Researchers seeking to produce more efficient and reliable AI have turned to studying sea slugs for clues.
The goal, it turns out, is developing a better understanding of the basics of intelligence in order to, among other things, develop AI that can learn new information by “forgetting” information it no longer needs.
According to a study published recently, researchers from Purdue University, Rutgers University, the University of Georgia and Argonne National Laboratory have hallmarks of intelligence that are fundamental to any organism’s survival,” said Shriram Ramanathan, a Purdue professor of materials engineering. “We want to take advantage of that mature intelligence in animals to accelerate the development of AI.”
Two main signs of intelligence that neuroscientists have learned from sea slugs are habituation and sensitization. Among the most fundamental forms of learning and memory behavior present in organisms that enables adaptation and learning in dynamic environments, habituation is getting used to a stimulus over time, such as tuning out noises when driving the same route to work every day, while sensitization is the opposite – reacting strongly to a new stimulus, like avoiding bad food from a restaurant.
According to the researchers, habituation would allow AI to “forget” unneeded information (achieving more stability) while sensitization could help with retaining new and important information (enabling plasticity).
In the course of the study, the researchers developed a way to demonstrate both habituation and sensitization in nickel oxide, a so-called “quantum” material. The material is called “quantum” because its properties can’t be explained by classical physics.
If a quantum material could reliably mimic these forms of learning, then it may be possible to build AI directly into hardware. And, the team noted, if AI could operate both through hardware and software, it might be able to perform more complex tasks using less energy.
“Emulating such features of intelligence found in nature in the solid state can serve as inspiration for algorithmic simulations in artificial neural networks and potential use in neuromorphic computing,” the team noted.
This study is a starting place for guiding those next steps, the researchers said. In addition to the experiments performed at Purdue, a team at Rutgers University performed detailed theory calculations to understand what was happening within nickel oxide at a microscopic level to mimic the sea slug’s intelligence features. Argonne National Laboratory characterized the nickel oxide sample’s properties and the University of Georgia measured conductivity to further analyze the material’s behavior.
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