'Grow and Prune' AI Mimics Brain Development, Slashes Energy Use
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'Grow and prune' AI mimics brain development, slashes energy use:
It may come as a shock to parents facing the daily chaos of toddler life, but the brain's complexity peaks around age three.
The number of connections between neurons virtually explodes in our first few years. After that the brain starts pruning away unused portions of this vast electrical network, slimming to roughly half the number by the time we reach adulthood. The over-provisioning of the toddler brain allows us to acquire language and develop fine motor skills. But what we don't use, we lose.
Now this ebb and flow of biological complexity has inspired a team of researchers at Princeton to create a new model for artificial intelligence, creating programs that meet or surpass industry standards for accuracy using only a fraction of the energy. In a pair of papers published earlier this year, the researchers showed how to start with a simple design for an AI network, grow the network by adding artificial neurons and connections, then prune away unused portions leaving a lean but highly effective final product.
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