science

Mindpixel

Mindpixel is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mindpixel rather than just read about it. In short: Mindpixel was a web-based collaborative artificial intelligence project which aimed to create a knowledgebase of millions of human validated true/false statements, or probabilistic propositions. It ran from 2000 to 2005.

Key takeaways

Mindpixel belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mindpixel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mindpixel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mindpixel was a web-based collaborative artificial intelligence project which aimed to create a knowledgebase of millions of human validated true/false statements, or probabilistic propositions. It ran from 2000 to 2005.

Description Participants in the project created one-line statements which aimed to be objectively true or false to 20 other anonymous participants. In order to submit their statement they had first to check the true/false validity of 20 such statements submitted by others. Participants whose replies were consistently out of step with the majority had their status downgraded and were eventually excluded. Likewise, participants who made contributions which others could not agree were objectively true or false had their status downgraded. A validated true/false statement is called a mindpixel. The project enlisted the efforts of thousands of participants and claimed to be "the planet's largest artificial intelligence effort". The project was conceived by Chris McKinstry, a computer scientist and former Very Large Telescope operator for the European Southern Observatory in Chile, as MISTIC (Minimum Intelligent Signal Test Item Corpus) in 1996. Mindpixel was developed out of this program, and started in 2000 and had 1.4 million mindpixels in January 2004. The database and its software is known as GAC, which stands for "Generic Artificial Consciousness" and is pronounced Jak. McKinstry believed that the Mindpixel database could be used in conjunction with a neural net to produce a body of human "common sense" knowledge which would have market value. Participants in the project were promised shares in any future value according to the number of mindpixels they had successfully created. On 20 September 2005 Mindpixel lost its free server and is no longer operational. It was being rewritten by Chris McKinstry as Mindpixel 2 and was intended to appear on a new server in France. Chris McKinstry died of suicide on 23 January 2006 and the future of the project and the integrity of the data is uncertain. Some Mindpixel data have been utilized by Michael Spivey of Cornell University and Rick Dale of The University of Memphis to study theories of high-level reasoning and continuous temporal dynamics of thought. McKinstry, along with Dale and Spivey, designed an experiment that has now been published in Psychological Science in its January, 2008 issue. In this paper, McKinstry (as posthumous first author), Dale, and Spivey use a very small and carefully selected set of Mindpixel statements to show that even high-level thought processes like decision making can be revealed in the nonlinear dynamics of bodily action. Other similar AI-driven knowledge acquisition projects are Never-Ending Language Learning and Open Mind Common Sense (run by MIT), the latter being also hampered when its director died of suicide.

See also Never-Ending Language Learning Cyc

References

External links Mindpixel Home page (Currently points to a "Mindpixel IQ test" using the Mindpixel Db of validated statements)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mindpixel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mindpixel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mindpixel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mindpixel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mindpixel

In research: Mindpixel appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mindpixel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mindpixel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Artificial intelligence, Knowledge bases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mindpixel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mindpixel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mindpixel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mindpixel out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mindpixel in simple terms?

Why does Mindpixel matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mindpixel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mindpixel.