Week 7 Blog Post

Part 1:

The topics that I choose are:

Robots, Computing, Artificial Intelligence:

            Being a computer science major, I am very interested in how computers work. Artificial intelligence is a subject that intrigues me very much, and although I know quite a bit about it, I would always love to learn more about it.

The End of the World:

            The end of the world is another fascinating topic that has always captivated me. There are so many different ways the world may end, and there are just many scientific and religious implications that tie into this subject.

Psychology and Neuropsychology:

            The human mind is the most powerful and amazing computer the world has ever seen. The billions of billions of neural connections allow the brain to receive, analyze, and store an incredible amount of information. Analyzing the human brain can be a lot like examining a computer, so this topic is another that peaks my interest.

Part 2:

These are the articles I found relating to the topics above:

Robots, Computing, Artificial Intelligence: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/technology/in-a-big-network-of-computers-evidence-of-machine-learning.html?ref=artificialintelligence

This NY Times article discusses a Google project that linked 16,000 computer processors to simulate the human brain. This vast network was turned to the internet, and from there, it taught itself to recognize cats. The main achievement of this was that at no point, did anyone from the research team define what a cat is for this network; it created its own definition by studying images pulled from millions of YouTube videos. This project was a giant step for the machine learning community.

The End of the World: http://www.convergingzone.com/technology/12-ways-the-world-could-really-end-in-2012-by-jeff-wise/

This article talks about some of the different ways the world might possibly end. Some of the listed apocalypses are well known ones, such as asteroid impact, nuclear war, and pandemic. Tons of movies, books, and other forms of media have been published using these forms of disaster as plot devices. Other less familiar scenarios are ocean acidification, an artificial black hole, and the X factor, which can be anything that scientists simply don’t know about the universe. For anyone who’s interested in the many theories, and how they work, this article is a great read.

Psychology and Neuropsychology: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199501/its-magical-its-malleable-its-memory

In this article, Jill Neimark writes about how memory may not be as reliable as we may think. We rely on memory so much through-out the day, but we never really think about whether it may be right or not. Over time, memories get fuzzy and unclear. Even if an event has just occurred, people will remember that event differently because everyone has a different point of view. Memories can be changed or altered depending on their review, as in the case of Elizabeth Loftus in this article.