Robohub.org
 

Self-organized criticality in the brain | Quanta


by
06 April 2014



share this:

“Think of sand running from the top of an hourglass to the bottom. Grain by grain, the sand accumulates. Eventually, the growing pile reaches a point where it is so unstable that the next grain to fall may cause it to collapse in an avalanche. When a collapse occurs, the base widens, and the sand starts to pile up again — until the mound once again hits the critical point and founders. It is through this series of avalanches of various sizes that the sand pile — a complex system of millions of tiny elements — maintains overall stability.”

John Payne‘s insight:

Anyone even casually familiar with systems theory will recognize the terms in which this notion is described. To the extent that it holds true for the workings of the human brain, one may expect that it will also prove useful in the development of strong AI.

See on www.simonsfoundation.org




John Payne





Related posts :



Artificial tendons give muscle-powered robots a boost

  18 Dec 2025
The new design from MIT engineers could pump up many biohybrid builds.

Robot Talk Episode 137 – Getting two-legged robots moving, with Oluwami Dosunmu-Ogunbi

  12 Dec 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Oluwami Dosunmu-Ogunbi from Ohio Northern University about bipedal robots that can walk and even climb stairs.

Radboud chemists are working with companies and robots on the transition from oil-based to bio-based materials

  10 Dec 2025
The search for new materials can be accelerated by using robots and AI models.

Robot Talk Episode 136 – Making driverless vehicles smarter, with Shimon Whiteson

  05 Dec 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Shimon Whiteson from Waymo about machine learning for autonomous vehicles.

Why companies don’t share AV crash data – and how they could

  01 Dec 2025
Researchers have created a roadmap outlining the barriers and opportunities to encourage AV companies to share the data to make AVs safer.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence