Summary
Paul Werbos is best known (and most cited) for the original discovery of backpropagation, and for the theorem establishing its validity, as part of his PhD thesis in Applied Mathematics for Harvard in 1974. Even before 1974, he had developed backpropagation as one element of a more general approach to reinforcement learning, which combined a new way to learn to approximate dynamic programming with key insights from Freud’s theory of how learning works in neurons of the brain.
He inaugurated the field which we now know of as RLADP, Reinforcement Learning and Approximate Dynamic Programming, building on this earlier work, his later papers, and on the research area of Adaptive and Intelligent Systems at NSF which he led from 1988 to 2015. This included neural networks, adaptive fuzzy logic, and a major paradigm shift in how to understand intelligence in the brain, which has passed tests on the best real-time brain data (Werbos and Davis 2016).
Source: Regulating AI
Paul Werbos – 21/09/2022 (20:51)
Radical breakthroughs in systems neuroscience, linked to fundamental changes in real, empirical physics and astronomy, now provide a unified understanding of how consciousness emerges in our cosmos, ranging from the lowest levels of intelligence or mind in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which have already been built, up to mammal brains, and to the mind or noosphere manifested in our solar system, which is part of the larger network which mirrors what Jung called “the Spirit of the Deep.” Others speaking at this conference have emphasized that we are more than just brain and soul, especially when we attempt holistic healing, but in a 20 minute talk it will be enough to try to explain (in 10 slides) our new understanding of how a certain level of consciousness emerges in the brain, and then (in 12) how this fits with a new understanding of soul consistent with realistic physics and spiritual experience.
Our OWN consciousness of who we are, and where we are situated, is crucial to the situational awareness which determines our ability to plan and act in a way which contributes to our very survival in the challenging environment we now inhabit.
OnAir Post: Paul Werbos
About
Biography
Backpropagation and RLADP are the main foundations of the new deep learning revolution, which can be traced back to a research program he started at NSF, Cognitive Optimization and Prediction (COPN), and to an award he pushed there to Andrew Ng and Yann LeCun, whose success stories they conveyed to Sergey Brin at Google. AIS also led to more powerful and advanced developments and applications of RLADP, where massive new breakthroughs are still appearing, in areas from electric power, to the control of air and ground vehicles, and in new options for quantum technology for observing the sky, quantum RLADP and cybersecurity. These are reviewed in his new paper, Quantum Technology to Expand Soft Computing, in Systems and Soft Computing (Elsevier), December 2022.
Paul Werbos has probed deeper into how climate change actually does pose a threat to human species existence, and how new IEEE technology and market design could be combined to solve these problems at a much lower cost than any of the well-known existing approaches. These efforts have only just begun, but they have demonstrated already how IEEE technologies (which include market design as in electric power) would allow vastly more impact than present climate policies, at lower cost, and faster. (build-a-world.org).
He has also been active for decades in IEEEUSA, in the planning committee of the Millennium Project, and in the National Space Society. In 2009, as a legislative fellow handling climate and many other areas of science for Senator Specter, he learned the realities of many S&T challenges facing the world today.
- “Urgent New Risks and Needs for Cybersecurity: My Response to a Media Inquiry,” Blogger (February 23, 2024)
- “How Quantum AGI can make massive changes in internet possible, including Reversing Time In Actual Technology,” Blogger (February 14, 2024)
- “Brain-Like Stochastic Search: A Research Challenge and Funding Opportunity,” arXiv (June 1, 2010)
- “Neural network design for J function approximation in dynamic programming,” Math. Modelling Sci. Comput. (June 3, 1998)
- “1972 Proposal to Harvard for Backpropagation and Intelligent Reinforcement System.”
Find all of Werbos’ papers here. He covers a wide range of topics, including artificial intelligence, computer science, quantum physics, and quantitative biology.
Source: Regulating AI page
Web Links
Videos
Consciousness Werbos for Bangalore
(20:51)
By: Paul Werbos
Radical breakthroughs in systems neuroscience, linked to fundamental changes in real, empirical physics and astronomy, now provide a unified understanding of how consciousness emerges in our cosmos, ranging from the lowest levels of intelligence or mind in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which have already been built, up to mammal brains, and to the mind or noosphere manifested in our solar system, which is part of the larger network which mirrors what Jung called “the Spirit of the Deep.” Others speaking at this conference have emphasized that we are more than just brain and soul, especially when we attempt holistic healing, but in a 20 minute talk it will be enough to try to explain (in 10 slides) our new understanding of how a certain level of consciousness emerges in the brain, and then (in 12) how this fits with a new understanding of soul consistent with realistic physics and spiritual experience.
Our OWN consciousness of who we are, and where we are situated, is crucial to the situational awareness which determines our ability to plan and act in a way which contributes to our very survival in the challenging environment we now inhabit.
