Talking nets
by James A. Anderson, Edward Rosenfeld · first published 1998
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3HN commenters
2016–2025first – last mentioned
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Since World War II, a group of scientists has been attempting to understand the human nervous system and to build computer systems that emulate the brian's abilities. Many of the workers in this field of neural networks came from cybernetics; others came from neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, psychology, even economics. In this collection of interviews, those who helped to shape the field share their childhood memories, their influences, how they became interested in neural networks, and how they envision its future.
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…Suarez Billy Summers - Stephen King Elsewhere - Dean Koontz Honorable Mention - Non-Fiction: We See It All - Jon Fasman Integrating Rules and Connectionism for Robust Commonsense Reasoning - Ron Sun Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks - James A. Anderson The Soar Cognitive Architecture - John Laird
on “Ask HN: What was the best book you read in 2021?” ↗…Suarez Billy Summers - Stephen King Elsewhere - Dean Koontz Honorable Mention - Non-Fiction: We See It All - Jon Fasman Integrating Rules and Connectionism for Robust Commonsense Reasoning - Ron Sun Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks - James A. Anderson The Soar Cognitive Architecture - John Laird
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗Your skepticism is warranted :) Grossberg is not that unrecognized. I'd recommend Talking Nets by Anderson and Rosenfeld and Margaret Boden's Mind as Machine. Both are scholarly histories of the field. Boden's book is far more comprehensive. Worth reading in any case if you are interested in the…
on “Deep learning can’t be trusted, brain modelling pioneer says” ↗I think you'll find that backpropagation was essentially developed (multiple times) during the 60s in the field of control theory and first implemented in the early 70s. Indeed. The book Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks[1] covers a lot of this ground. Read it and you'll see many people who were involved in the early history NN's mentioning how backprop was discovered and re-discovered…
on “Frank Rosenblatt's perceptron paved the way for AI 60 years too soon (2019)” ↗…don't have specific citations in front of me, but I will say that a lot of interesting bits about the history of the development of neural networks (including backpropagation) can be found in the book Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks[1]. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Nets-History-Neural-Networks/...
on “Who Invented Backpropagation?” ↗…Communication in Natural Language by Roland Hausser[1] The Hidden Pattern: A Patternist Philosophy of Mind by Ben Goertzel[2] Integrating Rules and Connectionism for Robust Commonsense Reasoning by Ron Sun[3] Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks by James A. Anderson (Editor), Edward Rosenfeld (Editor)[4] Readings in Cognitive Science: A Perspective from Psychology and Artificial Intelligence by Alan Collins…
on “Ask HN: What are you working on this weekend?” ↗I stumbled across a reference to this (known also as a "Mason Diagram") while reading Talking Nets: A Oral History of Neural Networks.[1] Walter Freeman's reaction to them piqued my interest, and I thought some of the rest of you might find this of interest as well. [1]: https://books.google.com/books?id=-l-yim2lNRUC&pg=PA29&lpg=P...
on “Signal-Flow Graph” ↗…the book Neurocomputing, Foundations of Research Yes, I picked that up (both volumes) late last year. Same for Neural Smithing[1] which I just acquired a copy of about two days ago. I also read that Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks[2] book last year. Lots of threads to follow based on that. Actually, now that I think about it, I think that's where I found out about Neurocomputing. [1]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262527019/neural-smithing/…
on “Pattern Theory: The Mathematics of Perception (D. Mumford) (2002)” ↗I thought that is what you mean when you said "a lot of interesting bits about the history of the development of neural networks (including backpropagation) can be found in the book Talking Nets", that there is some relevant reference to backprop which is missing here in the linked article. I don't really understand your negativity here, and what you are reading into my comment. I never asked…
on “Who Invented Backpropagation?” ↗I thought that is what you mean when you said "a lot of interesting bits about the history of the development of neural networks (including backpropagation) can be found in the book Talking Nets", that there is some relevant reference to backprop which is missing here in the linked article. Nah, I wasn't trying to imply that that book had anything more than the article, at least in regards to…
on “Who Invented Backpropagation?” ↗