Jane and I discuss the relationship between AI and neuroscience (cognitive science, etc), from her perspective at Deepmind after a career researching natural intelligence. We also talk about her meta-reinforcement learning work that connects deep reinforcement learning with known brain circuitry and processes, and finally we talk about her recent work using evolutionary strategies to develop altruism and cooperation among the agents in a multi-agent reinforcement learning environment.

Related:

• Jane’s website.
• Twitter: @janexwang. 
• The papers we discuss or mention:
  • Learning to reinforcement learn.
  • Blog post with a link to the paper: Prefrontal cortex as a meta-reinforcement learning system.
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning and its Neuroscientific Implications
  • Evolving Intrinsic Motivations for Altruistic Behavior.
• Books she recommended:
  • Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control, by Stuart Russell:
  • Algorithms to Live By, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths.

Timeline:

0:00 - Intro 3:36 - Skip Intro 4:45 - Transition to Deepmind 19:56 - Changing perspectives on neuroscience 24:49 - Is neuroscience useful for AI? 33:11 - Is deep learning hitting a wall? 35:57 - Meta-reinforcement learning 52:00 - Altruism in multi-agent RL