Ok, thanks for that clarification. I guess I’m a bit confused as to why a comparison is being drawn between neurons in a neural network and neurons in a biological brain though.
In a neural network, the neuron receives an input, performs a mathematical formula, and returns an output right?
Like you said we have no understanding of what exactly a neuron in the brain is actually doing when it’s fired, and that’s not considering the chemical component of the brain.
I understand why terminology was reused when experts were designing an architecture that was meant to replicate the architecture of the brain. Unfortunately, I feel like that reuse of terminology is making it harder for laypeople to understand what a neural network is and what it is not now that those networks are a part of the zeitgeist thanks to the explosion of LLM’s and stuff.
Agreed. The started out trying to make artificial nerves, but then made something totally different. The fact we see the same biases and failure mechanisms emerging in them, now that we’re measuring them at scale, is actually a huge surprise. It probably says something deep and fundamental about the geometry of randomly chosen high-dimensional function spaces, regardless of how they’re implemented.
Like you said we have no understanding of what exactly a neuron in the brain is actually doing when it’s fired, and that’s not considering the chemical component of the brain.
I wouldn’t say none. What the axons, dendrites and synapses are doing is very well understood down to the molecular level - so that’s the input and output part. I’m aware knowledge of the biological equivalents of the other stuff (ReLU function and backpropagation) is incomplete. I do assume some things are clear even there, although you’d have to ask a neurologist for details.
Ok, thanks for that clarification. I guess I’m a bit confused as to why a comparison is being drawn between neurons in a neural network and neurons in a biological brain though.
In a neural network, the neuron receives an input, performs a mathematical formula, and returns an output right?
Like you said we have no understanding of what exactly a neuron in the brain is actually doing when it’s fired, and that’s not considering the chemical component of the brain.
I understand why terminology was reused when experts were designing an architecture that was meant to replicate the architecture of the brain. Unfortunately, I feel like that reuse of terminology is making it harder for laypeople to understand what a neural network is and what it is not now that those networks are a part of the zeitgeist thanks to the explosion of LLM’s and stuff.
Agreed. The started out trying to make artificial nerves, but then made something totally different. The fact we see the same biases and failure mechanisms emerging in them, now that we’re measuring them at scale, is actually a huge surprise. It probably says something deep and fundamental about the geometry of randomly chosen high-dimensional function spaces, regardless of how they’re implemented.
I wouldn’t say none. What the axons, dendrites and synapses are doing is very well understood down to the molecular level - so that’s the input and output part. I’m aware knowledge of the biological equivalents of the other stuff (ReLU function and backpropagation) is incomplete. I do assume some things are clear even there, although you’d have to ask a neurologist for details.