Thu, Aug 20
How Do Humans Learn? Biological Foundations
Please complete the tasks and readings listed below before class on Thu, Aug 20.
Required Readings
Optional Readings
Submit to Canvas
Each card below unpacks one account of how learning actually happens. Click a card to preview it, or open the full page for the complete write-up – worth holding up against whatever an AI system's makers mean when they say it 'learns.'
Topic / Focus
Before asking how machines learn, it is useful to take some time to consider how humans learn. Today, we’re going to begin that exploration by examining the biological foundations of learning, knowing, and doing: brains, neurons, networks, and plasticity. Learning physically changes your brain, and many machine learning algorithms are (loosely) based on the idea of “synaptic plasticity.” Therefore, understanding some of these basic concepts will provide an important foundation for later comparisons with machine learning and emerging approaches in AI.
Guiding Questions
- What does it mean for a biological system to learn?
- How can experience change neurons, synapses, networks, and behavior?
- Why is biological learning not one single process?
- What role do the body, environment, emotion, and experience play in learning?
- What do biological accounts of learning help us understand – and complicate – when we talk about machine “learning”?