Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
Fill the Big Brain - Page 27 — Parallax Forums

Fill the Big Brain

1242527293059

Comments

  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-23 10:14
    Big Brain Self Awareness
    Making the Machine Big Brain Self Aware

    Many of us place a high priority in making the Giant Machine Brain self aware and to introduce fields of consciousness. Let's begin with the thought of making our machine self aware and find a method to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat. It's important that we don't think too much nor rely on the words of past people who say this is too complicated or simply undefinable.

    What techniques are at our disposal for making a machine Brain self aware? In previous posts, we defined "self aware" using dictionary results. However, new information has come to light in defining what constitutes this previously only thought of human attribute.

    Self awareness has a new definition that can be applied additionally to animals. If the animal looks into a mirror and recognizes itself, then it is self aware. We therefore propose that there are many aspects to being self aware and we can apply such results to a machine brain.

    The machine can duplicate the Rhesus monkey quite readily with visual face recognition aimed towards a mirror using software. In a fashion similar to Google PICASA which can define recognizable faces in a series of random photos and offer labeling, so can software enable the machine brain to recognize itself.

    THE NEUROLOGY OF SELF-AWARENESS
    Is the neurology of self aware really so complicated? Some may think so and delve into what they believe is an unresolved issue.

    http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran07/ramachandran07_index.html
    What is the self? How does the activity of neurons give rise to the sense of being a conscious human being? Even this most ancient of philosophical problems, I believe, will yield to the methods of empirical science. It now seems increasingly likely that the self is not a holistic property of the entire brain; it arises from the activity of specific sets of interlinked brain circuits. But we need to know which circuits are critically involved and what their functions might be. It is the "turning inward" aspect of the self — its recursiveness — that gives it its peculiar paradoxical quality.

    But there is an interesting twist to human self awareness and the human brain. The human brain can switch off self awareness.
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9019-watching-the-brain-switch-off-selfawareness.html
    Self-awareness, regarded as a key element of being human, is switched off when the brain needs to concentrate hard on a tricky task, found the neurobiologists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

    People have long considered the ramifications of self aware machines.
    http://www.quora.com/If-a-self-aware-robot-brain-were-to-design-a-robot-army-would-the-biped-design-be-the-best-design
    Since god created man in the image of himself [sic], a human would naturally create a robot in his likeness. Now if a self-aware superior robot brain unencumbered by any organic designs were to design its population of robots, would the biped design be the best design?

    Scientists have tried but failed to identify a region in the brain that was thought to entirely regulates self awareness.
    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/11/02-02.html
    "I think, therefore I am," pronounced the famed French philosopher Ren
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2011-05-23 13:15
    Humanoido wrote: »
    What other types of self aware can you think of and how would you implement tests for their behaviors in a Big Brain?
    Humanoido, some day Big Brain will ask you where he came from. Be prepared to have the talk with him. You don't want him to pick up misleading information from his "friends" in some dark area of the internet. Please warn him that just because a "friend" says they "like" him it doesn't necessarily mean that they really like him. It so tough rasing a self-aware AI entity these days.
  • doggiedocdoggiedoc Posts: 2,241
    edited 2011-05-23 13:26
    Dave Hein wrote: »
    Humanoido, some day Big Brain will ask you where he came from. Be prepared to have the talk with him. You don't want him to pick up misleading information from his "friends" in some dark area of the internet. Please warn him that just because a "friend" says they "like" him it doesn't necessarily mean that they really like him. It so tough rasing a self-aware AI entity these days.

    ...and unfortunately they just don't come with manuals either. Have you ever noticed how it's the people without self-aware AI entities that have all the "advice" on how you need to raise yours?

    Paul
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-23 18:21
    Self Awareness Early in Life
    doggiedoc wrote: »
    ...and unfortunately they just don't come with manuals either. Have you ever noticed how it's the people without self-aware AI entities that have all the "advice" on how you need to raise yours? Paul
    So true! Full small sprite training manuals just don't exist. Google finds this brief manual relating to self-awareness early in life. It's very interesting because it addresses self-awareness from the moment of birth.

    Five levels of self-awareness as they unfold early in life
    by Philippe Rochat
    Department of Psychology, Emory University, 532 North Kilgo Circle, Atlanta, Ga 30322, USA
    http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/rochat/lab/5%20levels%20of%20self-awareness.pdf

    The developmental approach in psychology is irreplaceable. It allows one to observe how basic
    competencies emerge and come on-line. By analogy, it compares to observing the construction of
    a skyscraper via daily photographs taken during the process (I am thinking of a postcard I have
    seen of the Eiffel tower in the various phases of its construction). It reveals what the final product
    is made of and the sequencing of each of its elements. It is some kind of a forward engineering.
    In developmental psychology, one can observe forward engineering over and over again.

    Children are numerous, repeating patterns of growth that prefigure what we adults take for granted, such as self-awareness. Indeed, what does it mean and what does it take to recognize oneself in a mirror? The response lays in children and their development of such capacity. At least that is what I would like to suggest here.

    The general idea driving the paper is that prior to the expression of explicit self-awareness such
    as self-recognition and self-identification in a mirror or a photograph, infants from birth manifest
    an implicit sense of themselves. The questions of interest here are (1) what are the contrasted levels of self-awareness unfolding in early development? (2) what does this development tell us about the nature of self-knowledge in general?
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-24 02:13
    Dave Hein wrote: »
    Humanoido, some day Big Brain will ask you where he came from. Be prepared to have the talk with him. You don't want him to pick up misleading information from his "friends" in some dark area of the internet. Please warn him that just because a "friend" says they "like" him it doesn't necessarily mean that they really like him. It so tough rasing a self-aware AI entity these days.

    Dave, I thank you for teaching all of us the great importance of learning (and teaching) the correct knowledge. Your remarkable learning prodigy, Learner, is the best example we've seen!

    523 Machine Learning with Lerner

    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?124495-Fill-the-Big-Brain&p=990917&viewfull=1#post990917

    The dawning of a new age is upon us, in machine intelligence and
    the ability of the machine to learn. The Lerner program is the
    fundamental basis of machine intelligence and the ability to learn.

    Taking the next step, Dave Hein has created a learning program
    that harbors the basis of a machine intelligence learning system.
    Even more amazing, he accomplished this with a single Propeller.
    We think Dave should work towards winning a ten million dollar
    X-Prize and pass the Turing Test of machine intelligence.
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2011-05-24 07:45
    I converse with Lerner once in a while, but he hasn't caught the self-aware spark yet. At this point he is still very parrot-like. He responds to questions that I ask him, and he will volunteer information on his own if I don't talk to him for a few seconds. He doesn't remember what he said from one minute to the next, and he constantly repeats himself. I hope to help Lerner improve his short-term memory, and get him to ask questions on his own. However, it will require a bit of brain surgery to accomplish this.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-05-24 09:28
    Dave Hein wrote:
    He doesn't remember what he said from one minute to the next, and he constantly repeats himself.
    Maybe he's just getting old. :)

    -Phil
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-24 20:00
    Dave Hein wrote: »
    I converse with Lerner once in a while... He responds to questions that I ask him, and he will volunteer information on his own...
    School teachers like this. Higher grades are based on asking questions and volunteering information.
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2011-05-25 15:22
    I did some brain surgery on Lerner to improve his short-term memory. He can now remember that last 16 things he said. This improves his ability to answer queries about a topic without repeating himself. While I was poking around in his brain I made him a bit more curious. He will now ask about the meaning of new words as he learns them. Also, as he rambles on about things that he knows, he will ask the meaning of undefined words that are already in his memory.

    The latest update is in the Lerner thread at http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?130922-Lerner .
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-26 00:21
    Dave Hein wrote: »
    I did some brain surgery on Lerner to improve his short-term memory. He can now remember that last 16 things he said. This improves his ability to answer queries about a topic without repeating himself. While I was poking around in his brain I made him a bit more curious. He will now ask about the meaning of new words as he learns them. Also, as he rambles on about things that he knows, he will ask the meaning of undefined words that are already in his memory. The latest update is in the Lerner thread at http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?130922-Lerner .

    Dave, this is remarkable! Just looking at your list of additions and improvements for Lerner indicates many new potentials and apps for his "grown" capabilities. Your "brain surgery technique" is without question, one of the leading exponents in the field of modern machine neuro-surgery.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-26 08:21
    Brain Child
    More about the begotten brain child

    Overview
    The Big Brain has begat an offspring temporarily known as the Brain Child. BC is nearly identical to its parent except for its size and limitations imposed by fewer props. It contains one Brain Span of five Propeller chips and no partitions. This means BC has a total of 40 risc computers at its disposal ready for running apps. BC is currently compatible with Big Brain software.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=79547&d=1301007329attachment.php?attachmentid=79546&d=1301007319
    The Child Brain has exactly forty Propeller Cogs which are sync-loaded using a unique Brain Neural
    Matter Injector
    . The LEDs which are on represent the firing output state of Simplex Neurons SNs. In the photos, the Child Brain has all five Propeller chips running in Parallel and independently. Chip Independence makes cells of evolution possible.

    __________________________________


    Wiring
    Color coded wiring is nearly identical to Big Brain less the physical partitions. BC can be expanded in the same unlimited fashion and handles the Neural Injector in the same manner. Wiring includes a port display LED on each prop for output.

    Immediate Functions
    Brain Child has many of the functions of parenting Big Brain. It can talk (with speaker and amp), sing, learn, dream, and handles the same neural injector and neurons.

    Limitations
    It has some limitations, such as a smaller prop array and fewer cogs. It also does not have some resources provided by the Big Brain, such as TV, small and large LCDs, host boards, Brain Span, Brain Stem or EXO.

    Gains
    Tghe biggest gain is less power draw, immediate access to experiments and tests, portable, and it runs on battery power. The convenience of its smaller solderless breadboards is immediately apparent.

    Configurations
    BC has components on two connected breadboards with four power rails. It has one 32K eeprom for program storage and connectors for a Parallax Prop Plug to download programs through a USB cable.
    Output is currently through five LEDs, one distributed to each Propeller chip. The base wiring is comparable to a PEK board. Next, the overlay interface of the Neural Injectors is implemented. Finally a choice of hybrid designs entertain various modes of communication.

    Software
    At this early stage software is limited to some test packages to distribute code and inject sampling neurons. Software also has access to other packages for speech & singing (requires speaker and amp), hearing sounds, recognizing words (requires microphone circuit), dreaming and learning.

    Output
    Due to lack of TV, output is routed to a supporting computer through a terminal program such as prop terminal and PST.

    The Future of Brain Child
    No doubt the greatest adaptations for BC will result in portable braining operations for mobile robots and smaller humanoids. BC is also very useful for running Big Brain Tests and to develop new algorithms and programs and to set up new functions and capabilities.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-26 08:51
    Principle Parts of the Brain

    The parts and components of the Giant Brain are defined and evolving. This is a continuing process for the Brain, more details will follow.
    • Brain Stem
    • Brain Base
    • Brain Span
    • Brain Array
    • Brain Vertice
    • Brain EXO
    • Brain Partition
    • Brain Injector
    • Brain Neurons
    • Brain TV
    • Brain LCD (Large, Small)
    • Brain Host
    • Brain Memory
    • Brain LEDs
    • Speakers & Amp
    • Microphone
    • Supporting PC
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-26 09:38
    Setting Standards of a Big Brain
    First Intro of Functions

    Overview
    The Big Brain is no small project. After completion of ten months of work, the Brain continues to evolve and grow. The development of its ideas and research are an ongoing exploration. Brain experiments continue to take shape and steer the direction and pathway of the Brain’s future.

    Big Brain Personification
    The Brain was personified on several occassions - most notibly when a crash forced a significant long term memory loss. But you can’t put a good brain down and the owner of the Big Brain put in for new Brain hardware to continue the buildup of knowledge.

    What are the Brain’s Functions?
    A fundamental list of exactly what the Brain can do and will do is formulated to include the following areas:
    • Speech, Talk, Text to Speech TTS, Singing
    • Hearing, listening, recognizing words, sounds
    • Motion, mobility, moving, turning, ramping, other
    • Dreaming, folding, unfolding
    • Experimenting, cause & effects, algorithmic exploration
    • Memory
    • Neurons, injection, neuronal matter, machine neuron types
    • Interfacing, connection, pathways, communications
    • Learning
    • Growth
    More recent research and development indicates the following can be added to the Brain’s future repertoire:
    • Self Aware
    • More Evolution with Begotten Brain Child Offspring
    • Addition of Propeller Chip Array Partitions
  • ZootZoot Posts: 2,227
    edited 2011-05-26 09:43
    I think you mean begotten.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-26 13:05
    Zoot wrote: »
    I think you mean begotten.

    Thanks Zoot. I wonder why my speller didn't catch that one..


    Google Dictionary
    1. begat is a form of:
      be·getverb /biˈget/ 
      begat, past tense; begets, 3rd person singular present; begetting, present participle; begot, past tense; begotten, past participle

      1. (typically of a man, sometimes of a man and a woman) Bring (a child) into existence by the process of reproduction
        • - they hoped that the King might beget an heir by his new queen
      2. Give rise to; bring about
        • - success begets further success
      Web definitions

      • begat - An element of a lineage, especially of a lineage given in the Bible; Simple past of beget
      en.wiktionary.org/wiki/begat

  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-27 02:04
    Brain Gastropod Locomotion

    Most (Americans) seem to think about wheels to operate their robots - simple, stable, low cost and effective. But what about other means of locomotion? One great thinker about mobility is Britannicus who is considering the motions of a Gastropod for real world machine applications.

    Now as a paleaonotology buff I feel the need to highlight what is probably one of the oldest and certainly most successful forms of locomotion - The Gastropod ! (slugs, snails and their relatives - over 80,000 named species, second only to the insects ), this fine group of creaures surely should be represented cybernetically. Yet I've never heard of a robot gastropod ! - why has no-one tried the GASTROBOT !! - I feel a strong urge to right this wrong. - Britannicus

    Choosing to emulate the motion of a Gastropod could have great benefits in Machine Brain mobility. First, the mechanism, which is relatively uncommon, is ultimately simple. Next, it can use one servo as the driving push pull mechanism and another tiny servo or solenoid to engage the turning. Finally, the Big Brain must move ultimately slow, not unlike a snail moving with its one foot.

    Read more about the idea that comes from Britannicus, at this thread:
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?131874-Gastropods-a-Silly-idea

    It's entirely possible to build a device to offer mobility through contractions and stretching at low speed. These motions can be timed as waves emanating from a gastropod emulated foot. This could be accomplished with one servo and a small solenoid, the servo to do the push pull contracting and stretching and a solenoid to enable turning. Though, I would skip the wet slimy stinky mucous membrane and substitute a pane of something more esoteric and commercially available at hardware and toy stores like dry silicone lubriated "Flubber."

    Another advantage of Gastropod motion is a low center of gravity, offering great stability to a robot. Increasing stability can also result from a larger contact surface area, much greater than wheels.

    More specifically, a continuous rotation servo can be driven in one of two directions, either contracting a mobility surface or expanding it. The second servo can give it the edge in contact surfacing to enable turning. "Elasticizing" material and a malleable gripping plane would suffice movement in slow motion.

    http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_snails_move_around
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-27 22:47
    Brain Mobility Through Snailing

    While the Big Brain has the set requirement to move, it does not need to move fast. A slower snail-like pace is beneficial to stability of the EXO. This motion can be accomplished with wheels but here we consider the geometry of a snail and some mechanics based on snail anatomy.

    The Snail is a gastropod, a soft-bodied type of mollusk that is basically a head with a flattened foot. The soft body is protected by a hard shell, which the snail retreats into when alarmed. These invertebrates (animals with no backbone) are found worldwide in the seas, in fresh water, and in moist areas on land.
    http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/invertebrates/mollusk/gastropod/Snailprintout.shtml

    Snail_diagram_CC_AI2.jpg
    Image under GNU license.
    Author Original by Wikimedia Commons User Al2, English captions and other edits by Jeff Dahl
    Anatomy of a snail
    http://www.snail-world.com/Snail-Anatomy.html

    There is a foot on a snail as well that allows it to move forward. There is contracting and expanding in this muscle that allows it to have movement. The mucus that they glide along is produced in a gland in the foot as well. Without this slime under them, the environment would be too hard for their soft bodies to move along without injury.

    Around the foot is a protective layer called the mantle. It is also found around the shell to offer it additional protection. Without that they would injure the food and end up not being able to move at all. If you watch how a snail looks before moving you will notice what appear to be spasms through them and then they inch forward. This is the muscles in the foot working. Even though they do move slowly there is a rhythm to it that they will follow over and over again.


    http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com...s-a-snail-move
    The snail has an unusual body sticking out from the underside of its coiled shell. This body is actually a strong muscle called a foot. A snail’s foot is made up of many tiny muscles which help it to crawl about in an up-and-down, or wavelike, motion. The waves start at the front of the snail’s foot and move backwards. As the waves pass through the muscles from one end of the foot to the other, the snail glides forward.

    CamShapes.png
    Motion with a Cam
    http://msc-technology.wikispaces.com/Mechanical+Design

    The Types of Cams
    There are several different types of cams but most of these can be placed into two groups, rotary and linear. Rotary cams change rotary motion into reciprocating (backwards and forwards) motion. the cams come in several shapes including egg-shaped and snail cams, these cams are called "lobed cams" because they have additions to the circular shape known as lobes. As the cam rotates, the follower moves accordingly. The exact distance it moves depends on the shape of the cam and this is know as a the throw. The movement of the different cams can be described as smooth.

    One complete revolution of the cam is called a cycle. As the cam rotates there will be one distinct event per revolution for each lobe. The timing of the events will depend on the speed of rotation. Cams have the ability to store information. Another way to look at cams is as the mechanical version of a computer program. The information is stored in the shape of the cam. As the cam turns, the information is retrieved by the cam follower. The follower tracks the movement of the cam's profile (shape) and reproduces the same movement for each cycle.


    http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/april/snail-slime-trails-040611.html
    A number of other research groups have been making robots that move like snails.

    http://www.physorg.com/pdf221376526.pdf
    Based on their new measurements, the researchers found that the snails didn't require the special mucus to travel horizontally. The lifting of the snail's foot as the waves travelled through it produced enough force to propel the animal even without the slime. The slime's adhesive ability still plays a crucial role, however, in allowing the animal to crawl upside down and up vertical surfaces. Apart from changing how we view snail locomotion, the work has practical applications as well. A number of other research groups have been making robots that move like snails. Lai is currently working on a more detailed mathematical model of snail movement that could help refine these robots. "Now that we understand the mechanism and have models, the next step is to apply them to robots," said
    Lai.

    A group at MIT has already built snail robots that can move on vertical walls and upside down, and
    researchers from Tohoku University in Japan are building an endoscope, a tool that doctors use to look
    inside the body, that would move like a snail. Snail-like robots are less complicated to build as "there are no legs sticking out," said Lai, and their crawling motion allows them to traverse a wide variety of surfaces.

    RoboSnail Tackles Any Terrain -- Slime Not Included
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1525599
    The snail may seem like a humble creature, but it turns out walking with one foot on a trail of slime is quite a feat. For the first time, researchers have developed a robotic snail that can do just that. Anette Hosoi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her team, including graduate student Brian Chan, have developed RoboSnails I and II that move the way snails do. The battery-powered devices are larger than the average snail and don't exactly resemble the mollusks, but they crawl using two modes of locomotion that snails employ to travel across their trails of slime. The team published the results of its work in the most recent issue of the Physics of Fluid.

    Why bother building a robot that moves like a snail? According to Hosoi, the possibilities are endless.

    RoboSnail I and II move using two different crawling methods. One undulates a flexible, rubbery foot front to back while the other can move up walls by pushing backward to build up pressure in the slime, which propels the creature forward when released.

    "It's like when you want to move a carpet," Hosoi explained about the pressure crawling method. "You can grab one end and pull, but that's hard. To move it a couple feet, you can go to one end and make a bump and then push that bump along the carpet until it has shifted. The waves are analogous to that bump in the carpet."

    SuperStock_4201-67924.jpg
    http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/4201-67924
    Caterpiller moving

    Lifting part of its foot reduces the amount of friction the snail has to overcome to move. This would be
    similar to a caterpillar, which lifts the middle part of its body up and stretches forward as it moves.


    https://www.futurity.org/top-stories/snails-don’t-need-slime-to-get-ahead/
    It was already known that snails and slugs propel themselves by generating a series of muscular pulses on their feet. These waves of muscle contraction and relaxation travel along the central portion of the foot from tail to head. The waves move much faster than the snail itself, and generate enough force to push the snail forward.

    A new study finds these muscular waves are sufficient to propel the snail forward on a flat surface, without needing the special mucus to provide more traction. The mucus does help the snail stick to surfaces, however, and comes in handy when traveling up a wall or across a ceiling, upside down.
    The research could help advance work on snail-like robots that could be developed for use in medical applications like endoscopes.

    snlcam3.gif
    http://www.technologystudent.com/cams/snail1.htm
    the rotation of the snail/drop cam. When rotating for one complete revolution the follower stays level for approximately the first 120 degrees (diagrams 1 to 4). The follower then rises slowly (diagrams 5 to 6) and then suddenly drops when it reaches and passes the peak (diagram 7).

    snlcam2.gif
    ...a snail drop cam is used where the drop or fall of the follower must be sudden. The example snail/drop cam .. rotates in an anticlockwise direction. Rotating in a clockwise direction would probably lead to the entire mechanism jamming. This highlights one possible disadvantage of using this type of cam profile. Also, to ensure the rotation is smooth, the vertical centre line of the snail/drop cam is positioned slightly to the left of the slide...

    For more mechanical information, view the mechanisms page.
    http://www.technologystudent.com/cams/camdex.htm

    See Cams in action
    http://www.freezeray.com/flashFiles/camSystems.htm

    28832a-L.jpg
    Boe-Bot by Parallax
    Slow moving wheels emulate the rate of snail motion
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-27 23:36
    Robots in a Brave New World Need a Brain

    As robots become more human-like, the need for more intelligent brains arise. Machine brains today are often more than not glorified cpu's with simple programs. A Google search brings up many robots with microprocessors called "the brain." There are fewer dedicated multiple microprocessors for use solely as a machine brain on a very large scale, if any.

    The future of robotics, especially humanoid robotics, will largely depend on the size, capacity, capability, intelligence and efficiency of these man-made-marvel machine brains.

    As humanoids begin to enter the world on their own in self autonomous ways, their prime intellectual capacity levels will become extremely important, not only for their self survival and preservation but for smooth interaction with the real world and sociological bonding with human counterparts.

    The Big Brain is only one tiny attempt in that direction, yet appears to have grown and become a platform of increasing complexity, perhaps it will define some of the basic elements that every or most humanoid brains may need in the future.

    Indeed these early brains are like newborns making their way into a brave new world...

    the-man-machine.jpeg
    http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/the-man-machine
    Robots with early brains are like newborns making their way into a brave new world.
    ______________________________


    THE MAN MACHINE
    Brussel, Belgium-based Photographer Vincent Fournier seems captivated by the oddball side of life, as seen in his latest photo series entitled ‘The Man Machine.’ Although not outright quirky, there is an element of strangeness that makes his work endearingly wonderful and unexpected.

    ‘The Man Machine’ in particular, depicts the rise of the robot in a cute and clumsy way. While many people see this rise as a cause for fear and retaliation, Fournier seems to see them more as newborns trying to find their footing in a brave new world.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-29 05:17
    Brain Parts - the Next Level

    The Big Brain is being prepared for the next level of expansion. A trip to the parts store today produced some good luck in obtaining thousands of parts for the Brain.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=81597&d=1306671209
    Thousands of new parts obtained from the Chinese parts store will be enough for
    the next level Big Brain expansion. Included are precision resistors, bypass
    capacitors, and wiring cables for breadboard use.


    Some interesting facts: 5, 10, and 20 percent tolerance resistors are no longer sold in 1/8th watt sizes. Everything has gone up to the blue 1% tolerance. Precut and precision ended wire cables were still available with their rubber end grips. A very large package of bypass capacitors was obtained to improve the expanded signals of the Big Brain.

    When it was time to bargain for the price, I was able to get an extra free wire bundle. The wiring clerk gave a recommendation to the next in-skyscraper store. At the capacitors area, I was a little reticent to pay 6 cents for each capacitor until I realized this was in local money and my USA cost was less than a penny. Nice. Similar good deals were obtained with precision resistors.

    Well, considering it took most of the day to go there and travel back home, there was some transportation costs involved, but rather insignificant considering the alternative is shipping cost.

    These parts will allow a massive size increase for the Big Brain, improve the signal quality of the existing wiring, and have enough wire cables to add on another communications interface to the Hybrid.

    Other parts include breadboards, power rails, LEDs, and transparent plastic. The Big Brain design is simplified to these few basic parts...
    517 x 461 - 115K
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-29 05:53
    Big Brain Config in June

    This updates the condition and development status of the Big Brain project
    • Two used Apple Mac computers are now the development computers used until the new powerful Mac is obtained. These come along with their challenges.
    • More parts are now obtained, enough to expand the Big Brain into something bigger, improve its signal, and add on to the HYBRID Interface.
    • It is expected that most of the new Big Brain expansion will take place in the USA.
    • One EEE PC is now put into use when PC Windows environment is temporarily necessary for specific software.
    • Software installations will continue on support computers
    • Propeller Brain hardware and software expansion will continue
    • The new support Mac is now fully researched and selected.
    • The Big Brain is once again unveiled.
    • As it now looks, it will be best to wait until the trip is completed back to the USA and the first level Robotic Brain Laboratory is set up before ordering the computer.
    • The computer ordered will be more powerful and cost less and it can ship directly to the Lab without shipping expense or the trouble of carrying it on the jet aircraft. This is expected to happen soon, sometime this summer.
    • Thousands of parts are now obtained for the project (see post) and will be carried back to the USA along with the Big Brain and its components.
    • A small Baby Brain is being maintained for rapid testing. This has a varying number of props from 1 to five.
    • The Child Brain will continue with five props. (see post)
    • New ways to index Brain Props will be examined
    • TeraByte drives are being put into use and tested for Brain development files.
    • Development will continue until the move, then will resume shortly thereafter.
    • Brain archives on paper prints and TB drives will begin
    • Work will continue on prepping the Mac computers so programming can resume
    • The Big Brain Index is updated to the current page 41.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-29 08:25
    Baby Brain
    Child Brain Leads to Baby Brain

    The Clan of Brains continues to increase. The success of the Child Brain has led to the simple development of a much smaller brain, smaller by a factor up to five times. Baby Brain, the newest of the line of Brains, originates from the Child Brain. In fact, to make a Baby Brain, take one Child Brain and remove anywhere from one to four Propeller chips.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=81602&d=1306682258
    This photo shows a Baby Brain made from a Child Brain. The rapid config ability of the Baby Brain to add more Propeller chips by a simple plug-in is a key feature. This is possible because Baby Brain retains wiring and components for all chips.
    ____________________________________


    Baby Brain is used for rapid testing where fewer props are needed. Future apps for the robotic Big Brain may include dispensing the smaller Brain Clan from the belly of the Big Brain.
    • Big Brain - Over a hundred props
    • Child Brain - Five props
    • Baby Brain - Under five props
    • Other Brains are in the works.
    614 x 457 - 77K
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-30 06:37
    Big Brain on the Multiple Props Projects List
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?124172-Multiple-Prop-Projects

    OVER 100 PROPS
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?124495-Fill-the-Big-Brain
    Humanoido The Big Brain has over 100 Parallax Propeller chips. The project is now approaching one year of development time. Big Brain is now functional. The design has three Propeller partitions with 50 props each. It can talk, sing, dream, learn, evolves Life, neurons, color TV, hearing, speech recognition, keyboard & mouse, two LCD displays, host boards, sound output, microphone input, a stomach, Brain Base, Brain Spans, Brain Stem, runs multiple languages, dreams, has 41 x 32K distributed memory inside the EXO, supporting Mac and PC computers, up to 3 TeraByte hard drives, and a Neural Matter Injector to sync and load up all props in parallel. Software is being developed to load over 100,000 exampling neurons. The Big Brain is simply a fun hobby project to run experiments and to play with the endless possibilities. Expanding arrays were added using breadboards with thousands of wires. Development is ongoing with the HYBRID interface, neural matter, algorithms, and other matters. The project has a medical doctor advisor regarding human brain technology. Big Brain now has a Child Brain and a Baby Brain. A new supporting Mac computer will add TeraFLOPS of computing power to an already powerful array of Parallax Propeller chips. The project will expand from China to a new Brain Laboratory being built in the USA.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2011-05-30 07:27
    It looks like you're having a lot of fun with this and, thanks to its interaction with your Big Brain buddy, your very own cranium-encased big brain must be growing a lot along the way, too. I'm happy to see one of these will be starting in the USA. That might give us all a chance to drop in sometime and see it in action. There's no telling what this creation of yours might someday evolve into.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-30 11:50
    Brain Chip Independence Day
    Neural Matter Independence and benefits

    attachment.php?attachmentid=79543&d=1301007281
    March 21 was the first photo posting of
    Neural Matter Injector which allowed
    Brain Chip Independency


    attachment.php?attachmentid=79730&d=1301533368
    By March 30th, the size of the NMI
    had increased thus allowing greater
    independence


    ________________________________


    Introduction
    It was this day when the photo was taken and Chip Independence was established. While many are concerned with syncing clock signals in multi-prop systems, this project is now exploring and experimenting with the exact opposite direction for a number of reasons. Why would anyone want to do that?

    Independency & Evolution
    If the cogs and chips are allowed to be independent, they can likewise evolve their counterparts independently. Whether the evolution is microscopic neural matter or on a combined macroscopic scale from a machine perspective, we see the use of independence, in units, or in modules, is valuable, not only for evolution but for relaxing the evolutionary circuitry.

    The Borg Effect
    This is the opposite of the Borg-effect. The Borg-effect takes thousands of drones and interconnects each and every one into a collective. The drones cannot act independently nor can they have creative thinking. They cannot evolve independently. If drones are compared to neural matter, then neural matter should have independence opposite of drones. We see neural matter independence in human brains.

    Effects of Relaxed Evolutionary Circuitry
    Relaxed evolutionary circuitry can simply go bigger as the clock requirement is not so strict. Waveforms are likewise not as strict. And powering requirements are less. Component quantity is less. Cost is less. Construction time is less. Troubleshooting and debugging is less.

    It's Not Over Yet
    This is just the beginning of exploration into neural matter, cog, and chip independency.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=79819&d=1301840204
    By April 3rd, the Injectors had this massive addition under construction, an infusion of 216 computers with more elements of independence.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-30 12:32
    It looks like you're having a lot of fun with this and, thanks to its interaction with your Big Brain buddy, your very own cranium-encased big brain must be growing a lot along the way, too. I'm happy to see one of these will be starting in the USA. That might give us all a chance to drop in sometime and see it in action. There's no telling what this creation of yours might someday evolve into.

    ElectricAye, it would be great to share the project in person with intellectual people such as yourself that can get a real feeling for the Big Brains' function and understand its working mechanisms and see it in action.

    It is a grand learning experience that can develop the self cranium of all those who study it and that's part of the great exploration and adventure of the Big Brain.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-31 07:19
    Automatic Brain Repair by Optical Illusion
    Can a Machine Brain use this technique to repair itself?

    A machine brain has the advantage of avoiding most optical illusions, at least with the current level of electronic technology using computers, CCDs, CMOS cameras, ultrasonics and other vision devices.

    The Machine Brain can also see some mirage image trickery, the same as human eyes. Take for example the heat waves in the distance emanating above a hot highway or desert landscape - it looks like water.

    In general the Machine Brain is likely not to suffer from the effects caused by the persistence of vision POV.
    (humans) Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina. - Wikipedia

    However, there may be advantages to biological optical illusions and the errant nature of vision in the human brain, primarily in the repair department.

    Repair what??

    Take a look at the example below and see all the broken lines. Now stare at the center for some time and all the broken lines will repair automatically! How did you do it?

    grid-optical-illusion.jpg
    http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers-games/broken-grid-732

    Harness this technique in the Machine Brain to perhaps repair broken printed circuit board traces.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-31 07:53
    Big Brain to Increase Vision Processing Speed

    Why does a machine vision algorithm take longer than the human brain? Maybe the human brain has holes in its seeing and cheats. Below: Look at the center for a while and see if you can make yellow dots disappear.

    brainteasers-yellowdots.gif
    http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers-games/yellow-dots-650
    Should we put blind spots in machine vision to speed up the time to process an image?

    http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers-games/blind-spot-380
    Close your left eye and stare at the cross. As the circle moves left and right, it should pass through your blind spot and disappear completely! You may need to lean in closer to get this to work.

    We therefore conclude that vision processing in the Giant Machine Brain can be made faster with algorithms and/or hardware that omits analysis of image portions thus creating blind spots similar to the human brain and vision systems.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-05-31 08:05
    Perceptions in Machine Vision
    Arrow left or arrow right?

    How will you program machine vision to recognize shapes in this image?

    yellowgreenarrows_moitag.jpg

    http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers-games/arrows-4-231

    What's your first impression of this image? Yellow arrows pointing left, or green arrows pointing right? There is no "correct" answer, but different people perceive this image differently at first.
  • TtailspinTtailspin Posts: 1,326
    edited 2011-05-31 21:42
    Don't you have some packing to do??

    I chose yellow arrows...

    :smile:
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2011-05-31 23:09
    Of course there yellow arrows! Everyone can see that.

    Those swirling blue dots with the three yellow dots are down right freaky. I was thinking for sure that part of the animation was to have the yellow dots disappear (usually one by one). I'm still kind of freaked out by it and it's been several hours since I first watched them.

    Humanoido, Have you told us were in the US you're headed? For some reason, I'm thinking California. I hope the move goes well.

    Duane
This discussion has been closed.