about Machine Learning."… 2021-02-13 03:20:42 RT @danieldennett: Last chance for Republican senators to avoid lifelong ignominy. 2021-02-13 03:14:05 RT @bradpwyble: Here's the talk recording in case you want to see it. This talk explores 3 different models that address different aspects… 2021-02-13 03:00:21 @roydanroy @gershbrain @spiantado If you run an experimental lab it's beyond helpful... 2021-02-13 02:59:48 RT @gershbrain: I'm hiring a full time research assistant / lab manager! https://t.co/q0w9hmSxd6 2021-02-13 02:19:26 RT @thecrobe: Me surprising my PI with actually good data https://t.co/jZnuI4OK8i 2021-02-12 22:53:41 @graemedmoffat Sure, from an economics perspective, I totally agree. That's why we need more *real* home-grown champs! But, for the individual researcher, the environment and support here for research itself can be great. 2021-02-12 21:37:34 @graemedmoffat But, *only* because we do have a lot of big tech companies with facilities here. If we didn't, then it would indeed be a pretty bleak landscape, cause the gov funding and home-grown corporate R& 2021-02-12 21:36:43 @graemedmoffat Oh, indeed, but I suspect that the Canadian expenditures are also listed in the totals for those companies, no? So, those numbers are not mutually exclusive, and makes it harder to draw conclusions from this data. Frankly, I think Canada is a great place to do tech research. 2021-02-12 20:13:51 @graemedmoffat One caveat: many of these US tech companies have research offices in Canada. 2021-02-12 14:03:16 RT @gottapatchemall: Cellular transcriptomics reveals evolutionary identities of songbird vocal circuits https://t.co/Cxv1c7f03P https://t.… 2021-02-12 14:00:13 @AnneEUrai Awesome, congrats! 2021-02-12 13:59:52 RT @roydanroy: Einstein slept 12 hours a day, played video games for 4 hours a day, regularly procrastinated on Twitter for 3 hours a day,… 2021-02-12 00:28:04 RT @dongyanl1n: For me, this conversation with @SaraASolla was one of the most enlightening experience in grad school so far. We have made… 2021-02-11 21:50:53 RT @SubutaiAhmad: Please retweet! Want to work at Numenta? We are looking for an outstanding researcher to work on neuroscience inspired m… 2021-02-11 21:42:03 RT @graemedmoffat: What a thread. When innovation policy goes really, really wrong. https://t.co/ixKsiPzaHR 2021-02-11 21:33:25 @MHendr1cks My condolences... 2021-02-11 20:36:48 @MHendr1cks This is why a good admin assistant is worth their weight in gold!!!! 2021-02-11 20:34:17 RT @Mila_Quebec: Nous célébrons aujourd’hui la journée internationale des femmes et des filles en science adoptée par les Nations Unies ! C… 2021-02-11 18:22:38 @KordingLab @MattiaRigotti @neurograce The papers don't contain enough concrete details... 2021-02-11 17:49:47 @Abel_TorresM Sorry, but I don't understand what you've written here, as I neither speak nor read English... 2021-02-11 16:33:03 Them: Even if an AI exhibits human level behavioural competence, that doesn't mean it actually *understands* anything. Me: Please explain why the following skit is funny... https://t.co/8PbzMdLGfH 2021-02-11 16:29:54 @WorldImagining @DennisEckmeier @nicholdav Yeah, thinking is explicitly not meant to be covered in the definition of behaviour as used above... 2021-02-11 16:10:00 @WorldImagining @DennisEckmeier @nicholdav If you count respiration as behaviour, then yes. But, there are experiments with NMJ blockers, and those animals are pretty much not behaving at all, while still being fully awake, as far as we know. 2021-02-11 16:08:59 @DennisEckmeier @nicholdav Yeah, but not when they've been injected with a neuromuscular junction blocker. 2021-02-11 16:08:32 @danilobzdok @nicholdav Or paralyzed... 2021-02-11 16:08:00 @TurrigianoLab @nicholdav Yes and no... Bungarotoxin and other NMJ blockers come pretty close to giving you that. 2021-02-11 12:43:12 @nicholdav Ha ha ha... I think the contrast is intended to be with awake *non-behaving* animals, actually... 2021-02-10 22:43:49 @denicmarko If Logo doesn't count, then weirdly I guess it was Java... 2021-02-10 22:38:22 RT @grescoe: This is how the Dutch do the schoolbus. (Note that the older kids are actively peddling, not glued to a bench.) https://t.co/M… 2021-02-10 21:53:47 RT @BrainhackMTL: [1/5] Our #BHMTL2020ish aims at providing the core ingredients of traditional brainhacks (brains! hacking! sharing!) whil… 2021-02-10 17:54:47 RT @LucaAmb: 1/5) Proud to share the new version of "automatic structured variational inference" (ASVI) (Accepted at #AISTATS2021) Work in… 2021-02-09 21:00:00 @LecoqJerome @apeyrache https://t.co/wBjE8D4CEv 2021-02-09 18:58:50 @anilkseth No, but I share your intuition: I think that a theory that is going after (ii) and largely unhelpful for (i) is likely to be much less scientifically insightful than something that goes after (i) directly and then maybe touches on (ii). 2021-02-09 16:56:12 @jwoodgett @AlexUsherHESA Agreed, there are discussions ongoing here as well. 2021-02-09 16:53:37 @bradpwyble @MHendr1cks The "this looks like that" trap is so easy to fall into... 2021-02-09 16:52:09 @WiringTheBrain Hmmm.... interesting. Because, indeed, I would argue that complexity is really an epistemological issue, not an ontological one, and I've never seen anything that convinced me otherwise. 2021-02-09 14:36:58 @SashaMTL This is true... 2021-02-09 13:39:32 This is a little bit triggering for me... https://t.co/dQb4i3YMBC 2021-02-09 13:37:17 @MelMitchell1 I like your takes here, thanks. :) Interestingly, though, I think we *do* have some principles of intelligence at this point. :) 2021-02-09 13:33:52 RT @apeyrache: Interesting to see how the classic predictive coding paper by Rao and Ballard, published in 1999, went from 71/yr in 2010 to… 2021-02-09 01:38:11 Perhaps it's changed since I last looked at it closely... But if it's anything like it was 15 years ago, it's really just a way of noting that many different complex phenomena depend on interactions between simple entities, and reveling in the analogies that induces. 2021-02-09 01:35:46 When I was a grad student in the 2000s I thought complexity science was really exciting. I read the papers I could find, attended summer schools, etc. What I learned was that "complexity science" was not really a cohesive thing 2021-02-08 22:39:19 @JasonSynaptic @anilkseth I dunno, this ain't my kooky theory! 2021-02-08 22:36:07 @JasonSynaptic @anilkseth Yeah, well, that's why this strikes me as silly. It seems to be postulating that somehow there is a specific state in the EM field that produces consciousness? Sounds like nonsense to me, but I was curious what people who actually know the field thought... 2021-02-08 22:23:57 Electromagnetic theories of consciousness.... https://t.co/95AApaZUiC Is this legit, or fluff? Curious to know what you think @anilkseth. 2021-02-08 19:25:47 RT @KordingLab: Opportunity for neuroscientists at the intersection of theory and experiment to join the Champalimaud in Lisbon. https://t.… 2021-02-08 19:25:29 @jsnsndr Maybe I could cite you? https://t.co/6zt5wrC6OY 2021-02-08 13:24:23 @o_guest My wife gave me Flashback for Genesis for my birthday this year (https://t.co/lWXNRfsMSn)! I can't wait to play it! This was a hidden gem, IMO. (Well, at least, according to my childhood memory...) 2021-02-08 01:23:35 @wyomingwormboy I won't be watching and don't know who's in it. In fact, thanks to your tweet, I just learned it was the super bowl today... 2021-02-07 19:40:17 @apeyrache @dlevenstein This is why I always watch French movies with French subtitles on... 2021-02-07 19:37:02 @SiaAhmadi1 yup 2021-02-07 19:36:13 @neuralreckoning @ampanmdagaba Oh, yeah, this probably tells you as much about your device as your eyes. 2021-02-07 19:33:21 @GunnarBlohm @Timothy0Leary Yup, we're at basically exactly the same level... 2021-02-07 01:38:38 I'm at 11... https://t.co/prBR4DD429 2021-02-07 01:35:30 RT @PessoaBrain: Super interesting paper by Ehrlich and @johndmurray. Promising approach with recurrent neural networks. https://t.co/dVl6e… 2021-02-07 01:33:58 RT @davidedjensen: In my mind, @SashaMTL is one of the rising global rock starts in the world of #AI and #climateaction. So pleased she is… 2021-02-07 01:32:40 @ed_ruthazer @andpru Nah, smoking ain't a thing with COVID... You gotta get yourself some kinda heart condition or something. Also, put some goddamn pants on, it's winter out there! 2021-02-07 00:18:25 @apeyrache @dlevenstein The only English equivalent I know was from linguistics class: Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo (meaning: Buffalos from Buffalo bully buffalos from Buffalo) 2021-02-06 00:34:29 @neuroecology Dude, that sorta T-filled dish is how you got yourself a t-index in the hundreds! 2021-02-06 00:31:13 @graemedmoffat Awww, don't tease poor ol' Bill like that... 2021-02-05 23:13:17 @graemedmoffat @AlexUsherHESA Hell, I can't even imagine living in the suburbs... 2021-02-05 21:34:48 @Timothy0Leary Religion? Drugs? Philosophy? Some combination therein? 2021-02-05 21:33:12 @adamimos Ha ha... no no. I mean we do the grouping on other people. I personally do not buy the idea that consciousness is always a unified thing. Our language just treats it as such... 2021-02-05 21:28:56 @adamimos Us. 2021-02-05 21:27:09 @LucaAmb Put another way: it comes down to how you want to define "objective reality", and as you know, I'm not convinced that the answer to that Q has practical importance, as long as we all accept the common sense inter-subjective implications of it. 2021-02-05 21:25:57 @LucaAmb Yes-ish, but that just seems like a fun language game you're playing to me... I don't see how it actually informs our scientific practice. Whether "tigers" are an "objective reality" doesn't change how we do science. This of course gets back to our previous discussions... 2021-02-05 21:19:57 @LucaAmb Yes, + strategies to model it. Bc it emerges from the interactions of a huge number of elements, the reduction to the laws of physics is impractical, not worth modelling. But, that doesn't mean that the concept of "Bengal tiger" doesn't ultimately depend on the laws of physics. 2021-02-05 20:55:17 This is a good thread on emergence. Note, as discussed in thread: 1) Emergence is everywhere, hardly unique to the brain. 2) It is about the language we use, and the strategies for modelling. It is *not* a way to get something spooky that does not depend on the lower entities. https://t.co/j8aQWbgxLL 2021-02-05 16:07:55 @achristensen56 Yes, but if A and B are paired together, and you never experience an A-> 2021-02-05 16:06:58 @achristensen56 Yup, sounds right to me! 2021-02-05 15:42:36 @achristensen56 Of course, in a *tabular* setting this wouldn't hold, since my learning of V(B) wouldn't have any impact on my estimate of V(A). 2021-02-05 15:41:45 @achristensen56 No, that doesn't sound right to me... Maybe I'm wrong, but I think an ANN doing RL would show the effect. If I learn to represent A and B in a similar way, then when I learn that V(B) = high I would also learn that V(A) = high, courtesy of distributed reps. 2021-02-05 01:28:14 RT @ShahabBakht: Data sharing in neuroscience and one potential bottleneck : 2021-02-04 22:48:29 Dear gods... I feel so much sympathy for the poor (literally) residents of Scarborough who take the SRT every day. This entire fiasco could have been avoided if the Ford brothers had kept their car-lovin' mitts off of Miller's Transit City plans... https://t.co/9D9t1QBosH 2021-02-04 21:49:35 RT @Franklandlab: WAPO article on why you probably can't remember your third birthday party by @missy_ryan (and featuring some of our work)… 2021-02-04 20:54:13 RT @SuryaGanguli: 1/ Super excited to share our work with @drfeifei and @silviocinguetta, lead by the mastermind @agrimgupta92 on Deep Evol… 2021-02-04 19:44:30 Got back some reviews on a paper, overall good! But, R2 says: "Please include a reference to show the close correlation between respiration and heart beating." Really?!?!? JFC... Who should we cite, Galen? (https://t.co/apVxvLzZR3) 2021-02-04 19:09:23 @neuralreckoning @andpru @KordingLab Agreed! 2021-02-04 18:20:51 @tsonj @UniofOxford @summerfieldlab @SaxeLab Congrats! I look forward to seeing what y'all produce! :) 2021-02-04 18:17:50 @neuralreckoning @andpru @KordingLab I would really love to know what touch datasets are available! That would be cool to play with... 2021-02-04 18:17:12 @TimKietzmann @katestorrs @andpru @neuralreckoning @KordingLab Will do! We need to run more tests, hopefully it will turn out to be robust... 2021-02-04 16:44:34 @andpru @neuralreckoning @KordingLab We actually have some initial findings of how you can get more dorsal representations in CNNs, though. Unsurprisingly, it requires abandoning image categorization, and training on movies. Hope to have something out soon to share! 2021-02-04 16:25:15 @KordingLab @tsonj Looking at the document now, you discuss the Kell paper! But, I would be curious to have a succinct breakdown here of the differences you think are driving this. 2021-02-04 16:22:55 @KordingLab Hmmmm... interesting. @tsonj, what did you make of the Kell et al. (https://t.co/JVK8ZtKauD) paper then? It seemed to come to a very different conclusion. What are the differences between your study and this one? 2021-02-03 22:33:29 @neuroecology Expensive 2021-02-03 18:55:51 @IntuitMachine You're wrong. 2021-02-02 21:59:39 @_fernando_rosas Earlier than that! As he notes in the article, Helmholtz articulated these ideas *long* ago... 2021-02-02 21:51:53 @PessoaBrain This is on my reading list! 2021-02-02 21:51:25 RT @PessoaBrain: Steve Grossberg and the predictive brain. An informal thread based on reading his paper: https://t.co/i6Nv7M9GkV 2021-02-02 19:01:33 @bradpwyble Put another way: I don't think it's true because I feel like it's true. I think it's true because there's good scientific evidence for it and I feel like my subjective experience fits with that evidence. 2021-02-02 19:00:36 @bradpwyble I think you're taking my statements to mean too much... My initial wording was that the experience has "reinforced" my belief in predictive processing. The grounds for my belief are actual studies. This is just me noticing that my subjective experience aligns with the data. 2021-02-02 18:58:47 @MathKyle @cian_neuro Agreed. Neuroscience will change dramatically when an actual robust industry emerges! 2021-02-02 18:36:22 @bradpwyble I agree, but I still don't think that's what was going on. Like I said, it really was like I heard his words with no question of confusion, as if he had said them in English. 2021-02-02 18:34:25 @bradpwyble And what I experience when I can predict what's going to be said is *hearing* it, not just figuring it out post-hoc. Of course, my phenomenology may be misleading here, but that's why this was a tweet and not a paper. 2021-02-02 18:33:31 @bradpwyble I understand all of this, and yes, you're being pedantic. But, I maintain (on a personal, non-scientific level) that the experience of hearing something immediately and hearing something, then figuring out what it was, *feels* very different. 2021-02-02 18:30:37 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble Non, non, ce blague devait venir... 2021-02-02 16:39:16 @bradpwyble No, again, I think you're missing the point. It isn't after the fact decoding - it's real time decoding! In my (subjective) it alters your instantaneous processing, no time-lag. Of course, that's not a scientific argument, but the OP was an off-handed remark, not a manuscript... 2021-02-02 16:35:41 @bradpwyble You're kinda talking past my point, Brad... Yes, familiarity is important for comprehension, I never said it wasn't. The point is that expectation also modulates perception in a very clear way that is independent of familiarity. 2021-02-02 16:34:25 @EricLeonardis @bradpwyble https://t.co/uv04vOiJs0 2021-02-02 16:32:08 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble It was pretty awesome... I snapped a so-so quality picture here, but you can see him/her. It was huge! I would guess around the size of a cat... https://t.co/VZSAKfoopY 2021-02-02 16:25:47 @neuro_data @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador Well, I think we also used label noise TBH, but my Q is this: when you say that you didn't get DD, you mean that you didn't see the peak in test/train error, followed by another dip, right? You don't mean that you get worse generalization in bigger nets without label noise, no? 2021-02-02 14:16:41 @bradpwyble But, literally, no one has ever said that to me before! 2021-02-02 14:16:27 @bradpwyble Example: yesterday I was skiing, a guy stopped me and said, « Chut, vien ici, Il y a une grande chouette là-bas » ("Shhh, come here, there's a big owl over there"). I heard him clear as day, bc I had noticed him gazing into the trees and anticipated something about a bird nearby. 2021-02-02 14:14:58 @bradpwyble No, it's not about familiarity, it's expectation. Sometimes, if I don't expect it, I mishear phrases I've heard many times before. And in turn, even for phrases I have heard few times before, I can hear it better with the right expectations. 2021-02-02 14:10:49 @neuro_data @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador One last thing, then I gotta stop procrastinating: In my understanding, label noise is important for making over-fitting more likely in the mid-param range. In the absence of label noise you don't get double descent cause there is no initial peak. But big nets still work well!!! 2021-02-02 14:08:50 @TonyZador @skepticalDre @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @neuro_data We should try at some point! Would be very interesting to see what happens... 2021-02-02 14:07:55 @skepticalDre @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data Yup, LSTMs and GRUs especially, but there are ways to train spiking recurrent networks to get stable dynamics using approximations to gradient descent, e.g.: https://t.co/BHwA30natZ 2021-02-02 13:56:46 @neuro_data @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador But, I will also defer to my student, if they tell me that it was actually really hard for them to get it working and it was just that I only saw the final product... 2021-02-02 13:55:48 @actpredictlab @o_guest Would be hard on Twitter, but basically, you need specific losses and architectures for making prediction possible without things like representational collapse. 2021-02-02 13:48:40 @neuro_data @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador Sure, I will DM you. 2021-02-02 13:47:52 @neuro_data @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador Hmmm... Label noise is definitely important, and there is an interplay between the learning rule, architecture, and dataset (https://t.co/SchyImwENl). But, double descent has been seen in various scenarios, not just category learning with deep nets. 2021-02-02 13:44:18 @neuro_data @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador That's not my experience, or what I've read in papers. My students replicated it pretty quickly... 2021-02-02 13:42:07 @o_guest That is pretty damn cool... 2021-02-02 13:41:03 @heikkiarponen @GaneshNatesh Yes, I share this take. 2021-02-02 13:40:04 @bradpwyble @NunezKant @analog_ashley @nicholdav Good advice, particularly the back-up plan. Put another way, bring a good parachute... 2021-02-02 13:39:13 @o_guest Ha... indeed. When I visited Stanford, Rosa and I debated this quite a bit! I don't buy her argument here... I think that predictive models are saying something very specific about the cost functions and architectures involved that non-predictive models are not saying. 2021-02-02 00:27:39 @GaneshNatesh Cause RNNs work better when you train their weights! 2021-02-02 00:27:01 @NunezKant Feel about it? I mean, Elon is a skilled hype man, so the hype in the tweet is unsurprising.... But honestly, I bet working at Neuralink would be fun, I would certainly consider it if any part of me wanted to move to the US. 2021-02-02 00:23:59 For many countries, this sort of proposal is risky because trading activity could easily go elsewhere. But the US could legit do this! The only barrier is the plutocracy... https://t.co/8pQ27TVudC 2021-02-02 00:20:58 @eyebraineugenie @Raamana_ Okay-dokey, that makes it easy! 2021-02-01 22:44:46 @skepticalDre @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data Ah, but you don't have to deal with over-parameterization, that's the lesson of double descent! You can embrace it! More parameters == better generalization! 2021-02-01 21:37:37 RT @Noahpinion: Oh thank God, these urban highways are nightmarish. Get rid of em all. https://t.co/lxjr5QjX7i 2021-02-01 21:04:26 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data https://t.co/2zBNfBzZmv 2021-02-01 20:58:40 @SandeepKishor13 Well, indeed, this is a fascinating difference between learning as a baby and as an adult! 2021-02-01 20:57:35 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data You've clearly never spent significant time with me at a party... 2021-02-01 20:56:54 @Timothy0Leary @bradpwyble @KordingLab @blake_camp_1 @TonyZador @neuro_data Yes, this too! How did I not immediately link to this paper for @bradpwyble?!!??! Thanks @Timothy0Leary! 2021-02-01 20:55:51 @blake_camp_1 @bradpwyble @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data The task of behaving in the real world... 2021-02-01 20:54:54 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data Oh, I know all too well how hard it is to be human... 2021-02-01 20:53:57 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data Conservatively, yes. Even if you assume 10 samples per second, the point still holds! The amount of data we receive is much smaller than the number of parameters the brain is likely to have. 2021-02-01 20:52:39 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data Regarding the dimensionality of the problem space, sure we don't know for sure, but you can bet it's not radically different from the sorts of problems that we see double descent phenomena in. 2021-02-01 20:51:51 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data https://t.co/LMY9xKh9In 2021-02-01 20:50:52 @blake_camp_1 @bradpwyble @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data No, don't agree... this is Geoff Hinton's old point, which people always misinterpret, but is correct on some level: If you're 20 y/o, you've experienced 600 million seconds of data. If your neurons have only 10 parameters each, you're way over-parameterised. 2021-02-01 20:48:26 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data I disagree. Only if you assume fewer than 10 parameters per neuron could you possible claim it wasn't over-parameterised, and that seems a bonkers conservative estimate to me. 2021-02-01 20:46:49 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data I would be inclined to say that there is no reason *not* to assume it applies to the brain. Moreover, though we don't know the # of parameters, if we even just assume > 2021-02-01 20:44:29 @bradpwyble @blake_camp_1 @KordingLab @TonyZador @neuro_data What do you mean that it's not as robust as we thought? It's quite robust according to my understanding! You can see it happen in many different models on many different tasks, even in RL: https://t.co/ODZPX2lAnX 2021-02-01 19:22:46 @IntuitMachine Hard disagree. Intuition is an ill-defined term, and I'm not even sure it's loosely applicable to the situation I'm describing here, whereas "prior" captures exactly what I want to say, both formally and informally. 2021-02-01 15:25:09 @dlevenstein The problem with this plan is that your friend may bail out during Episode I on the grounds that life is too precious to waste on such atrocious fare, and then never see the actually decent Empire Strikes Back... 2021-02-01 14:51:58 @dan_marinazzo @danilobzdok I do get a lot of requests for them on papers that I really have no business reviewing, even worse than at Frontiers... 2021-02-01 13:57:43 @cian_neuro Yeah, this is why I first got concerned that they may be predatory, i.e., requests to review papers that are so only tangentially related to my field. 2021-02-01 13:56:48 To clarify: this isn't because I'm considering publishing with them. I just want to know whether their emails should be going straight to the trash/spam or not. 2021-02-01 13:55:43 @Raamana_ Well, I'm not thinking about submitting to them. The Q is whether I consider ever reviewing for them, or even just be considerate/polite when I decline. For predatory journals the email just goes in the trash/spam immediately, and I don't want to do that to a legit journal. 2021-02-01 13:42:26 Does anyone know the deal with the MDPI journals? I get contacted by them a lot... Looking online, it looks like maybe they're predatory? Anyone have a sense of what the real deal is here? 2021-02-01 01:26:44 @graemedmoffat @CarmichaelKevin That's not to say that the broader point doesn't hold: we are relying on real estate (and associated debt) far too much. But, with all due respect, I think that maybe sometimes you're keen to portray a mediocre situation as a disaster cause the Liberals are in power... 2021-02-01 01:25:23 @graemedmoffat @CarmichaelKevin Example: If you look at the tech sector 2018-2019 (Dec-to-Dec), there was 4.1% growth, relative to 2% inflation. Similarly, Professional, scientific and technical services was 4%. Of course, 2020 doesn't look good at all, but in what country does it? 2021-02-01 01:23:06 @graemedmoffat @CarmichaelKevin I mean, I don't think it's quite as bad as you portray, Graeme. From my eyes on this data (https://t.co/tYFnrUdxHl), there are a few areas of actual growth. 2021-01-31 23:07:31 @andpru @graemedmoffat @GunnarBlohm Attempting to link quantum stuff to consciousness specifically is clearly just a bunch of woo-bullshit, IMO. 2021-01-31 23:06:25 @andpru @graemedmoffat @GunnarBlohm This is the absolute key point in my eyes! Let's even just say, for sake of argument, that neural signalling is somehow dependant on quantum effects (I think probably not at the level we care about). Then it is relevant to all neuroscience, not just consciousness. 2021-01-30 21:42:36 RT @meganinlisbon: Did I mention that we’re hiring @Neuro_CF ? We have an opening for a computational neuroscientist, with an emphasis on… 2021-01-30 21:34:12 @graemedmoffat @CarmichaelKevin And this is arguably the real issue: we forgot the goal of slowly unwinding our real estate bubble, and we're back to inflating it. It's so stupid, and can only end badly. I hope governments at all levels in this country come to their senses and stop supporting this. 2021-01-30 21:32:47 @graemedmoffat @CarmichaelKevin I read the piece, and indeed, it's sobering. I would say, though, that there's a problem when you're using %s in some of these figures, because if the real-estate market expands at a stupid rate, it doesn't matter what's happening in the other sectors, it will gobble a higher %. 2021-01-29 22:48:08 @JulesBass6 Ha ha ha... quite. Sound familiar @colleenjgillon? I worry I gave you a near heart attack the first time I sent you something like this... 2021-01-29 21:14:13 RT @ShahabBakht: A great example of why accuracy alone isn’t enough for characterizing ANNs. Deep and Wide ANNs both reach the same avera… 2021-01-29 19:55:16 @ampanmdagaba Not quite. I think recommendation letters are useful when you're considering hiring someone. Then the letter can give specific insights into other people's experience of working with the person. But generic letters all just say the same thing. They never give any insight, IME. 2021-01-29 19:45:20 @ampanmdagaba Simple? Yes. Useful? I don't think so... 2021-01-29 19:06:47 @andpru @DrGBuckingham @opherdonchin But... Bc literally *everything* requires a letter, there are many students who have no one to turn to but their undergrad teachers. I am honest with these that my letter will say little, and I encourage them to look elsewhere. And they always say they have no other option... 2021-01-29 19:02:23 @opherdonchin In the many reference letters I've read for scholarships (and school programs), not one of them has ever had anything negative to say or helped me to understand anything about the person, really. For jobs, it's another matter, and I think reference letters help a lot there. 2021-01-29 19:00:23 @opherdonchin Flaws in metrics: - They reflect biases in society. - They don't capture intangible things. I don't think reference letters help with this, because they can also reflect biases in society and everyone peppers their letters with the same gushing regarding intangible qualities. 2021-01-29 18:35:59 @opherdonchin Yes, metrics have problems, but I don't think reference letters solve them (particularly for scholarship applications). 2021-01-29 18:28:37 Looks like a very cool paper! No, I have not read it in full yet! ---------------- A solution to temporal credit assignment using cell-type-specific modulatory signals https://t.co/kKud6nHYo7 2021-01-29 18:25:59 Particularly for scholarships, where literally no one is going to ever give an honest opinion, and (rightfully) only try to help their trainee or former trainee get an award. 2021-01-29 18:25:07 I agree! We have this idea that letters must be a part of every application, but I think that's nonsense. IMO, letters of recommendation are useful when deciding whether you want to work with and/or hire someone. For all other applications I think they should be eliminated. https://t.co/5jTtf3mrFR 2021-01-29 18:21:26 @graemedmoffat @GunnarBlohm Also, many of us just put pdfs of our papers on our website anyway, knowing that the PR cost of forcing us to take it down is likely not something the journals are seeking... 2021-01-29 18:19:39 RT @GurdeepPandher: When it was -37ºC cold in the Yukon wilderness yesterday, was feeling like -47ºC with the windchill, I warmed myself wi… 2021-01-28 21:51:08 @ngbrizuela @NunezKant Agreed, just tell them and be confident about it, they will listen if they're reasonable people. 2021-01-28 21:50:12 RT @FourTet: The Madlib album is out at midnight 2021-01-27 23:01:43 RT @AOC: Gotta admit it’s really something to see Wall Streeters with a long history of treating our economy as a casino complain about a m… 2021-01-27 22:32:41 @Mila_Quebec is looking for 2 Sys Admins to join our innovation, development and technologies team! https://t.co/Ci9XNR95z1 -- @Mila_Quebec recherchons 2 Administrateurs de systèmes pour rejoindre l'Équipe d'innovation, développement et technologies ! https://t.co/yTdpeqBeMg 2021-01-27 21:50:58 Data-driven reduction of dendritic morphologies with preserved dendro-somatic responses Very useful looking stuff from the always great Walter Senn! https://t.co/zoxNvhAaUJ 2021-01-27 20:08:43 RT @andpru: Check out @JustineClery and @stefan_everling discussing our recent work on mapping marmoset S1. https://t.co/UWp4s0TyqV 2021-01-27 19:11:32 @HarrySonghurst @ylecun Would still be the case when doing the generalized policy updates they describe in the Baretto et al. paper above? I wonder... 2021-01-27 00:42:43 RT @realsarahpolley: It's so hard to focus on anything, not knowing who the new Governor General will be. 2021-01-27 00:41:59 RT @o_guest: Our [@andrea_e_martin] paper is OUT‼ We present our path model of science. And how computational modelling forces us to conf… 2021-01-27 00:40:22 RT @FlatironInst: We are excited to announce the newest @FlatironInst center, the Center for Computational Neuroscience. Led by computation… 2021-01-27 00:38:09 @NunezKant Indeed, they are very much related!!!! 2021-01-27 00:37:41 @ChrisBorry 2021-01-26 22:59:47 RT @michaelhoffman: The universal understanding of and empathy for the myriad demands on my time https://t.co/eWLaddeKqn 2021-01-26 20:40:24 This is so stupid, and yet I have seen it before: "The reference letter must be a scanned document bearing an original signature (digital signatures are NOT accepted)." Uh... if I'm scanning it, how is this more secure? You think fraudsters can't use Photoshop? 2021-01-26 19:51:27 Best. Birth. Announcement. Ever. Congrats @AnnaSchapiro and @MichaelJArcaro!!!! https://t.co/lVwui41IAh 2021-01-26 17:55:02 @MathKyle @graemedmoffat @andpru @GunnarBlohm No, I was speaking globally. I took the conversation to be a broader philosophical discussion, not a Canada specific one. 2021-01-26 17:53:00 @andpru @graemedmoffat @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm And to be clear, my original claim about poverty was a global claim, not a Canada specific one. But, poverty will also rise in Canada. 2021-01-26 17:52:23 @andpru @graemedmoffat @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm It ties in directly! Some of the biggest losses in poverty reduction are going to come about due to (mostly girls in developing countries) being pulled out of school: https://t.co/doFGd3euKm 2021-01-26 17:50:34 @schoppik @andpru @graemedmoffat @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm Looking at the numbers, it's not quite as extreme as I stated, but it's close: https://t.co/u7ThoASSE9 2021-01-26 17:47:48 @GunnarBlohm @graemedmoffat @MathKyle Agreed! 2021-01-26 17:01:37 RT @jeffrey_bowers: Two Research Associate positions linked with the ERC project "Generalisation in Mind and Machine" at University of Bris… 2021-01-26 01:42:52 @graemedmoffat @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm Exactly. This single year will eliminate the gains made in reducing poverty over the last decade. It's a tragedy. Of course, we're doing this to protect lives, so I get why. But let us not pretend this is an easy choice... 2021-01-26 01:41:32 @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm @graemedmoffat With all due respect, it's a very privileged perspective to think lockdowns are just about not having the birthday party you wanted, etc. If you live in a tiny apartment, with uneducated parents who must work, limited access to internet, etc., the lockdowns are a major issue. 2021-01-26 01:38:37 @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm @graemedmoffat https://t.co/Zz849DIKkB https://t.co/ETYw5THbJR 2021-01-26 01:38:32 @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm @graemedmoffat No, it's worse than that, sadly. There is data showing that the kids are suffering educational set-backs that will impact their cognitive (and economic) prospects. It's most pronounced in poorer families and developing countries, but affects kids across the board. 2021-01-26 01:27:44 @iandanforth @ylecun Hmmm... I'm not sure I agree with that. Abandoning hand-crafted representations has been great for RL, including in situations without hand-crafted reward functions. 2021-01-26 01:23:54 @MathKyle @GunnarBlohm @graemedmoffat Yeah, but the flip side is: "We protected 80 year old people at the expense of an entire younger generation's development." There's no easy answers. There is no moral clarity. It's a complicated mess, and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves... 2021-01-25 22:06:52 RT @marcgbellemare: RL theory twitter: Is convergence to a local minimum (e.g., of a policy gradient method) interesting? 2021-01-25 22:05:11 Here's a provocative Q for ML twitter based on some discussion in J club today on this paper (https://t.co/8w8iQYsJ3x): To what extent are the remaining hard problems in RL just general representation learning problems as opposed to RL specific problems, per se? I'm undecided... 2021-01-25 21:57:05 @dlevenstein @NunezKant @KordingLab @yesloz @LucaAmb Indeed, I'm very much looking forward to discussing this all with you and @apeyrache, Dan! 2021-01-25 21:56:04 @NunezKant @KordingLab Ha ha... thanks for the shout out. 2021-01-25 21:55:08 RT @KordingLab: We recently (with @david_rolnick icml) showed how, if you give us access to a deep ReLU network we can identify the interna… 2021-01-22 23:36:03 @dileeplearning @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab I came back after dinner to look, and then remembered that I can't let myself get sucked in on Twitter like this... must disengage now, I made a resolution this year!!! 2021-01-22 23:34:30 @RussellRHawkins @WiringTheBrain https://t.co/CDkdxP2o7o 2021-01-22 23:30:12 @danijarh No, I disagree. That doesn't create bits. It transforms bits that already existed in the brain, which got there courtesy of genes and development. 2021-01-22 23:29:06 @Christakou @NunezKant @KordingLab @LucaAmb Yes. My reaction in the second seeing is because you gave me information with your words (in part, thanks to info received over the course of my life while learning language). 2021-01-22 23:25:39 @yesloz @NunezKant @KordingLab @LucaAmb Well... no, I disagree. That information comes from genes + some environmental inputs. It is not created de novo. 2021-01-22 22:57:50 @dileeplearning @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab I gotta run, off to dinner. We can hopefully discuss some time in the future. :) 2021-01-22 22:57:15 @RussellRHawkins @WiringTheBrain Well, then I guess you missed that lecture. 2021-01-22 22:55:23 @Christakou @NunezKant @KordingLab @LucaAmb Maybe? I would have to think more about this. But, note the following: https://t.co/dYAqdqzhOD 2021-01-22 22:51:10 @dileeplearning @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab Agreed! But the physics comes in when you try to consider the physical implementation of information processing systems. 2021-01-22 22:50:20 @Christakou @NunezKant @KordingLab @LucaAmb No, not at all. It can also carry information about your internal systems. But that info comes from the external world ultimately. Not via your sense receptors, per se, but your DNA, your food, etc. 2021-01-22 22:48:38 @dileeplearning @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab No, but they're related. If you're looking at info in physical systems, thermodynamic entropy impacts certainty in the system. 2021-01-22 22:47:42 @_onionesque @WiringTheBrain Yes, I am also confused, @WiringTheBrain. I don't understand your point... 2021-01-22 22:46:53 @mraginsky @WiringTheBrain No, but they're intimately related! 2021-01-22 22:46:22 @lukesjulson @TonyZador @WiringTheBrain And that's the stop I always get off at... 2021-01-22 22:45:43 @dileeplearning @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab That's one part of it! The brain cannot gain info by processing info from the world. But, there are also more fundamental links to thermodynamics, see here: https://t.co/etHYMCXADg 2021-01-22 22:42:33 @dileeplearning @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab ??? Dileep, you should know info theory better than this... 2021-01-22 22:41:37 @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab Here's another way of understanding it: Information is an answer to a question, reduction in uncertainty. How can you reduce the uncertainty in a closed system? How can you answer a question without any external inputs? 2021-01-22 22:38:15 @WiringTheBrain @TurrigianoLab Cause the amount of energy is. 2021-01-22 22:37:44 @WiringTheBrain I don't think that changes it. Determinism isn't the issue, thermodynamics is. So, unless you're proposing that the laws of thermodynamics are actually wrong, the technical point holds... 2021-01-22 22:34:54 @TurrigianoLab @WiringTheBrain Maybe, maybe not? Depends on your goals. Also: https://t.co/dYAqdqzhOD 2021-01-22 18:13:23 @roydanroy @hwitteman Yeah, okay, I agree on the latter... 2021-01-22 16:29:42 @hwitteman Agreed! Maybe, we can all relax a bit and not be so harsh on such minor things? 2021-01-22 16:24:09 I told Bernie that was my seat, but he literally pushed me out of the way to get it. I think he's a big fan of Ila's... https://t.co/etjZA4Yd0t 2021-01-22 14:41:40 RT @patitsel: We're hiring at McGill! Open-rank professor: Compsci for Anti-Racism Job ad: https://t.co/FVCVKdPJYL I'm on the hiring… 2021-01-22 14:38:46 @VisualMemoryLab @marinopagan @MehrpourVahid @roamnoth @Catrina_Hacker @JamesJDiCarlo @Brains_n_Bugs @Yalda_Mhz @AudeOliva @drew_jaegle Congrats! 2021-01-22 14:14:32 RT @moran_rani: Very excited to share our new paper, just out in @PNASNews "Human subjects exploit a cognitive map for credit assignment" w… 2021-01-21 21:50:26 @ID_AA_Carmack I actually suspect it's the opposite... Evaluation of point errors is probably not useful for the brain, determining whether data is in-line with a distribution is likely more helpful. 2021-01-21 21:01:54 RT @IPNMcGill: Are you a Canadian or McGill student applying to the IPN for Fall 2021? Our initial recommended deadline is 9 days away - Ja… 2021-01-21 20:34:38 RT @PeteEtchells: Am I doing this right https://t.co/lknmxiBkS7 2021-01-21 18:48:31 @cian_neuro @LyX_org My org pays for the full account, so I generally like Overleaf. Though I agree with you that the split page can sometimes be irritating on small laptops... 2021-01-21 18:37:30 RT @neuralreckoning: We have 1-2 faculty positions available in our department that may be of interest, primarily in machine learning and c… 2021-01-21 18:32:03 RT @margolis_r: Hey Canadians: Statistics Canada is now recruiting for 32,000 jobs for the 2021 census across the country. This is a great… 2021-01-21 16:53:05 Now we can all just go back to gawking at the stupidity of the things GOP senators tweet... https://t.co/qnxq5ZJWbZ 2021-01-21 16:48:42 @bradpwyble @Raamana_ @neuralreckoning @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco Hey man, it's worked well for me... 2021-01-21 01:38:02 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Forget any question of our evolutionary past... I think we can simply say that prestige seems to be thoroughly embedded in current human behaviour, much more so than sexism or racism, and as noted in other threads, that may serve a purpose. 2021-01-21 01:36:51 @TerencePlizga @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Yes, quite. We already have prestige as currency in other areas (e.g. rating systems) and there are sci-fi ideas where currency and prestige are equivalent, e.g. whuffie from @doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom: https://t.co/0VR0qoqKag 2021-01-21 01:31:06 @bradpwyble @Raamana_ @neuralreckoning @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco It's not always right, and it's often taken too far (arguably is in science), but I also think it's an important heuristic, per @KordingLab's point here: https://t.co/v6V7wISOLZ 2021-01-21 01:29:51 @WorldImagining @bradpwyble @neuralreckoning @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Sure, different cultures can value prestige more or less, to some degree, and I agree that science should try to dampen down its current prestige obsession. But, I don't think we could ever eliminate prestige as a factor. 2021-01-21 01:26:39 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Yes, I think it is. Prestige is arguably an important heuristic, one with arguable evolutionary benefits for social animals (i.e. rapid determination of who to trust/follow). Sexism, not so much... 2021-01-21 00:04:30 @Raamana_ @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco You don't think there are human equivalents to peacock behaviour??? 2021-01-21 00:02:13 @neuralreckoning @bradpwyble @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Prestige doesn't imply prejudice based on race/sex, per se. It can, but the two are separable. In other words, ppl can learn not to be prejudiced against those from a given sex, ethnicity, etc., but that doesn't mean they will then view all ppl with the same prior of respect. 2021-01-20 22:22:12 @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Harsh, but can be true... 2021-01-20 22:19:39 @graemedmoffat @Raamana_ @KordingLab @LLogiaco Ha ha ha.. cause there's a new season of Drag Race going on. 2021-01-20 22:19:12 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco Personally, I think it would be more practical to keep the realistic and important goal of making sure all published work is open distinct from the (IMO) less realistic goal of eliminating prestige hierarchies. 2021-01-20 22:17:05 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco Prestige hierarchies happens in domains dominated by women as well, frankly. And, even in political activism, some people get more "cred" than others. 2021-01-20 21:24:44 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco Here's a funny example: In Drag Queen culture, getting on Ru Paul's Drag Race now means automatic success and huge audience turn out. Why? Are Queen's on Drag Race always better than Queen's not on Drag Race? No, of course not. But this is how the human brain works! 2021-01-20 21:22:42 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco That's not to say we can't do better. We can and should expect full open access, data and code sharing as a default, and a more rational review process. But a flat prestige landscape? Good luck... 2021-01-20 21:21:28 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco Consider: this doesn't just happen in academia. It happens in the arts, politics, medicine, crafting, literally any human activity. 2021-01-20 21:20:35 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco And die you will, I suspect. Why? Because IMO you're not just fighting academic culture, rather, you're fighting human nature. 2021-01-20 21:18:47 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco All of it, but this conversation is specifically about publishing. My bet is that there would be almost no way to discourage certain platforms and/or curators for scientific results from becoming more prestigious than others. The system will always drift to such a hierarchy. 2021-01-20 21:10:02 @Raamana_ @graemedmoffat @KordingLab @LLogiaco I'll be honest: I don't think you will ever escape a prestige hierarchy in academia. I think it is too natural a space for humans to operate in mentally. I suspect the best we can do is make sure that society as a whole has access to the research that tax dollars funded. 2021-01-20 21:06:12 Great looking @ai_unique symposium on explanation in neuroscience and AI organized by @tsonj, @mptouzel and Zeke Williams: https://t.co/UUgN3HYVDV 2021-01-20 20:31:11 RT @HBHLMcGill: Attention @mcgillu graduate students & 2021-01-20 20:27:31 Human complex exploration strategies are enriched by noradrenaline-modulated heuristics https://t.co/zUilla1YgE 2021-01-20 17:09:49 RT @neverendingrl: 1/N We are excited to introduce our @iclr_conf workshop: A Roadmap to Never-Ending RL. We invite you to submit papers (u… 2021-01-19 21:50:51 @xaqlab A shitshow, I believe... 2021-01-19 20:00:28 @roydanroy Its writing/drawing interface is so intuitive!!! 2021-01-19 19:58:38 @criticalneuro @g_lajoie_ Yes, so happy we will be working together finally! 2021-01-19 19:23:54 RT @paulgribble: Still surprised by this a year out, but the data are beautiful: Spinal stretch reflexes support efficient hand control | N… 2021-01-19 18:51:44 A lot of people seem to be misinterpreting this tweet, as if Jagmeet is being inconsistent here.... The point is not that Trudeau should have fought harder for KXL, it's that he should have been clear it was a dead end and implemented better supports for Alberta's workers. https://t.co/eoeCNLYB7g 2021-01-19 18:16:47 RT @ConanOBrien: Easy compromise: Lower the maximum wage to $15/hour. 2021-01-19 18:13:29 RT @CIFAR_News: Canada welcomes 29 newly-appointed Canada CIFAR AI Chairs at @AmiiThinks @Mila_Quebec @VectorInst - congratulations to all… 2021-01-19 18:13:19 @g_lajoie_ Congrats man!!!! 2021-01-19 18:11:30 @KordingLab @Raamana_ @LLogiaco I think one of the biggest aspects is just to even think of academia as a potential career path. 2021-01-19 18:08:20 @NeuralEnsemble @g_lajoie_ @gauthier_gidel Congrats to you all!!!! 2021-01-19 16:43:34 RT @LecoqJerome: The second paper from OpenScope at the @AllenInstitute is out! Congrats to all involved, especially the amazing team behi… 2021-01-19 16:42:49 Our work with the @AllenInstitute #OpenScope project is now out! TL Also, the data is open, so have at it everyone!!! https://t.co/Nnbn7PsVr8 2021-01-19 16:39:39 @tdverstynen He and his crew were also criminals who lied to congress about Iran-Contra. He should be remembered like Nixon... 2021-01-19 13:30:16 @graemedmoffat @PaulMinda1 @andpru I know a few computer scientists who might take issue with that rule... 2021-01-19 13:28:19 RT @TheAnnaGat: Militant atheism is the punk rock phase for smart people 2021-01-18 22:45:42 @memming @SussilloDavid @TrackingActions @AToliasLab @MatthiasBethge @TonyZador Indeed, that's what we do at @MAIN_Community ! At NAISys, though, we wanted to keep it more unidirectional because we felt that there is currently more work in the other direction, and wanted to try to help correct that. 2021-01-18 22:44:31 @SussilloDavid @neuroecology Yeah, so my take: If it is explicitly an app for neuro, then it belongs at Cosyne, period! 2021-01-18 21:29:38 RT @neuroamyo: So I recently finished reviewing a lot of graduate fellowships. Holy moly do we have an amazing talent pool in STEM. A few… 2021-01-17 15:20:44 RT @lethal_heroine: Montreal snow people are on a whole other level. https://t.co/6JbsZaFIWh 2021-01-17 15:18:16 @kendmil @ThomasMiconi @blsabatini @jmourabarbosa @jwphillips91 Yes, I wasn't correcting you @kendmil. 2021-01-17 15:17:04 RT @Geointheworld: "You have to respect other people's opinions" Their opinions: https://t.co/JbJrGOY1TK 2021-01-17 14:52:36 RT @IrisVanRooij: Do our brains change when we play a lot of video games? Of course, how else could we get better at playing them? 2021-01-17 00:25:04 @ThomasMiconi @kendmil @blsabatini @jmourabarbosa @jwphillips91 Yes, there are. But, my memory is that hasn't been observed in pyramidal neurons, and instead has mostly been observed in sub-cortical cells or early in development, or both, like Deda Gillespie showed here: https://t.co/z3I3ZcYAbe 2021-01-17 00:21:25 RT @ddale8: It was hard, but I’ve picked the 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump’s staggeringly dishonest presidency: https://t.co/vzYC1Ca… 2021-01-16 21:37:07 @blsabatini We all have our triggers... 2021-01-16 21:36:31 @nmblauch This is a next step. :) 2021-01-16 21:35:22 @blsabatini Thanks @blsabatini! And yes, I agree, I think that the separation of inhibition into a separate channel may have more to do with gating and avoiding catastrophic forgetting. 2021-01-16 21:33:11 RT @MaartenvSmeden: How to become a SUCCESSFUL academic: a guide 1/n 2021-01-16 02:25:07 @DavidSabatini2 2021-01-16 02:04:37 RT @theblvckhorned: My fav genre is photos of Toronto that look cyberpunk. https://t.co/wi1dYaphpH 2021-01-16 01:57:28 @blsabatini True, but the point still holds... Most neurons in the (adult) forebrain can't switch the sign of their impact on postsynaptic neurons. 2021-01-16 01:55:32 @andpru @jwphillips91 @blsabatini No, I think it's more that the splitters are focused on many interesting aspects of biology that are likely not key to the algorithmic level operations AI ppl are interested in. 2021-01-16 01:51:18 @blsabatini @jwphillips91 That's not to say that the data you're bringing up isn't important/fascinating, @blsabatini, but since glut vs GABA is a major cellular division in the forebrain, I think we need to be able to capture this in our models. 2021-01-16 01:43:07 @andpru @jwphillips91 @blsabatini More useful insights for ML engineers. 2021-01-16 01:42:08 @blsabatini @jwphillips91 But, what I'm articulating to you is that I *do* know this biology. Yet, I still maintain that being able to train ANNs that don't switch signs in their weights is important for neuroscience modelling. 2021-01-16 01:40:53 @tylerraye Ah, you mean that type of prediction. Well, that is indeed in our plans as the next step! 2021-01-16 01:38:45 @DavidSabatini2 This will allow us to make more valid comparisons wrt representational similarity, etc. Moreover, it is but one first step in turning up the dial on biological plausibility without sacrificing our ability to train the networks well. 2021-01-16 01:37:39 @DavidSabatini2 With all due respect, I think you're missing the point of our paper. One of the primary divisions between cell types in the forebrain is between E and I cells. If we want to use ANNs to model the brain, then ideally we should have a similar division. 2021-01-15 22:36:07 @tylerraye I don't think the sort of data analysis you mention are different in an important way from these ML benchmarks... both represent complex, non-linear regression problems. To your second Q: I wonder, personally, if separate E and I populations help with catastrophic forgetting? 2021-01-15 21:39:54 RT @ChantalHbert: My latest -Donald Trump’s departure could be good for Erin O’Toole. If he can face up to these unpleasant truths | The St… 2021-01-15 20:06:12 @pfau I would have hoped that Germany and Japan's results would discourage that at this point in time. 2021-01-15 20:05:50 @pfau Really??? WTF... 2021-01-15 20:05:31 RT @neuro_data: We (=me+@criticalneuro+@blamlab) are super stoked at #LearningSalon to be hosting @janexwang next Friday at 4PM ET on http… 2021-01-15 20:03:26 RT @tsonj: Join me at this virtual symposium on scientific explanation in neuro-AI on February 10. I'll start the day by providing some bac… 2021-01-15 19:49:32 @ampanmdagaba Yeah, my intuition is that this wouldn't buy us anything, but as always, I may be wrong! 2021-01-15 19:48:56 Nuclear needs to be part of the mix for the time being. Phasing out nuclear energy right now (as Germany and Japan have done) is foolish... https://t.co/JuGzye7u1H 2021-01-15 19:35:17 @ampanmdagaba To be clear, this is not about initializition: when I say that it scales based on the number of excitatory neurons projected to, that is the same for all of the interneurons and independent of the weight inits. 2021-01-15 19:34:28 @ampanmdagaba No, I don't really buy this... we still gain performance improvements by updating the inhibition. It's just that we stabilize everything with these corrections. 2021-01-15 15:08:44 RT @MHendr1cks: https://t.co/LrMAvzgQzt 2021-01-15 15:07:24 @jsusskin Interesting, I hadn't thought about this at all... Maybe? 2021-01-15 15:05:38 @blsabatini Even if you show that in certain circumstances Dale's law doesn't hold, the fact is, as far as we know, it is not possible for example for most pyramidal neurons to switch from depolarizing their postsynaptic partners to hyperpolarizing them. 2021-01-15 15:04:33 @blsabatini Because I I don't think it's fair to say "Dale's law is wrong". I know about the work you mention. And so, I think it would be correct to say, "Dale's law is not in fact a law". But that doesn't mean it's not still largely true in many circuits. 2021-01-15 14:01:26 @siva3008 ??? Dale's law still holds true for most neurons in the mammalian brain, particularly in cortical regions. 2021-01-15 00:31:15 @sameckm Stay tuned! It looks like a simple thing to do, as noted in the thread, cause you can just treat the unrolled ANN as having feedforward inhibition. We should have results soon showing this empirically. 2021-01-15 00:28:45 @benrossiter Quite... and it is gone. 2021-01-14 23:07:10 @MHendr1cks Interesting! 2021-01-14 23:06:07 @Dr_Palamarchuk @misicbata Thanks! But, I'm sorry, I don't follow... I don't think Dale's law is required to implement the sort of inhibition associated with executive functioning. 2021-01-14 21:59:49 @jakhmack @KordingLab Ah, I get your point now. Well, surely the scale of the digitization versus the scale of the XOR variables is what will determine whether your linear network can solve the problem, no? 2021-01-14 21:49:11 @KordingLab Uh, what? I don't follow you Konrad... Why do digitization artifacts in one network imply linear ANNs should be able to solve XOR? 2021-01-14 21:18:18 RT @markpaulbrandon: I'm very excited to share a new preprint from the lab by the super talented @atkeinath and @CA_Mosser. We ask - do all… 2021-01-14 21:12:55 @jsnsndr @iclr_conf I want to know more about these people naming their kid Kale... 2021-01-14 21:03:37 @jsnsndr @iclr_conf Some old white guy? https://t.co/DgFsi793mD 2021-01-14 20:59:01 @MHendr1cks Yes, I know, but as I said, the practical implication (given a specific toolbox of postsynaptic receptors) is that the sender is E or I. 2021-01-14 20:58:03 @MHendr1cks But, could it not be a phylogenetic path that vertebrate ancestors went down and which was then difficult to move away from? 2021-01-14 20:43:24 @neuralreckoning Exactly, thanks Dan! 2021-01-14 20:42:20 @blake_camp_1 Indeed! 2021-01-14 20:33:07 16/ Also, thanks to the @iclr_conf organizers and our AC and reviewers! Our reviews were very constructive, we really appreciated it. #ICLR2021 2021-01-14 20:28:14 15/ Thanks also to @CIFAR_News, @HBHLMcGill, @IVADO_Qc, @NSERC_CRSNG, @TheNeuro_MNI, and @Mila_Quebec for making this work possible. 2021-01-14 20:28:13 14/ Recognition where due: this work was lead by Jonathan Cornford (left), with important support from Damjan Kalajdzievski (right) and several others. Thanks everyone for your awesome work on this! https://t.co/KVwvx7SiBg 2021-01-14 20:28:11 13/ Another Q: why does the brain use Dale's law? We were only able to *match* standard ANNs. No one has shown *better* results with Dale's law. So, is Dale's law just an evolutionary constraint, a local minima in the phylogenetic landscape? Or does it help in some other way? https://t.co/2UlkQitbbg 2021-01-14 20:28:08 11/ There are many next steps! But, an immediate one will be developing PyTorch and TensorFlow modules with these corrections built-in to make it easy for other researchers to build and train DANNs. https://t.co/D0eW5dUvz0 2021-01-14 20:28:06 10/ This can work in RNNs (as noted above) and also in convnets, as shown here: https://t.co/ir5PhfIaFm 2021-01-13 17:13:08 RT @CAN_ACN: Étudiants et stagiaires au Canada: si vous avez publié un article exceptionnel en neurosciences, en santé mentale ou en toxico… 2021-01-13 14:50:15 RT @jacobmbuckman: Now a certified ICLR-quality contribution! No better time to learn about why pessimism is crucial to good decision-makin… 2021-01-13 13:36:37 @ed_ruthazer Ooohh... yeah, watch yourself Ed. That stuff isn't good for you... 2021-01-13 13:35:50 @julie_grollier I'm really just being silly/joking... But I suppose that I find it odd how we post pictures of the narcotic we're about to consume, and I find it funny to think of taking it to an extreme. 2021-01-12 23:12:24 @mattiavellian @NeuralEnsemble *bug in the system 2021-01-12 22:58:10 RT @neuronJoy: Our Patch-seq review is now out at @SfNtweets! I'm so proud of this paper and it was so much fun to write with Marcela Lipov… 2021-01-12 22:57:12 @mattiavellian @NeuralEnsemble Ha ha ha... I pointed this out to the university admin, and they were like "yeah, sorry, that's a big in the system, we can't fix it"... To clarify, it is not a $50K hourly job. Sorry... 2021-01-12 22:13:16 RT @TrackingActions: I came up through a similar program (shout out to #RowlandFellows @Harvard ), and it’s a very rewarding path - @epfl… 2021-01-12 21:57:48 @ecolibutneuro @apeyrache @neuralreckoning @RichCompNeuro If so, they are shockingly incompetent... 2021-01-12 21:56:35 A reminder: @NeuralEnsemble, Doina Precup and I are looking for a new postdoc to help us build human-brain inspired RL architectures. If you're looking for a postdoc in neuro-AI, this will be an awesome project. Apply to work with us! https://t.co/7atwwnasCC 2021-01-12 21:52:41 "It's been a hard week, Zoom lecture was bombed, had to review 43 papers. Looking forward to mainlining this china white tonight...." 2021-01-12 21:49:55 I'm getting bored of tweets where academics show the stiff drink they're gonna have to reward themselves for something. To shake things up, I'm considering taking up heroin just so I can post pictures of the syringe I'm about to inject myself with to celebrate new papers, etc. 2021-01-12 21:44:25 @ecolibutneuro @apeyrache @neuralreckoning @RichCompNeuro But, @apeyrache's and your answers doesn't actually answer my Q. I get why predatory journals exist. That's not the question. The question is: why do they not even try to pretend to be legit? Why use subject lines, etc., that make it clear that they're not a real journal? 2021-01-12 20:08:14 Doug Ford seems to be working hard to make Francois Legault appear super clear in his COVID policy by contrast. https://t.co/FwMAaTcNdz 2021-01-12 20:05:37 RT @NeuralEnsemble: #epfl Neuro Symposium // Surprise, Curiosity and Reward: from Neuroscience to AI Feb 8-9, 2021 Virtual, Registration re… 2021-01-12 20:05:23 @_rdgao Why did you lie to your own mom? 2021-01-12 20:03:00 @ryanqnorth According to my memory, you were gargantuan the first time I met you well over a decade ago... 2021-01-12 20:00:45 @graemedmoffat Ha ha ha... so, you're saying the glam mags are secretly funding these guys? 2021-01-12 19:03:52 @josephdviviano Or maybe I should just submit a paper written entirely in regular expressions... 2021-01-12 19:00:07 @neuralreckoning @RichCompNeuro I know, but I'm still amazed that more than 0% of scientists would fall for things like this. 2021-01-12 18:56:37 @RichCompNeuro Yeah, I've heard this too, and it makes sense for things like penis enlargement or get rich quick scams. But, scientific publishing? Perhaps I hold scientists in too high regard, but I would have assumed that 0% of scientists would fall for something like this. 2021-01-12 18:54:10 RT @kick1972: J’ai chroniqué ce matin sur le fait que les activités extérieures comme la marche avec un ami ne sont pas dangereuses pour la… 2021-01-12 18:51:57 Put another way: What I don't understand is why they don't try harder to seem legit. What's their goal if it does not involve even pretending to be a legit journal? 2021-01-12 18:51:56 I do not understand the tactics of predatory journals. I just got an email with subject: An Invit*ation to Sub*mit Your Res*earch Findings to Scien*ce Jour*nal I imagine they're trying to avoid spam filters, but, would anyone to submit to a journal that sends emails like this?! 2021-01-11 21:11:12 RT @random_walker: Professors at top universities are lottery winners, but rarely acknowledge the role of luck in their success. Be skeptic… 2021-01-11 17:05:57 RT @anilkseth: The always brilliant @BabaBrinkman rapping up a morning session of our recent @CIFAR_News Brain Mind Consciousness meeting o… 2021-01-11 17:05:17 @vineettiruvadi Oh, did you predict this, then? More seriously, I get your point that the right-wing forums had ppl talking about this, but ppl say all sorts of things online, and it's hard to know what will happen IRL. It takes skill to assess and make a correct prediction like this. 2021-01-11 17:01:49 @RobinMazumder No, just keep lifting heavy things and get addicted to the pain!!!!!! 2021-01-11 16:32:21 @pfau Yeah, I'm not actually saying he has a time travel device... But, I still think it's a remarkable bit of clear-eyed analysis. I didn't see anyone else get this close to what happened. 2021-01-11 16:23:22 This is one of those prescient threads where I'm like, dude, can you please share your time travel tech? https://t.co/ZjS0kdN0AX 2021-01-11 15:35:59 RT @apeyrache: If you're attending SfN, Pierre has some really cool stuff to present (from his Master's thesis!), don't miss it. Also two… 2021-01-11 14:30:08 RT @justinjm1: Journalist @marcusdipaola, who took the video, says this is false — cops did not open the barrier. Interview in thread: http… 2021-01-11 13:55:10 RT @jasonoyoung: Gorgeous sunset last night in Rural Ontario https://t.co/qaeKWRtF12 2021-01-10 20:55:48 @graemedmoffat Or until the warm weather let's people stop doing most things indoors... 2021-01-09 23:24:28 @andpru @CIHR_IRSC Totally... 2021-01-09 23:20:59 RT @EdtheSock: Well-written and very timely column by @AGMacDougall that every Canadian should read. Well, the literate ones. https://t.co/… 2021-01-09 23:14:20 @andpru Wow, just read the site description. This is ridiculous! As if the major roadblock to ECRs in Canada is interdisciplinary training opportunities... Like, seriously, is this @CIHR_IRSC doing a satire? 2021-01-09 01:40:29 RT @mallarchkrvrty1: We have a scientist position available @DouglasResearch in neuroimaging. You'd be based at the Cerebral Imaging Cen… 2021-01-09 01:36:30 @MHendr1cks @erinotoole They've taken it down now. Let's all be sure to keep calling them out whenever they employ shenanigans like this. 2021-01-09 01:33:11 RT @TheTweetOfGod: I've never been prouder to be on Twitter. Unverified. Motherfuckers. 2021-01-08 23:39:17 @RobinMazumder Love the hat! 2021-01-08 18:11:14 My wife and I have been watching The Crown on Netflix and it has led me to a very important question that I think Twitter could help me with: ... Should I legally change my name to Major Fruity Metcalfe for a laugh? 2021-01-08 18:08:16 @iandanforth I agree, I think that is exactly what happened. 2021-01-08 16:37:43 RT @quaidmorris: "During a global pandemic, just after a bull-horned, half-naked shaman led an armed takeover of the US capitol, I dodged a… 2021-01-08 13:54:51 @J_D_Crawford @paulgribble @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar "...twist my words for your T. fans" Okay, thanks for dropping by to lecture me, and then finish up with a condescending insult! It's helping me to remember why I had actually resolved to stop engaging with people on Twitter this year... 2021-01-08 01:31:42 RT @FelixHill84: I wrote a blog post about #DALL-E from OpenAI The way they approach *composition* is a strength of models like DALL-E not… 2021-01-08 00:35:35 @J_D_Crawford @paulgribble @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar So yes, *I* can get through it, but I don't think it's fair to say that to kids. 2021-01-08 00:33:50 @J_D_Crawford @paulgribble @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar You seem to think this is about me, but it isn't. Am I happier with them at school? Sure. But, I'm honestly more worried about my kids (5 & 2021-01-08 00:03:12 @J_D_Crawford @paulgribble @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar I hear you, but for really young kids (< Plus, at the rate they're doing vaccinations right now, this isn't going to end for a while... 2021-01-07 23:34:05 @paulgribble @J_D_Crawford @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar That's really I think the ultimate point: no one really knows the right answer, unfortunately... we're all flying by the seat of our pants here. 2021-01-07 23:30:07 @paulgribble @J_D_Crawford @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Yes, which is why it's not an easy decision, by any means. We have to balance the consideration of various harms. Perhaps you disagree with me about where the appropriate balance lies, and that's fine. But, I think keeping primary schools open is the right balance. 2021-01-07 23:28:22 @J_D_Crawford @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Well, I'm glad your kids are, but many aren't. There's clear evidence the school shutdowns have impacted learning, particularly amongst poor children. See, e.g., here: https://t.co/nRKFZ3vxa0 Those long-term costs matter just as much! 2021-01-07 23:21:31 @andpru @J_D_Crawford @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar I agree, 2 weeks probably won't be a huge issue. But, my concern is that once you start keep them home, there will be pressure to keep extending it... 2021-01-07 23:02:42 @J_D_Crawford @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar And 100%, my concern is about their quality of education. Online school is nearly useless for young kids, in my experience. 2021-01-07 22:58:29 @J_D_Crawford @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar See Fig 5 here for example: https://t.co/ykA1bW0CSr Note that this shows that as of Dec 18, 2020, the number of people under the age of 19 who had died from COVID in Canada is *3*. So yeah, I'm not too worried about my kids. 2021-01-07 22:56:05 @J_D_Crawford @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Well, yes, of course I'm willing to let my kids get COVID, cause for them, it's not very dangerous. 2021-01-07 22:50:47 @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar To be clear: I'm all for other aspects of the lockdown, including the new curfew. We should indeed make many sacrifices to stop transmission. But, I don't think damaging an entire generation's development is okay, even in such extreme circumstances. 2021-01-07 22:48:02 @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Sure, but I still think QC made the right decision. When we keep children home from school to prevent transmission, we are sacrificing the development of youth to protect older generations. Personally, I don't want kids sacrificing their development to keep us oldies safe. 2021-01-07 22:40:45 @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Then I don't get the point... 2021-01-07 22:27:41 @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Is it bad for me to say that I am 100% willing to increase my risk of catching COVID if it means my kids are back in school? 2021-01-07 19:50:33 @andpru @mnrajah @DrJKhokhar Second this. Also, I'm super grateful to be living in QC right now... 2021-01-07 17:11:56 RT @Noahpinion: 1/Alright, gather round, friends, and let me tell you the story of 1930s Japan, and how it's a cautionary tale for 2020s Am… 2021-01-07 14:37:11 @EveForster I think your Dad's right. The events of yesterday were on balance positive. Moreover, that shit show in Washington may even finally force the schism in the GOP that should have happened back in 2016. 2021-01-07 14:14:24 RT @BigBrainProject: #postdocjobs: Join the #HIBALL team and the #BigBrainProject. We are looking to recruit a PostDoc @TheNeuro_M… 2021-01-07 01:48:00 RT @Mrhflrs: this is a really strange way to find out that cops know how to not use deadly force 2021-01-07 01:47:26 RT @rvcraiu: Low scientific productivity from politically unstable countries/regions makes a lot more sense now, eh? 2021-01-07 01:42:39 RT @daniela_witten: If you are right now praising elected leaders for denouncing an attempted coup, then wow, you must be a really cheap da… 2021-01-07 01:40:57 RT @francoislegault: Les prochaines semaines vont être critiques. On doit réduire la contagion maintenant. J’ai besoin de tous les Québéco… 2021-01-06 22:42:23 @graemedmoffat Indeed, this will be the true test of the market's ability to allocate resources effectively. 2021-01-06 22:36:43 @GLim2016 @francoislegault You mean keep the schools shut? Cause that could severely damage the psycho-social development of millions of children. I don't want to see that happen, personally... Overall, I think @francoislegault struck the right balance today. 2021-01-06 22:34:20 @GLim2016 @francoislegault Yeah, I agree that more work on air quality in the classrooms would be something they can and should have been working much harder on. 2021-01-06 22:31:54 @graemedmoffat https://t.co/TaNoM5EZ35 2021-01-06 22:28:29 @GLim2016 @francoislegault I'm sorry, but I disagree, Gareth. Our children are pretty safe, actually... The virus is not dangerous for them. The question is: would masks stop them spreading the virus? And here, frankly, I think it's unclear. Can 5-8 y/o's really use masks effectively over an entire day? 2021-01-06 22:24:38 Plusieurs mesures sévères pour freiner la vague, mais les écoles primaires restent ouvertes. C'était la bonne décision, merci @francoislegault. CC @apeyrache https://t.co/JyQ9hcp83L 2021-01-06 21:43:34 @LucaAmb Indeed, it is a form of collective madness. I can see not liking the word "fascist", perhaps... But I do think that there is a similar idea lurking in Trumpism, namely, the belief that there is an elite conspiracy that only this one demagogue can bring to an end. 2021-01-06 21:38:43 @LucaAmb It's so sad to see this happen in the US in this day and age. Hopefully, what's happening today will be the peak of the madness, but we cannot be sure at this point... 2021-01-06 21:36:31 @LucaAmb Yeah, it's nuts, isn't it?!?!? This is indeed what I was getting at: Trump isn't just a right-wing populist à la Boris Johnson or Silvio Berlusconi. He is a proto-fascist, who constantly devalues both the republic and democracy, and his supporters respond in turn. 2021-01-06 02:10:47 @apeyrache @sylvain_baillet @McGillMed @HankinsCanfemme But seriously, closing the primary schools is not a good idea... there is data showing that the first wave of school closures had disproportionate impacts on poor pupils' development, which will increase inequality. Closing the primary schools is not a good choice, IMO. 2021-01-06 02:07:40 @apeyrache @sylvain_baillet @McGillMed @HankinsCanfemme https://t.co/1NMpFgXRir 2021-01-06 02:00:24 RT @jaaanaru: In this new paper we explain how the thalamocortical system generates consciousness. We provide a history of thalamocortica… 2021-01-05 22:16:10 @sylvain_baillet @graemedmoffat Oh, yeah, this isn't unique to Canada at all... still, I would have expected better. 2021-01-05 20:38:54 @ilyasut You'll like this, @RattiganGlumph ! 2021-01-05 20:22:36 @graemedmoffat Like, seriously... of all times to say: "guys, sorry, but no weekends allowed on this particular job". 2021-01-05 19:40:55 @withyounotsmwhr Oui... Je suis en train de regarder l'émission «M'entends tu?» sur Netflix, et sans sous-titres, je ne comprends rien que les caractères primaires disent... 2021-01-05 19:36:51 @withyounotsmwhr Ah, oui? Partagez SVP! :) 2021-01-05 01:38:26 @withyounotsmwhr Merci, mais pour être honnête, j'utilise les sous-titres français pour ne rien rater... Mes oreilles, et ma bouche, ont encore besoin de beaucoup de pratique... 2021-01-05 01:31:00 @neuralreckoning Very interesting, I'll take a look! Thanks for the heads up. 2021-01-05 01:30:24 RT @neuralreckoning: Have you ever wondered why neurons are like snowflakes? No two alike, even if they're the same type. In our latest pre… 2021-01-04 22:39:17 C'était mon premier Bye-Bye. Je chante encore dans ma tête «grâce à la PCU, grâce à la PCU»... https://t.co/GaybLGc4Ub 2021-01-04 22:19:57 @cian_neuro @dileeplearning Geez, I'm sorry to hear that guys. We're waiting to find out whether schools are reopening here on the 11th. I sure hope they do... Good luck! It ain't easy... 2021-01-04 18:42:46 RT @mattlark: Our recent paper also makes another claim: that burst firing is more salient and that establishing new memories involves mani… 2021-01-04 18:42:28 RT @mattlark: @NeuroNaud, @tyrell_turing and colleagues describe a framework in which integrating bursting as a "special" neural signal cou… 2020-12-30 15:04:27 @neurovium @andpru I never take a tweet from someone to mean that they are an expert who critically evaluated the paper. No one should do this. And note: I'm never 100% unaware of the content. I always read some of it. It's just that I haven't necessarily read the paper through-and-through. 2020-12-30 15:01:39 @SiaAhmadi1 @neurovium @biorxiv_neursci No, it's the opposite: Retweeting is a way of filtering the noise. If I follow bioRxiv, I just see all neuroscience papers. But when my colleagues retweet stuff, I get the filter of what my friends and peers in my specific sub-discipline thought were relevant. 2020-12-30 14:57:54 @andpru @neurovium @strangetruther Exactly. I tend to tweet papers when I have looked over the abstract and a few figures and it struck me as possibly interesting to those who follow me on Twitter. No one should take my tweets as a statement that I have vetted the science therein. 2020-12-29 23:58:37 @nicholdav @KordingLab @o_guest @cireumayn111 @skornblith @neuro_data @neurograce @pgmid Yes. 2020-12-29 23:57:26 @neurovium If you think that's the reality, then we should just cancel Twitter, cause the entire MO of this site is "this might be cool". This ain't a place for peer review, IMO... 2020-12-29 17:24:33 @canna_brain That's about right... I still loved it as a kid... 2020-12-29 17:23:42 @graemedmoffat @SBarlow_ROB Yup... instead, our current gov has plans to further subsidize the purchase of homes in the most expensive markets in the country... 2020-12-29 17:22:35 @cireumayn111 @skornblith @nicholdav @KordingLab @o_guest @neuro_data @neurograce @pgmid Well, what a super weird bot... Why did someone make it? What's the goal of random, automated, irrelevant Linux advice? 2020-12-29 17:21:07 @neurovium Meh... I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think there's anything wrong with tweeting papers you haven't read. A tweet doesn't mean "this is solid science, I vouche for it" it means, "hey everyone, this might be cool!". Otherwise, I agree with your points. 2020-12-29 17:18:10 @graemedmoffat @SBarlow_ROB I would bet this is almost entirely due to real estate... 2020-12-27 19:13:54 @AadilBharwani @andpru @BenSaunders I'm just joshing you... I've never personally been a big Tom Hanks fan, but I know these movies are well celebrated. 2020-12-27 19:13:01 RT @StanDehaene: A new preprint demonstrates the central role of explicit instruction in learning to read. Adults acquire a new orthography… 2020-12-27 16:45:24 @AadilBharwani @andpru @BenSaunders But they said *great* movies, not mediocre movies that just happened to nail the zeitgeist... 2020-12-27 16:43:19 @andpru https://t.co/BO3AtugOo0 2020-12-24 21:15:23 RT @TPBoysScreen: https://t.co/DrY2PUuWNt 2020-12-24 21:13:18 @shrewshrew I got the same one!!!!! My favourite was the orange et cannelle... 2020-12-24 21:01:33 RT @ShahabBakht: “It’s a mistake to look at the mechanistic substrate of the mind in the brain to help speed up AI.” I agree and disagree… 2020-12-24 20:59:47 @vineettiruvadi Ha ha ha... They're Japanese, give 'em a break on the awkward wording. 2020-12-24 20:55:18 @neuroecology If you could get people to stop emailing you important stuff, then this is a great idea! But, good luck on that. So, I would say this would be foolhardy, TBH... 2020-12-24 20:53:56 Expert programmers have fine-tuned cortical representations of source code. I'm sure these were hard-wired by evolution though... kidding. https://t.co/7Uw2Zq6tBD 2020-12-24 16:59:41 We had snow for a few days, and it was wonderful. Winter + snow is awesome. I fear no winter lockdown with snow involved. The kids had a blast. Today, it is 7 deg and raining, tomorrow they're calling for 11 and rain. 2020 couldn't leave without one last middle finger raised... 2020-12-24 00:57:23 RT @neuroecology: !!! https://t.co/SiKuaajJKM https://t.co/oizYH3APWP 2020-12-23 15:08:40 @dlevenstein Interesting, so, totally gone? Glad to hear it's mild for you! 2020-12-22 17:26:30 @LucaAmb @GaneshNatesh @KordingLab In other words, you can't say for sure when/if consciousness is present at a wave collapse, only whether *human* consciousness is. But, is that really the question you're seeking to answer? 2020-12-22 17:25:29 @LucaAmb @GaneshNatesh @KordingLab I don't disagree, and I think we can study consciousness scientifically in those creatures that we are sure are conscious, i.e. us. But, in the absence of an operational def, how can you say whether consciousness is required for wave collapse? How can you do the proper controls? 2020-12-22 16:35:13 @LucaAmb @GaneshNatesh @KordingLab Except that there is no scientifically accepted operational definition of "consciousness", so the very statement itself is a practical no-go, regardless of whether your philosophical position is materialism or idealism. 2020-12-21 16:25:47 @SussilloDavid Also, I think @ryanqnorth might have a conflict of interest here, and is not actually allowed to absolve me... 2020-12-21 16:25:10 @KordingLab @LucaAmb Yes, quite. I would argue that the problem only arises when you take "understand" to mean, "have no mysteries remaining about the nature of existence". 2020-12-21 16:21:30 @LucaAmb @KordingLab Hmmm... I'm not sure it would, really. Say you accepted idealism, but the sort of idealism where you recognize that there are a set of laws that apply to all experiences. How does your science change, in practice, really? 2020-12-21 16:19:35 @PsychScientists @Orthogonal_Lab Don't worry, I'm the one who says the brain is a computer. I promise not to cite you. 2020-12-21 16:17:25 RT @Neurosenblum: Thanks Flavio for beautiful introduction https://t.co/JYYrTVVeqT of Guy Doron's seminal recent publication revealing the… 2020-12-21 16:14:16 @SussilloDavid HA HA HA... Is this about the Marr thing? 2020-12-19 16:34:41 @nathanbenaich Don't worry, I'm sure God will protect all those who attend and prevent them spreading anything. That strategy has always worked well in the past. 2020-12-19 16:32:57 @o_guest I consider myself a Mandy Market Socialist. 2020-12-19 16:30:08 @NeuralEnsemble @irinarish @KordingLab I legit hate grades. I would love teaching so much more if I didn't have to give grades. There is little pedagogical value to them, IMO. Only a gate keeping value (e.g. making sure doctors are actually know stuff before they practice, etc.) 2020-12-19 16:28:24 @LucaAmb @KordingLab The only ways in which they are different are essentially the games we want to play with language about reality when we allow ourselves conversations with no practical import. Which is fun, of course. :) But, I don't think has any bearing on our course as scientists. 2020-12-19 16:26:54 @LucaAmb @KordingLab Now, you recognized this above, e.g. when you said: The fact that the world can be described by simple laws is independent from fact that the world is "material". So, then we are presented with an idealism which is, from a practical perspective, no different from materialism. 2020-12-19 16:23:30 @LucaAmb @KordingLab The answer to these questions, unlike the first, have no real bearing on any practical matters for us because it does not change the fundamental practice of science. 2020-12-19 16:22:33 @LucaAmb @KordingLab So, is it the case that (1) experiences follow laws because of all that exists is a single material reality? Or (2) that the underlying substrate is something more directly coupled to the mental, even if it obeys consistent laws across people? 2020-12-19 16:20:07 @LucaAmb @KordingLab I think that the sort of idealism which you are considering here is practically indistinguishable from materialism. Consider: Do phenomenological experiences follow laws which are replicable across individuals? Clearly the answer is "yes", otherwise science wouldn't work. 2020-12-18 22:29:52 RT @MandanaSamiei: Happy holidays everyone!!Thank you @wagonspeedracer for this lovely photo!! Wish we all get together someday soon… 2020-12-18 21:19:17 RT @GurdeepPandher: Dancing in my winter-wonderland and sending optimism across Canada and beyond. https://t.co/GTR52lNRPz 2020-12-18 21:15:33 RT @FelixHill84: How can (these sorts of) symbolic systems be better at abstraction. The abstraction is literally hard coded by their huma… 2020-12-18 20:27:06 RT @heysciencesam: Absolutely no safety steps were cut to get COVID-19 vaccines made and approved. Trials moved faster by stream-lining bu… 2020-12-18 20:23:14 @tdverstynen @wagonspeedracer I know, right? I only wish my ski suit was as fluorescent as some of the others... 2020-12-18 20:17:04 @tdverstynen It boggles my mind that the GOP can ever claim anything about deficit worries when they have literally overseen every major increase in the deficit not driven by a major economic crisis in recent history. 2020-12-18 20:14:34 You can see this and past year's entries on our website now too: https://t.co/EGc12yU6Cn 2020-12-18 20:14:33 Every year, our lab does an Xmas awkward family photo. Sadly, we could not gather at the Sears Portrait Studio for that this year. (%^$#* COVID...) So, @wagonspeedracer used her Photoshop skills for the common good and produced this 80's ski movie holiday lab image! https://t.co/EcW0m9m2Jy 2020-12-18 19:23:51 @andpru @jmcin9 Oh man, yes. There are some within institution programs that I will leave nameless for now that for some reason want non-standard CV formats, and it's like, why, why, why do this to ourselves?!?!?!? 2020-12-18 19:19:52 @neuro_data I would love to, but it's the @Mila_Quebec holiday party! 2020-12-17 20:31:27 RT @jaaanaru: What would be an annus mirabilis in today’s neuroscience? I think @mattlark has quietly had a truly remarkable year: through… 2020-12-17 20:15:12 @ShahabBakht @NeuralEnsemble @skepticalDre I suspect the bigger variance isn't country to country but city to city, since the salaries will often be similar across a country, but the living costs in cities will not. Only in the most extreme cities (e.g. London, New York) do they tend to give city specific top ups. 2020-12-17 20:09:47 @blake_camp_1 @SebastianSeung FYI, Sebastian's data that I saw was based on spine size estimates of strength, courtesy of EM reconstructions. 2020-12-17 20:08:33 @TonyZador Ha ha ha... I legit do enjoy coding. I know cause I still do it for class assignments! WRT the rig: I remember *loving* it when things were working that 10% of the time (particularly patch clamping) and wanting to smash everything otherwise... 2020-12-17 20:06:52 RT @TPVogels: Whaaaa....We got the cover (for the comment w/ @BozelosP ) (and we didn’t even submit a proposal)!!! I‘m unreasonably happy a… 2020-12-17 17:19:36 @blake_camp_1 I suspect the multiple connections are redundant, but help ensure accurate communication. On the second Q, @SebastianSeung actually has some data on that, if I recall correctly, and indeed, two synapses between the same two neurons are correlated in their weights. 2020-12-17 17:17:05 RT @apeyrache: Julie is now on Twitter and has an open position. That's a lot of great news! https://t.co/RMvUXIBXRQ 2020-12-17 16:47:25 @blake_camp_1 Well, yes, each neuron has to do that calculation, but I'm still not seeing why you think it is more complicated than using presynaptic activity. 2020-12-17 16:46:46 @blake_camp_1 I'm sorry, I don't see how that matters. Even if a given pair of neurons has multiple synaptic contacts, the mechanism I just described still works fine for credit assignment. There's nothing that says that they must be scaled by different amounts a priori. 2020-12-17 16:43:29 RT @dileeplearning: Triangulating general intelligence and cortical microcircuits -- slides from my presentation at #NAISys. It's a snapsho… 2020-12-17 01:20:08 @blake_camp_1 So, the projection from single value to vector of weight updates is simple, and driven by presynaptic activity. 2020-12-17 01:19:37 @blake_camp_1 The bursts in burstprop are equivalent to the backpropagated errors in backprop. In backprop, each neuron gets a single error gradient signal, and then multiplies that with presynaptic activity to determine weight changes. Burstprop works on a similar principle. 2020-12-17 01:19:20 @blake_camp_1 I don't quite understand your Q, but here's my attempt at an answer: 2020-12-17 01:16:47 RT @adamndsmith: wow, i don't think anyone could have predicted that https://t.co/qwSs8KDp4G 2020-12-16 21:22:50 @MHendr1cks I remember the signing ice from my childhood skating on a frozen lake. I would describe it as a huge space-ship laser firing a short blast... 2020-12-16 21:17:19 @IrisVanRooij @fedeadolfi @tsonj Yeah, good Q. I see this as meaning that good level 1 models include stipulations about the worlds in which the models act, and the dynamics that determine those interactions. 2020-12-16 19:45:25 @FelixHill84 Pfffft... You're doing "non-core" deep learning, so it must be symbol processing. 2020-12-16 19:43:20 @fedeadolfi @IrisVanRooij @tsonj I would give it that place of preference because, arguably, guiding that sort of external behaviour is what brains evolved for! 2020-12-16 19:42:34 @fedeadolfi @IrisVanRooij @tsonj Yes! And no... I basically agree, in so far as there can be different levels of behaviour, including "internal" behaviour. But, I also think that when we are considering brains, "behaviour" in the behaviourism sense of the word has a place of preference. 2020-12-16 19:27:01 RT @FelixHill84: We built a simple model for spatio-temporal QA from videos on CLEVRER and and CATER datasets, exploiting a soft 'object' e… 2020-12-16 19:05:22 @fedeadolfi @IrisVanRooij @tsonj So, to clarify, I was never claiming that level 1 is just observations. Just that level 1 explanations are explanations couched in behaviour. 2020-12-16 19:02:58 @fedeadolfi @IrisVanRooij @tsonj In neuroscience, that will, in practice, mean building models that talk about behaviour, but not neurons. So, for example, behaviourism was all about level 1 explanations. That's why I suggested, @fedeadolfi, that level 1 studies are about behaviour. 2020-12-16 19:02:06 @fedeadolfi @IrisVanRooij @tsonj My interpretation: Level 1 explanations are explanations about computation, i.e. the functions being implemented. Thus, a level 1 model attempts to explain the functions, not how they are implemented. 2020-12-16 16:07:45 RT @somnirons: Totally agree, to me is becoming clear that the brain is a powerful predictive coding machine (or self-supervision in ML ter… 2020-12-16 16:06:56 @SashaMTL @Sparkyparky82 @E_Bonawitz @taiyasaki @sitzikbs @shibl @ReiRabb @VisionBernie @LucianaBenotti @wimlds Perfect! 2020-12-16 01:24:40 RT @abhii_mit: Fully-funded PhD position via prestigious MRC @DiMeN_DTP to work with Prof. Andy Jackson & 2020-12-16 01:19:51 @lukesjulson @NeuroBioMed It's also just plain not true when it comes to preparing class materials, which always seem to take me x10 more time than I budget for them... 2020-12-16 01:18:18 @IrisVanRooij @blamlab Ecumenical, amazing... I remember a Father Ted episode where his advice to another priest about speaking to bishops is to always say, "that's an ecumenical matter". If it works for the Catholic church... 2020-12-16 01:16:33 RT @twitemp1: Some points to reflect upon: 1⃣ Are we to consider different levels of analysis to interpret the world? Absolutely! 2020-12-15 19:01:07 @itamarlandau @cian_neuro @Timothy0Leary @GunnarBlohm https://t.co/aXSpmLyPFM 2020-12-15 18:40:00 @itamarlandau @cian_neuro @Timothy0Leary @GunnarBlohm True... we don't have (all that much) fortune on offer, only fame. 2020-12-15 16:34:50 @iandanforth That's a longer convo, but basically, we probably need to find different architectures with some of the same properties. 2020-12-15 16:33:37 @ArmineYalnizyan @MHendr1cks Really, it's just that we neuroscientists need to think of a better short-form for these brain regions... 2020-12-15 16:30:42 @MHendr1cks @ArmineYalnizyan Sure, I'm just speaking specifically to the body of research I'm thinking of here, which is focused on cortical areas, and when trying to give a lay-person account, I rely on "higher-order" in place of "cortical", which is what I really mean. 2020-12-15 16:29:15 @cian_neuro @Timothy0Leary @GunnarBlohm It's just so human is the problem... We're these apes who are naturally inclined to worry about position in a social hierarchy. It takes a lot of effort not to fall into these patterns, even for scientists! 2020-12-15 15:15:08 @DLBarack It can surely be framed as a computation. Whether it's a representation will depend on whether that travel along the manifold impacts downstream computation. 2020-12-15 15:13:54 @jimCui @DLBarack @countzerozzz Oh, sure, I know Brian! He joined U of T when I was a student there. 2020-12-15 15:10:30 @pfau Simple model != small number of parameters. A model with a huge number of parameters, but a simple cost-function and architecture, counts as a simple model, IMO. 2020-12-15 15:09:24 @ArmineYalnizyan In contrast, how we learn things like economic or political ideas probably has more to do with additional Qs of personal identity, self interest, etc., and we have already seen how that sort of learning can be manipulated... it will surely just get worse as tech improves... 2020-12-15 15:07:28 @ArmineYalnizyan Yes, but the mechanisms we're discussing here wrt brains are so fundamental, they underpin things like our ability to understand where we are in space, which likely wouldn't be affected by things like VR, unless people start spending a majority of their time in such systems. 2020-12-15 15:01:50 @ArmineYalnizyan It's just getting there now. 2020-12-15 15:01:17 @pfau Plus, my point is this: we've seen multiple studies confirming that this sort of predictive learning leads to brain-like representations. Here was another one on the hippocampus that recently came out from @jcrwhittington and @behrenstimb: https://t.co/ws6XuEZVQk 2020-12-15 14:59:58 @pfau I don't think that's a valid criticism. I guarantee that there are many over-parameterized models that would not develop these sorts of representations. So, even if there are many models that could also do this, it's not zero bits of information. 2020-12-15 14:58:33 @ArmineYalnizyan Not quite, because we can compare our predictions to incoming sensory data, which provides an external validation of our internal model. It's only tautological when we ignore that which is before our eyes, as it were... :) 2020-12-15 14:57:26 @ArmineYalnizyan And, as in the work I retweeted, simulations confirm that this strategy leads to useful, brain-like representations. There's a lot more to do to understand the exact form of the predictions, and how we learn from errors, but more-and-more evidence supports the basic idea. 2001-01-01 01:01:01