Can machine learning build a brain?

Lukas Snoek - In order to comprehend the workings of the human brain, researchers need to look beyond established ways of doing things, accept that an understanding of something so complex cannot be reached through small-scale experiments looking at individual outcomes in isolation, and embrace the possibilities artificial intelligence and machine learning can offer. This is the call to arms made by psychologist Lukas Snoek in his PhD research. He will defend his thesis on Wednesday, 9 February, at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). What is your thesis about?. 'The thread running through my thesis is 'prediction'. This is not something we learn in our studies. We are taught to think in terms of hypotheses, to experiment to see if there's a difference between condition A and condition B. But I never felt this was the right way to be finding answers about the brain - we can keep doing test after test and study after study looking at individual elements, but my assertion is that won't bring us to the truth about how we think, how we behave.