AI Talks: Cells that fire together, wire together; Lessons for every Data Scientist
‘Cells that fire together, wire together’ is a popular quote in the field of Artificial Intelligence coined by Donald Hebb in 1949. You may be new to the quote if you are still completely new to AI or you are just learning Deep Learning. However, irrespective of your level it is a nice concept to understand. And that is what I want to explain in a plain English. And how it’s applied to our work and life as a data scientist or analyst.
Probably you have a basic knowledge in Biology and and you understand cell is the basic structural, functional, and biological unit of all known organisms, that is, cells are the smallest units of life. On the other hand, Neurons, also known as nerve cells, send and receive signals from your brain. Neurons are the basic functional units of the nervous system. While neurons have a lot in common with other types of cells, they’re structurally and functionally unique.
The goal of AI professionals is to build a system or agent that is capable of acting and thinking intelligently like man or even better than man, hence there’s need to study how our cells, brains, neurons work together. This is why in deep learning you often hear word relating to all these terms. On the course of Hebb trying to understand, associative learning, he coined the popular quote: ‘Cells that fire together, wire together’. It can also be translated to “neurons that fire together wire together”.
Hebb quote suggests that every experience, thought, feeling, and physical sensation triggers thousands of neurons, which form a neural network. When you repeat an experience over and over, the brain learns to trigger the same neurons each time. In another one, it means a biological neuron often triggers another neuron, and the connection between these two neurons grows stronger.
This means the more you run a neural-circuit in your brain, the stronger that circuit becomes. This is why, to quote another old saying, “practice makes perfect”. The more you practice piano, or speaking a language, or juggling, the stronger those circuits get. The more you open your IDE to battle with that code, the more you understand it better. The more you clean data and build models, the more you become better. In order to better understand how the concept of cell that fire together, wire together. Let’s look at example stated by Supercamp:
Examples of the Neural Network in Action
It can be beneficial to have neurons wired together. The neural network helps us learn, store, and recall information in an effective way. For example, when you’re getting to know an acquaintance, the neural network helps you to remember the person’s name through many subtle triggers.
However, the network can go awry when we try to unwire or rewire neurons to respond to a situation in a new way. A tragic example would be a child who has suffered abuse. Physical contact of any kind might be enough to trigger a fight-or-flight response, even when it isn’t appropriate.
PS: There are discussion as regards the quote of was truly coined by Hebb or not. You can read it here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4006178/#:~:text=They%20write%3A%20'Hebb%20famously%20said,facilitates%20activity%20in%20the%20other%E2%80%9D.
Reference: https//themindisthemap.com/neurons-that-fire-together-wire-together/
