Many visionaries would agree that, ultimately, AI needs to learn from the biological intelligence, especially from our own brain. While we are far from properly understanding how the brain functions yet, neuroscience has made strides in understanding the circuit of motivation & learning in the last decade. More specifically, we now know that the anterior cingulate cortex “calculates” the motivational value of the current task situation and controls our motivation using the dopamine system. This circuit typically involves the basal ganglia and surrounding structures consisting of: striosomes, border neurons around the globus pallidus internal segment, lateral habenula, rostromedial tegmental nucleus, and the dopamine neurons in the mid brain. The talk will present evidence of this motivation circuit in the brain and discuss the most plausible theories how these complicated structures influence our decision making via our motivation and learning.

• Founder of Robilis, inventor of StandX (www.robilis.com; 2014~present)

  •      Research Scientist at MIT (~present).

  •      PhD at Boston University with advisor Prof. Stephen Grossberg. (~2004)

  •      Graduate study with Prof. Byoung-Tak Zhang (1997)