Technological Advancement
technological advancement
Screen Savers : Protecting adolescent mental health in a digital world
In our rapidly evolving digital world, there is increasing concern about the impact of digital technologies and social media on the mental health of young people. Policymakers and the public are nervous. Psychologists are facing mounting pressures to deliver evidence that can inform policies and practices to safeguard both young people and society at large. However, research progress is slow while technological change is accelerating.My talk will reflect on this, both as a question of psychological science and metascience. Digital companies have designed highly popular environments that differ in important ways from traditional offline spaces. By revisiting the foundations of psychology (e.g. development and cognition) and considering digital changes' impact on theories and findings, we gain deeper insights into questions such as the following. (1) How do digital environments exacerbate developmental vulnerabilities that predispose young people to mental health conditions? (2) How do digital designs interact with cognitive and learning processes, formalised through computational approaches such as reinforcement learning or Bayesian modelling?However, we also need to face deeper questions about what it means to do science about new technologies and the challenge of keeping pace with technological advancements. Therefore, I discuss the concept of ‘fast science’, where, during crises, scientists might lower their standards of evidence to come to conclusions quicker. Might psychologists want to take this approach in the face of technological change and looming concerns? The talk concludes with a discussion of such strategies for 21st-century psychology research in the era of digitalization.
Use of Artificial Intelligence by Law Enforcement Authorities in the EU
Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a global priority. Rapid and ongoing technological advancements in AI have prompted European legislative initiatives to regulate its use. In April 2021, the European Commission submitted a proposal for a Regulation that would harmonize artificial intelligence rules across the EU, including the law enforcement sector. Consequently, law enforcement officials await the outcome of the ongoing inter-institutional negotiations (trilogue) with great anticipation, as it will define how to capitalize on the opportunities presented by AI and how to prevent criminals from abusing this emergent technology.
Functional ultrasound imaging during behavior
The dream of a systems neuroscientist is to be able to unravel neural mechanisms that give rise to behavior. It is increasingly appreciated that behavior involves the concerted distributed activity of multiple brain regions so the focus on single or few brain areas might hinder our understanding. There have been quite a few technological advancements in this domain. Functional ultrasound imaging (fUSi) is an emerging technique that allows us to measure neural activity from medial frontal regions down to subcortical structures up to a depth of 20 mm. It is a method for imaging transient changes in cerebral blood volume (CBV), which are proportional to neural activity changes. It has excellent spatial resolution (~100 μm X 100 μm X 400 μm); its temporal resolution can go down to 100 milliseconds. In this talk, I will present its use in two model systems: marmoset monkeys and rats. In marmoset monkeys, we used it to delineate a social – vocal network involved in vocal communication while in rats, we used it to gain insights into brain wide networks involved in evidence accumulation based decision making. fUSi has the potential to provide an unprecedented access to brain wide dynamics in freely moving animals performing complex behavioral tasks.
Storythinking: Why Your Brain is Creative in Ways that Computer AI Can't Ever Be
Computer AI thinks differently from us, which is why it's such a useful tool. Thanks to the ingenuity of human programmers, AI's different method of thinking has made humans redundant at certain human tasks, such as chess. Yet there are mechanical limits to how far AI can replicate the products of human thinking. In this talk, we'll trace one such limit by exploring how AI and humans create differently. Humans create by reverse-engineering tools or behaviors to accomplish new actions. AI creates by mix-and-matching pieces of preexisting structures and labeling which combos are associated with positive and negative results. This different procedure is why AI cannot (and will never) learn to innovate technology or tactics and why it also cannot (and will never) learn to generate narratives (including novels, business plans, and scientific hypotheses). It also serves as a case study in why there's no reason to believe in "general intelligence" and why computer AI would have to partner with other mechanical forms of AI (run on non-computer hardware that, as of yet, does not exist, and would require humans to invent) for AI to take over the globe.