Neural Networks draw inspiration from the world of biological neurons. But let me draw a reverse analogy from the world of artificial intelligence and try applying the business intelligence model of neural networks to the way a human brain works.
Putting a threshold value to the output node invariably results to a unique and precise answer in the case of neural networks. The answer would be correct or not is not what I am trying to contest, what seeks appreciation is the sheer lucidity. It is an established fact that AI tries to encapsulate only an iota of the biological neural network complexity. Artificial models can still not match the functionality of tens of googols of neurons of the human brain. But then, is it not only fair to assume that given the fact that a human brain network is more complex, the clarity of the output should simply be lot more than the artificial networks! But is it?
Human nature is inherently indecisive, more often than not. Going by the above argument, it probably should not be so. Then why is that we are left with so many choices in the end? After all, is it not the brain who is supposed to take these decisions for us and make our lives simpler? Let me leave this argument here and shift focus to another argument that would form the antecedent to this one.
They say that life is a rat race, and we are daily fighting to achieve, to supersede, and to win! 23 years of going through the same, I have to say I have hit saturation levels. There are two types of creatures in this world: there are people who always strive to excel, and to achieve better than the others. Then there are those who actually excel, who attain the pinnacle of success and are the leaders in their domains: the highest levels of performance! Does it mean that they have won the rat race…..not quite! Both types of creatures have one element in common…the need to improve…the fight with the alter ego. I hope the majority of readers would agree to my statement that often they are faced with a situation wherein they see two facets, two solutions, two apt choices for the same problem. At the entrance of the business world, it is imperative we are accustomed to such situations. To simplify what I am trying to say, imagine what our very own Bollywood hero goes through while in his “Dharamasankat,” remember the two surreal images that pop out of his head- the angel and the devil who offer contrasting advice to our Mr. Hero. Mr. Hero in the end goes with the wiser advice of the angel. But in real world, how often do we know which one is the angel and which one is the devil? This is a different definition of the rat race, common to all. What essentially I am trying to say is that there is a constant tussle between man and his second self, or the inner self, whatever you want to name it. This is the real contest, as it would determine who wins in the end. A soul at peace with itself could only be declared the top dog.
Let us try to string the two seemingly disparate arguments together. Traditionally, our model of biological neural network is trained with the data that we get as our culture, through family values and all. For example, if I talk about supervised learning, we train our neural network with data like: ‘A Punjabi is likely to be spendthrift, or an IIM grad would be super intelligent.’ But when faced with real time problems, our model many a times goes for a toss….it is so because our alter ego trains itself differently. Maybe it trains itself on the practical realities that we face ourselves. Heraclitus had coined the famous saying-‘The only thing constant is change.’ Generation Y is testimony to this very fact. What we are groomed on is the knowledge we attain as a legacy, from our family and the traditional educational system. But then there is the other world, the real world, which is not quite as bright. Our alter ego trains itself on the real data. Because of differences on the training set in both these cases, the weights for the synaptic links come out to be different, hence giving different outputs at the output node, leading to the ever so confusing word…..CHOICE. Our achievements in the longer run are a function of these choices that we make. In a nutshell, it is a regular struggle that we go through not against the world, but against ourselves.
In the fight of me v/s me, do you think it is possible to hit the numero uno???
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