The creature stalked around the edge of the metal cylinder protruding from the ground.  The cylinder had a smooth black sheen that seemed to absorb the light.  As it completed a second circuit the creature had a sudden memory – the memory of a story it had been told when it was growing up.  The story had described the descent of their species to this land many thousands of years ago – the creature had assumed it to be a fairy tale.  As it paused next to a thin crack in the cylinder a flash of light played across its face.  A second later a voice came from the cylinder.  “Recognised.”  The thin crack started to open.

Researchers at Google have created a large-scale free-form neural network that they have trained using still images from YouTube content.  The training was not directed, yet the system still managed to adapt itself to respond strongly to the image of a cat.  Suggesting that a lot of the training data had cats in it.  Nice to see this kind of raw AI research taking place not just in academia.  Read the blog post here: http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/using-large-scale-brain-simulations-for.html

James.