Curiosity in minds and machine learners
In the “classic” machine learning paradigm of supervised learning, there’s no role for curiosity. The goal of a supervised learning algorithm is simply to match a set of labels for a provided dataset as closely as possible. The task is clearly defined, and even if the algorithm was capable of wondering about the meaning of the data pouring into it, this wouldn’t help with the learning task at all.
For humans, on the other hand, curiosity seems to be an integral part of how we learn. Even before starting school, children are hard at work figuring out the world around them.… Read the rest