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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: neural networks
Message-ID: <837@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Apr-86 19:59:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.837
Posted: Tue Apr 29 19:59:35 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 07:27:38 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
Lines: 26

A recent issue of 'Science' had an article on 'neural networks', which,
apparently consist of a highly interconnected repetition of some sort of
simple 'nodes' with an overall positive feedback and some sort of
randomness thrown in for good measure.  When these networks are 'powered up',
the positive feedback quickly forces the system into a stable state, with
each node either 'on' or 'off'.  The article claimed that some
simulations of moderate sized (10K nodes?) networks had been done, and
reported some rather amazing results.  For one thing, it was discovered
that if just 50 out of 10k nodes are preset to a particular value, the
network has just ~100 very similar stable states, out of 10**1000 possibilities.
They also claimed that one such system was able to arrive at a 'very good'
solution to arbitrary 'traveling salesman' problems!  And that another
network (hooked to a piece of equipment which could produce phonemes, and
presumably some kind of feedback) had been 'trained' to read english text
reasonably well.  They said incredibly little about the actual details of
how each node operates, unfortunately.
    So how about it?  Has anybody else heard of these things?  Is this 
really a way of going about AI in a way which *may* be similar to what
brains do?  Just exactly what algorithms are the nodes implementing, and
how do you provide input and get output from them?  Does anyone know 
where I could get more information about them?
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j