The next VSAonline webinar is at 17:00 UTC (not the usual time), Monday 27 January.

Zoom: https://ltu-se.zoom.us/j/65564790287

WEB: https://bit.ly/vsaonline

Speaker: Anthony Thomas from UC Davis, USA

Title: ”Sketching a Picture of Vector Symbolic Architectures”

Abstract : Sketching algorithms are a broad area of research in theoretical computer science and numerical analysis that aim to distil data into a simple summary, called a "sketch," that retains some essential notion of structure while being much more efficient to store, query, and transmit.

Vector-symbolic architectures (VSAs) are an approach to computing on data represented using random vectors, and provide an elegant conceptual framework for realizing a wide variety of data structures and algorithms in a way that lends itself to implementation in highly-parallel and energy-efficient computer hardware.

Sketching algorithms and VSA have a substantial degree of consonance in their methods, motivations, and applications. In this tutorial style talk, I will discuss some of the connections between these two fields, focusing, in particular, on the connections between VSA and tensor-sketches, a family of sketching algorithms concerned with the setting in which the data being sketched can be decomposed into Kronecker (tensor) products between more primitive objects. This is exactly the situation of interest in VSA and the two fields have arrived at strikingly similar solutions to this problem.

#VectorSymbolicArchitectures #VSA #HyperdimensionalComputing #HDC #AI #ML #ComputationalCognitiveScience #CompCogSci #MathematicalPsychology #MathPsych #CognitiveScience #CogSci @cogsci

I was looking through the VSAonline website (https://sites.google.com/view/hdvsaonline/home) and saw that by the end of this year there will be 96 recorded webinars plus the recordings from the Midnight Sun 2023 workshop.

So, if you're interested in #VectorSymbolicArchitecture / #HyperdimensionalComputing or just #VSA / #HDC -curious, the VSAonline website is the place to go (or head over to https://www.hd-computing.com/home, where there's a wider range of resources, including publication lists).

#CognitiveScience #CogSci #ComputationalCognitiveScience #CompCogSci #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ML #MachineLearning #neuromorphic #ComputationalNeuroscience

New preprint:
“Algebras of actions in an agent’s representations of the world”

https://scholar.social/@E_Mondragon/111177742052625126

#CogSci #CompCogSci #MathPsych #preprint #NewPaper

Thanks @hosford42 for reminding me of this half-day tutorial on Vector Symbolic Architectures / Hyperdimensional Computing. The authors have been applying HDC/VSA to place recognition in robotics, but the tutorial coverage is much wider.

https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/etit/proaut/workshops_tutorials/hdc_ki19/index.html

#VSA #VectorSymbolicArchitecture #HDC #HyperdimensionalComputing #CogRob #CognitiveRobotics #CompCogSci #ComputationalCognitiveScience #CogSci #CognitiveScience #MathPsych #MathematicalPsychology

Help from older folk please: In the earlier days of artificial intelligence (GOFAI) - say, the 1980s - there was an aphorism to the effect that once you had found the right data representation for your problem you had pretty much solved your problem (i.e. choice of representation dominates choice of algorithm).

I would greatly appreciate (some approximation to) the actual text of the aphorism and, if possible, some citation to its origin.

Thanks!

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #GOFAI #GoodOldFashionedAI #aphorisms #sayings #CogSci #CognitiveScience #CompCogSci #ComputationalCognitiveScience

Here are two high level articles that mention Vector Symbolic Architecure / HyperDimensional Computing in the more "popular" end of the technical press:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-approach-to-computation-reimagines-artificial-intelligence-20230413/

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10098176

#VSA #VectorSymbolicArchitecture #HDC #HyperdimensionalComputing #CompCogSci #ComputationalCognitiveScience #CogSci #CognitiveScience #MathPsych #MathematicalPsychology

High level piece on hyperdimensional computing / Vector Symbolic Architecture in Quanta Magazine:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-approach-to-computation-reimagines-artificial-intelligence-20230413/

#VSA #VectorSymbolicArchitecture #HDC #HyperdimensionalComputing #CompCogSci #CogSci #CognitiveScience

RT @ZennaTavares@twitter.com

Introducing AutumnSynth, a step toward automating scientific discovery through program synthesis.

AutumnSynth synthesizes the source code of a video game from seconds of play.

paper: https://basis.ai/publications/autumn_popl23.pdf

Blog: https://basis.ai/blog/autumn/

Why do this? How does it work?
🦃🧵 https://twitter.com/ZennaTavares/status/1620855534483296256

#cogsci @cogsci #compcogsci #programinduction #programsynthesis

Mark Ho does very exciting work and is recruiting PhD students for this Fall

RT @mark_ho_@twitter.com

Excited to share that Fall 2023, I'm starting a lab in the CS department @FollowStevens !

Even MORE excited to share that I'm recruiting Ph.D. students interested in computational Cog Sci, RL, and/or HCI 🧠💭🤖!

The official deadline is *Feb 1st*...

🦃🧵 https://twitter.com/mark_ho_/status/1613212308527890433

#cogsci #compcogsci #hci @cogsci

@NicoleCRust field-specific hashtags for paper announcements and threads might not work so well for those of us with poor memories and interests across multiple fields, because we would have to remember the specific hashtags for each field.

The Mastodon advanced web interface allows you to follow combinations of hashtags (instructions here: https://blog.djnavarro.net/posts/2022-11-03_what-i-know-about-mastodon/#tracking-hashtags) but it doesn't appear to allow for (#neuroscience AND (#NewPaper OR #PaperThread)), plus I think I found a bug.

For now, I think I will follow (#PaperThread OR #NewPaper OR #NeuroPaperThread OR #NeuroNewPaper OR ...).

Plus, I'm copying in @cogsci #CogSci and #CompCogSci because this is an issue that needs to be discussed in all research communities.

@dae

Readers of "How is perception tractable?" (https://philpapers.org/archive/BROHIP-2.pdf) might also be interested in "High-level perception, representation, and analogy: A critique of artificial intelligence methodology" (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09528139208953747), which doesn't touch on computational tractability but does argue that perception is necessarily *not* encapsulated from cognition.

#CogSci #CompCogSci #CognitiveScience #ComputationalCognitiveScience #cognition #analogy @cogsci

Delighted to see this work by @T_BrookeWilson@twitter.com out. It critically considers an argument for the encapsulation of perception based on efficiency.

"This contrast, between the significant costs of obligatory perceptual processing and the relatively minor costs of search, undermines the argument from the speed of perception to the absence of cognitive effects."

🦃🧵 https://twitter.com/T_BrookeWilson/status/1611783591150723073

📜🔗
https://philpapers.org/archive/BROHIP-2.pdf

#philosophy #cogsci #compcogsci #psychology #cognitivescience #cognition @cogsci

@melaniemitchell @cogsci

Boosting with hashtags for my followers. See the original post in the thread above.

International SFI summer school on Intelligence and Representation

For PhD students, in Cambridge, UK, August 13-25, 2023. Tuition is free! Apply by March 1, 2023.

https://santafe.edu/engage/learn/programs/complexity-gains-international-summer-school

#CogSci #CognitiveScience #cognition #CompCogSci #ComputationalCognitiveScience

@DrYohanJohn
@cogsci

Boosting for my followers - see original post in the thread above.

The BBS target article on the Language of Thought Hypothesis states:

"We outline six core properties of
LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate-argument
structure; (iv) logical operators; (v) inferential promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content."

It's interesting to think about the extent to which those properties are directly enabled by neural representations using Vector Symbolic Architectures / Hyperdimensional Computing. It hadn't occurred to me to draw a line between LoT and VSA/HDC.

#CogSci #CognitiveScience #CompCogSci #ComputationalCognitiveScience #VSA #VectorSymbolicArchitecture #HDC #HyperdimensionalComputing