Multiscale Computation and Dynamic Attention in Biological and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Biological and artificial intelligence (AI) are often defined by their capacity to achieve a hierarchy of short-term and long-term goals that require incorporating information over time and space at both local and global scales. More advanced forms of this capacity involve the adaptive modulation of integration across scales, which resolve computational inefficiency and explore-exploit dilemmas at the same time. Research in neuroscience and AI have both made progress towards understanding architectures that achieve this. Insight into biological computations come from phenomena such as decision inertia, habit formation, information search, risky choices and foraging. Across these domains, the brain is equipped with mechanisms (such as the dorsal anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) that can represent and modulate across scales, both with top-down control processes and by local to global consolidation as information progresses from sensory to prefrontal areas. Paralleling these biological architectures, progress in AI is marked by innovations in dynamic multiscale modulation, moving from recurrent and convolutional neural networks—with fixed scalings—to attention, transformers, dynamic convolutions, and consciousness priors—which modulate scale to input and increase scale breadth. The use and development of these multiscale innovations in robotic agents, game AI, and natural language processing (NLP) are pushing the boundaries of AI achievements. By juxtaposing biological and artificial intelligence, the present work underscores the critical importance of multiscale processing to general intelligence, as well as highlighting innovations and differences between the future of biological and artificial intelligence.

Emergent Prosocial Behavior During Dynamic Human Group Formation

“…2-3). Thus, the process of human group formation may fundamentally be built from multiscale strategic thinking by individuals who employ socially responsible strategies that comparably weigh selfinterest, group-interest, and group size, rather than self-interest alone (2,12,13). Additionally, our results are consistent with the concept that humans place intrinsic value on social interactions (5,8,9), such as cultivating group size and avoiding social rejection as in our task.…”

“…humans are "socially responsible" self-interested agents) (1-3). However, increasing amounts of evidence suggests broader contexts such as social norms, risk factors and group size may be just as important as individual-scale, self-interested cognitive processes for understanding the social behaviors of groups and the individuals that comprise them (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14). Group size effects on cooperation especially remain controversial and unclear (4,15,16).…”

“…Current studies however, typically monitor group cooperation across individuals after the size of the group is established by the experimenter (4,15,16), rather than the emergence of new social tendencies within individuals as their group sizes changes in a subject-influenced manner (5). From both ecological and laboratory results though, it is clear humans behave quite differently in solitary versus dyadic versus larger group contexts (9,13,17,18). For example, real world (PREPRINT) loneliness and social deprivation have been documented to cause altered behavioral and brain states even on hours-long time scales (5,9).…”

Emergent Prosocial Behavior During Dynamic Human Group Formation

“…humans are "socially responsible" self-interested agents) (Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981;Hanaki et al, 2007;Jennings and Campos, 1997). However, increasing amounts of evidence suggests broader contexts such as social norms, risk factors and group size may be just as important as individual-scale, self-interested cognitive processes for understanding the social behaviors of groups and the individuals that comprise them Zitzler, 1999;Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008;Paluck, 2009;Pfeiffer et al, 2014;Henrich, 2015;Tomova et al, 2020;Badman et al, 2020;Szekely et al, 2021;Spektor et al, 2021;FeldmanHall and Nassar, 2021;Momennejad, 2022). Group size effects on cooperation especially remain controversial and unclear .…”

“…Current studies however, typically monitor group cooperation across individuals after the size of the group is established by the experimenter , rather than the emergence of new social tendencies within individuals as their group sizes changes in a subject-influenced manner (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008;. From both ecological and laboratory results though, it is clear humans behave quite differently in solitary versus dyadic versus larger group contexts (Badman et al, 2020;Dunbar, 2014;Redcay and Schilbach, 2019;Tomova et al, 2020). For example, loneliness and social deprivation have been documented to cause altered behavioral and brain states even on hourslong time scales (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008;Dewald-Kaufmann et al, 2021;Tomova et al, 2020).…”