Dear MIT Prof. Ed Boyden and Aldis Sipolins (Virtual Reality at IBM),
I'm writing to introduce you to one another. Aldis is Head of Virtual Reality & Game Design for IBM Research (https://twitter.com/
Aldis, Ed speaks as an expert in this Youtube video - "Explorations with Bryan Johnson | Neurotechnology" to give you an idea of one of his current focuses ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?
World University and School, which is like CC Wikipedia (in ~300 languages) with best STEM CC OpenCourseWare (accrediting on CC MIT OCW in 7 languages and CC Yale OYC) is developing free online accrediting major CC universities in all countries' main languages (offering free CC MIT OCW in 7 languages and Yale OYC-centric BA/BS, Ph.D., Law, M.D. and I.B. degrees), on the one hand, and wiki schools in all 7,943+ languages for open teaching and learning, on the other hand, and would like to develop our platform and information technologies by planning for all-languages' brain science research and classrooms. CC WUaS plans further to develop in CC Wikidata/Wikibase/Wikipedia with artificial intelligence, machine learning and machine translation.
Having just attended a Stanford talk last week with Jeff Dean, a Senior Fellow and head of engineering at Google, and who was talking about their Google Brain project in many ways re Artificial Intelligence and language - "Deep Learning for Text Understanding and Information Retrieval" - WUaS would like to explore developing our all-languages' approach to A.I. while modeling neurons computationally in a direct co-constituting relationship with biological neuronal processes. In his talk, Jeff Dean showed the computational model of a neuron, which Google Brain is iterating on only very gradually (among many key AI foci for Google). Further developing computational neuronal modeling in a co-constituting relationship with actual neurons doesn't appear to be a main focus for Google yet - and yet this will make A.I. and machine learning remarkably robust and generative in multiple ways - and in room-size classrooms (Aldis's focus) especially. And this co-constituting relationship however is where Virtual Reality will be an amazing bridge between computational neurons and biological neurons and especially re room-size classrooms.
Jeff Dean's research is fascinating for WUaS/me re Google's relatively open, excellent, free, best-value ecosystem (e.g. TensorFlow, its new chip, Street View/Maps/Earth, Google Translate in 180 languages, G+ Social Media, Youtube, Google Cardboard, Android, Brain, Search ... and all their A.I./machine learning/machine translation work beyond Brain) and with their licensing. Because of Google's relative openness licensing-wise, and the possibility for Creative Commons' licensed WUaS to build upon this and with CC MIT OCW in 7 languages, and with WUaS's plans to be in all 7,943+ languages in Virtual Reality especially (for ethno-wiki-virtual-world-
Furthermore, CC WUaS's brain research and courses will focus, for example, on - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/
Brainwave head sets, such as Tan Le's or Brainfinger's - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.
Given that Aldis is "exclusively interested in developing for room-scale virtual reality with the HTC Vive," ... and ... "given that the system costs about $2000 all told ($800 for the headset, $1200 for the computer to run it), [and that] it'll be a while before the hardware is cheap enough to scale," and as a way for me to contribute to furthering this dialogue, in what ways do you, Aldis, a) envision brain research to be taught in room size classrooms and b) in what ways will class-room dialogue itself (e.g. between, for example, MIT students in group video) emerge in the classrooms (such as moving this Google Hangouts themselves into a virtual earth / Google Street View/Maps/Earth-informed - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.
Ed, I'm including Jim and Dianne in this email since both are heads of IBM Global University and have been involved in Aldis and my correspondence. (Jim Spohrer also has a BS from MIT in physics and a Ph.D. from Yale in CS).
Looking forward to further communication about this. Thank you, Ed and Aldis.
All the best,
Scott
Thanks for your email, Aldis Sipolins.
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Hi, Aldis and Ed,
Thanks, Aldis. It will indeed be interesting how gaming technologies (see the MIT OCW in the beginning "Gaming-Digital" wiki subject at WUaS - http://worlduniversity.wikia.
How CC World University and School will teach CC MIT OCW about this in countries' main languages (e.g. hiring MIT graduate students who are learning to become faculty members) re the systems you design with "brain-gaming" information technologies and Watson, Aldis, as well as in a realistic virtual earth in, for example, Google Street View / Google Brain systems with its word focus (Brainfingers is a brainwave headset that I’ve tried which allows one to pick letters from a keyboard with “brainwaves,” and without spoken words or gestures), and in new ways emerging from MIT, will create many new courses in many large languages (as well as much new virtual brain research potential).
Ed, where do you see brain research and virtual reality, and teaching about this, finding a generative future beyond the video you shared on Twitter, and in ways, as Aldis wrote, that "capitalize on the cutting edge of VR tech that's hit the market in the past few weeks to make uniquely immersive, engaging lessons" and also particularly re university / company partnerships?
Best, Scott
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Thanks for your email, Ed Boyden.
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Thanks for your email again, Aldis.
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Hi, Aldis, Ed and Gordon (Jim and Dianne),
Greetings, Gordon! Thanks for a fascinating IBM CSIG talk this morning on “Cognitive Computing” and your reply to my question about natural language processing and neuromorphic clusters of 1000 neurons. (Both IBM's Aldis and I have given recent IBM CSIG talks - http://cognitive-science.info/
Aldis and Ed, in a parallel way, part of my long term actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs' anthropological project is to digitally model the fluid environment of the Harbin warm pool - which is roughly 15 feet by 30 feet - for ongoing actual-virtual film-realistic, interactive, 3D, wiki, build-able, with realistic and fantastic avatars, all 8k languages' comparisons - at the Street View level, as well as at the neuronal and nano levels. Not only would there be aqueous parallels digitally/computationally between modeling and visualizing the brain at both the neuronal and nano levels/scales, but I'm also interested in terms of research on the effects on the brain re visualizing in the Harbin warm pool - and for a variety of ground-level specific mental / cognitive processes. And again in terms of AI, I'm further interested in the co-constituting relationship between computational neurons and biological neurons (see previous email).
In addition to Jeff Dean's recent Stanford talk on Google Brain - https://research.google.com/
And Watson Virtual Reality, Google Brain environments, your work, Gordon, and your team's "Multiplexed Neural Recording Down a Single Optical Fiber via Optical Reflectometry with Capacitive Signal Enhancement" work, Ed, will likely be taught at MIT OpenCourseWare - and in multiple languages. (Did you happen to watch and hear, Aldis, the very relevant CSIG IBM talk this morning by IBM's Dr. Gordon Pipa - http://cognitive-science.info/
The important aspect of the methodology I'm developing which I'm calling ethno-wiki-virtual-world-
I'm planning to apply for this MIT Media Lab junior faculty position - http://www.media.mit.edu/
Let's explore further developing room-scale VR visualization for precise brain research at the neuronal, nano and Street View levels, as this could "be an exciting area for collaboration."
Best, Scott
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