Article archive / December 2018
Originally published: . Volume 9, No. 12. Source pages: 14.
From Amazon to our credit scores, Deep Learning is already influencing our lives. Very soon indeed, its methods will be used to drive our cars, select what we eat, compose what music we listen to, and even make medical decisions for us.
For Psychologists, as for many professionals, Deep Learning may well make much of what we do irrelevant, unless we change our practice model.
A great introduction to the topic is Professor Terrence Sejnowski’s recent semi autobiography and history The Deep Learning Revolution.
Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, is a pioneer in the field of computational neuroscience. His extraordinary research in computer modeling of the brain has combined the elegance and rigor of cellular level precision with a systemic understanding of global brain functioning.
Reminiscent of Hans Eysenck almost three generations ago, his contributions are astonishing for their variety, breadth, and richness. Equally like Eysenck, his writing style is succinct and highly convincing, though without the polemics. He can almost effortlessly make complex topics understandable and Deep Learning is pretty darn esoteric!
If you are at all interested in what the world will be like in ten years and the person who made it possible, read this book. It will leave you somewhat satisfied but admittedly unsettled.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.