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A Neural Programming Language for the Reservoir Computer (arxiv.org)
2 points by saturated on Jun 3, 2022 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: They break a recurrent network's internal states into a symbolic basis of its inputs, giving a machine code for writing instructions into the network instead of training it. With it they solved equations, stored chaotic systems as memory, and ran a game of Pong.

Abstract

From logical reasoning to mental simulation, biological and artificial neural systems possess an incredible capacity for computation. Such neural computers offer a fundamentally novel computing paradigm by representing data continuously and processing information in a natively parallel and distributed manner. To harness this computation, prior work has developed extensive training techniques to understand existing neural networks. However, the lack of a concrete and low-level programming language for neural networks precludes us from taking full advantage of a neural computing framework. Here, we provide such a programming language using reservoir computing -- a simple recurrent neural network -- and close the gap between how we conceptualize and implement neural computers and silicon computers. By decomposing the reservoir's internal representation and dynamics into a symbolic basis of its inputs, we define a low-level neural machine code that we use to program the reservoir to solve complex equations and store chaotic dynamical systems as random access memory (dRAM). Using this representation, we provide a fully distributed neural implementation of software virtualization and logical circuits, and even program a playable game of pong inside of a reservoir computer. Taken together, we define a concrete, practical, and fully generalizable implementation of neural computation.

Jason Z. Kim, Dani S. Bassett
arXiv:2203.05032 · cond-mat.dis-nn, math.DS, nlin.CD · submitted Mar 9, 2022
abstract · pdf · html · 13 pages, 6 figures, with a supplement

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Also discussed: Mar 2022 (4 points, 0 comments)