CARTA - Anthropogeny (Audio)

Large language models (LLMs) have now achieved many of the longstanding goals of the quest for generalist AI. While LLMs are still very imperfect (though rapidly improving) in areas like factual grounding, planning, reasoning, safety, memory, and consistency, they do understand concepts, are capable of insight and originality, can problem-solve, and exhibit many faculties we have historically defended vigorously as exceptionally human, such as humor, creativity, and theory of mind. At this point, human responses to the emergence of AI seem to be telling us more about our own psychology, hopes and fears, than about AI itself. However, taking these new AI capacities seriously, and noticing that they all emerge purely from sequence modeling, should cause us to reassess what our own cerebral cortex is doing, and whether we are learning what intelligence, machine or biological, actually is. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38679]

Evolution always presented life forms with new challenges -- due to changes in weather, terrain, competition between different organisms, and other reasons. To increase the chance of survival, instead of solely optimizing current performance, it is in an agent's interest to maximize its ability to adapt to changes. Possibly this old evolutionary trait manifests itself in modern humans in their ability to adapt to new tasks and challenges quickly. Even if we consider a lifetime of a human, the ability to adapt is critical. An open question is what enables humans to adapt, a trait that modern AI systems lack. Frivolous play prepares infants for future life by laying down the foundation of a high-level experimentation framework to quickly understand how things work in new environments for constructing goal-directed plans. Pulkit Agrawal discusses how the idea of experimentation can be leveraged to construct robots that improve with experience and solve novel problems presented to them. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38678]

Feedback interconnections are widespread in the brain; yet clear explanations for most of them are currently lacking. Carmen Amo Alonso and John Doyle explore current experimental evidence on the relationship between the auditory and motor parts of the brain during speech perception and production. These models provide a plausible explanation for how the structure of language, as described in the Parallel Architecture, is implemented in the brain. Together, they provide a plausible account for how the Parallel Architecture of language originates as a result of functional constrains in the sensorimotor system. They compare the brain’s implementation of the language capacity with other cognitive capacities, such as vision or motor planning and control, which also have massive internal feedbacks that our new theory explains for the first time. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38682]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. New methods and multi-disciplinary collaborations are providing exciting new insights into the complicated evolutionary journey that gave rise to our species. However, we remain far from understanding some of the most striking human-specific characteristics: the reasons for our bipedality, the factors selecting for our dexterity at creating and using tools, and the true age of fire use in our distant ancestors. This CARTA symposium features advisory committee members who highlight where they hope future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising for improving our understanding of the human phenomenon. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38305]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. This CARTA symposium highlights where future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising to improve our understanding of the human phenomenon. Evan Eichler talks about the discovery and resolution of genetic variation which is critical to understanding disease and evolution. The data suggests that large-scale genome structural variation continues to play a crucial role in the evolution of the human species.Daniel Geschwind discusses human cognition and how human brain evolution is particularly susceptible to disruption of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 38630]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. This CARTA symposium highlights where the future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising for improving our understanding of the human phenomenon. Pascal Gagneux offers a zoological view of the human cultural animal. Robert Kluender talks about the evolution of language structure and the future of linguistics. Anne Stone discusses ancient DNA research and the surprising insights into human evolutionary history. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 38633]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. This CARTA symposium highlights where the future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising for improving our understanding of the human phenomenon. Yohannes Haile-Selassie discusses the importance of fossil based human origin research. Carol Marchetto talks about the use of stem cells to study human origins. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 38632]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. This CARTA symposium highlights where the future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising for improving our understanding of the human phenomenon. Terry Sejnowski discusses how large-scale neural network models have inspired major advances in artificial intelligence. Sarah Tishkoff talks on how Africa is thought to be the ancestral homeland of all modern human populations. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 38631]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. New methods and multi-disciplinary collaborations are providing exciting new insights into the complicated evolutionary journey that gave rise to our species. However, we remain far from understanding some of the most striking human-specific characteristics: the reasons for our bipedality, the factors selecting for our dexterity at creating and using tools, and the true age of fire use in our distant ancestors. This CARTA symposium features advisory committee members who highlight where they hope future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising for improving our understanding of the human phenomenon. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38296]

Current knowledge of our deep past is primarily derived from ancient fossils of our ancestors that paleoanthropologists search for and discover in some of the most remote areas of the world. In the last two decades, significant fossil discoveries have been made and these discoveries have re-written some parts of our deep past. However, the fossil record is still far from complete, primarily due to the absence of fossils from some critical geological times and the lack of robust samples for the species already identified. The best way to fill temporal gaps in the fossil record and meaningfully increase the sample size is by conducting surveys and exploration to locate new areas of paleoanthropological significance. If we want to fully understand our evolutionary history, especially how we became who we are today and where we are going, continued paleoanthropological fieldwork is of paramount importance. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38499]