A Journey to the Future
Dr Shane Moon began his experience in the field of Artifical Intelligence before he even knew it was Artificial Intelligence. Almost 20 years ago he was planning his Doctoral Dissertation to incorporate his neuroscience training in neural networks and neural pathways into health and well-being. In line with his previous research he framed questions around health & well-being application research first and foremost. Statistical methods is a necessary evil for a non-statistician researcher but as a driven researcher he was looking for a better way to utilise bioinformational data in psychology, neuroscience and health research.
It was in his process he stumbled across artificial neural networks (ANN). He explored ANN for quite some time learning about how much data would be needed to obtain to establish a ‘training’ set; what software could be used to contruct an ANN and of course optimising an ANN to get to the outcomes he was wanting to achieve – a better way to diagnose and treatment plan within the sensitivies of psychology, neuroscience and health research. So much opportunity and excitement……
Unfortunately, at that time his ideas were not well recieved by the ‘health sciences’ and so he was ‘encouraged’ into the more acceptable methods of statiscal analysis including Structural Equation Modelling; Path Analysis and Linear Regression – all great methods too by the way – but a fair distance from ANN or other machine learning techniques.
Moderately unphased by the closed minedness of the health sciences – he turned his attention to consumer sciences and explored the concept of Linear Genetic Programming (LGP) in 2005 when he was an associate at a quantitative power house of marketing science & consumer research – surely they would ‘get it’. Some of the bright minds did get it BUT up against the already bread and butter of the organisation’s ‘products’ LGP was to no avail. Shelved again.
In business, marketing and life for that matter, the reality is that the success of BIG ideas is as much about timing and luck as it is about the idea itself. Applying ANN, and Machine Learning such as Linear Genetic Programming to psychology, neuroscience, health and even consumer research for applied outcomes is no different. After almost two decades only now is AI becoming an attainable reality to the wider markets whom are realising the potential.
So let the journey continue…
Artifical Intelligence, Machine/ Deep Learning & Artificial Neural Networks
These terms are often used interchangeably. It is important to note that AI is the umbrella and machine learning, linear genetic programming, ANN are subsets of study/ practice within AI. What is more, the computing power required to get the full benefit of AI has been severly lacking until more recent times. There are excellent articles written elsewhere about the key differences and a simple search using the phrase ‘what is the difference between AI and Machine Learning’ returns some great results. We highly recommend you do this search and read some of the published works available.
For our company our vision has evolved from our origins in psychology, neuroscience and marketing science to use AI and the range of AI methodologies and techniques to find applied meaning that improves the lives of everyone.
Our mission is not to be limited by naysayers rather allow our imagination to think beyond what they say can’t be done and find ways to make it happen.
Smart Applications with AI - Machine/ Deep Learning Processes
What are smart applications really. Essentially, the power found in computing currently allows for the capturing, storing and analysing of data so that these processes are no longer a barrier to the development of great ideas. However, technology only provides the pathway while people must still walk down it to get to where they are going.
Partnering with the right institutions is our goal and we have set out to make this partnership a reality. The right institution by default has the right people that share our passion, vision and motivations to develop smart applications that deliver valuable outcomes for the end user be it in education, health, defence, automotives, security or robotics or…..
We are developing the platforms; the tools and the capabilities to deliver next generation technologies and applications that focus on improving life. Our name may change in the future but our lofty goals will remain the same.