Unorganized machine

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An unorganized machine is a concept mentioned in a 1948 report in which Alan Turing suggested that the infant human cortex was what he called an "unorganised machine". [1] [2]

Alan Turing British mathematician and computer scientist

Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Despite these accomplishments, he was not fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime, due to his homosexuality, and because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

Cerebral cortex Part of a mammals brain

The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. It is separated into two cortices, by the longitudinal fissure that divides the cerebrum into the left and right cerebral hemispheres. The two hemispheres are joined beneath the cortex by the corpus callosum. The cerebral cortex is the largest site of neural integration in the central nervous system. It plays a key role in attention, perception, awareness, thought, memory, language, and consciousness.

Contents

Overview

Turing defined the class of unorganized machines as largely random in their initial construction, but capable of being trained to perform particular tasks. Turing's unorganized machines were in fact very early examples of randomly connected, binary neural networks, and Turing claimed that these were the simplest possible model of the nervous system.

Neural network Structure in biology and artificial intelligence

A neural network is a network or circuit of neurons, or in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of real biological neurons, or an artificial neural network, for solving artificial intelligence (AI) problems. The connections of the biological neuron are modeled as weights. A positive weight reflects an excitatory connection, while negative values mean inhibitory connections. All inputs are modified by a weight and summed. This activity is referred as a linear combination. Finally, an activation function controls the amplitude of the output. For example, an acceptable range of output is usually between 0 and 1, or it could be −1 and 1.

Nervous system the entire nerve apparatus of the body

The nervous system is a highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes that impact the body, then works in tandem with the endocrine system to respond to such events. Nervous tissue first arose in wormlike organisms about 550 to 600 million years ago. In vertebrates it consists of two main parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord. The PNS consists mainly of nerves, which are enclosed bundles of the long fibers or axons, that connect the CNS to every other part of the body. Nerves that transmit signals from the brain are called motor or efferent nerves, while those nerves that transmit information from the body to the CNS are called sensory or afferent. Spinal nerves serve both functions and are called mixed nerves. The PNS is divided into three separate subsystems, the somatic, autonomic, and enteric nervous systems. Somatic nerves mediate voluntary movement. The autonomic nervous system is further subdivided into the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is activated in cases of emergencies to mobilize energy, while the parasympathetic nervous system is activated when organisms are in a relaxed state. The enteric nervous system functions to control the gastrointestinal system. Both autonomic and enteric nervous systems function involuntarily. Nerves that exit from the cranium are called cranial nerves while those exiting from the spinal cord are called spinal nerves.

Turing had been interested in the possibility of simulating neural systems for at least the previous two years. In correspondence with William Ross Ashby in 1946 he writes:

In his 1948 paper Turing defined two examples of his unorganized machines. The first were A-type machines these being essentially randomly connected networks of NAND logic gates. The second were called B-type machines, which could be created by taking an A-type machine and replacing every inter-node connection with a structure called a connection modifier which itself is made from A-type nodes. The purpose of the connection modifiers were to allow the B-type machine to undergo "appropriate interference, mimicking education" in order to organize the behaviour of the network to perform useful work. Before the term genetic algorithm was coined, Turing even proposed the use of what he called a genetical search to configure his unorganized machines. [3] Turing claimed that the behaviour of B-type machines could be very complex when the number of nodes in the network was large, and stated that the "picture of the cortex as an unorganized machine is very satisfactory from the point of view of evolution and genetics".

Genetic algorithm competitive algorithm for searching a problem space

In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to generate high-quality solutions to optimization and search problems by relying on bio-inspired operators such as mutation, crossover and selection. John Holland introduced genetic algorithms in 1960 based on the concept of Darwin’s theory of evolution; afterwards, his student David E. Goldberg extended GA in 1989.

Notes

  1. Turing's 1948 paper has been re-printed as Turing AM. Intelligent Machinery. In: Ince DC, editor. Collected works of AM Turing Mechanical Intelligence. Elsevier Science Publishers, 1992.
  2. Webster CS. Alan Turing's unorganized machines and artificial neural networks: his remarkable early work and future possibilities. Evolutionary Intelligence 2012: 5; 35–43.
  3. Compucology.net Technology and biology "Unorganized machines and the brain"

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