It sounds like you have grossly misunderstood what this paper is about. Like, in the order of several scientific disciplines wrong. You were probably confused by the authors using some of the commonly used terms, but nevertheless, this work is in the field of Machine Learning.
I can see healthy discussion abounds on HN. As I understand it, Machine Learning is aiming to create computer systems that can learn from a set of training data. The machine starts out like an infant, with no experience, and no knowledge, just sensors and memory. But like all computers, garbage in begets garbage out.
The machine/infant may receive stimuli through their transducers. Computers are provided the stimuli via digitized images, audio, or text, depending on type of learning system. Infants are provided stimuli via their 5 senses. They receive their images through their eyes. Their audio is received through their ears. Its probably a little early at the infant stage, but in a few years, they will receive text through their eyes as well. Lets leave Taste and Smell for another time.
What is traditionally considered good parentage consists of curating these stimuli. There are all sorts of dangers a child will encounter. Without the shepherd to mitigate these dangers, and reinforce their negative consequences, the child will almost certainly die in infancy. But past a few years, although they may still have several years of development left, once their basic needs of food and shelter are met, a toddler will learn whatever they are continuously exposed to, in accordance to how the people they respect react to the situation.
To the extent the child does not die, it accrues positive associations with stimuli that their parents approve of. If my parents are smiling and laughing, I'm going to associate the activity with happiness. If my parents are yelling and have an angry face, I'm going to associate that activity with anger. As I accrue these associations, I slowly begin to become more and more self sufficient.
However, notice how I didn't explain any singular activities. If my parents lacked the patience or resources to teach me, they might start sending me mixed messages. Perhaps I'm playing with legos one day, learning all of the positive things we all assume legos teach children. But my dad has a rough day at work, and comes home, steps on a lego. Now my dad is furious, screaming at me about my legos. This is now a negative association for legos. If I continue to accrue similar experiences, I'll likely have an irrational aversion to legos later in life.
So with as much snark as you can muster, could you please patronize me a little more, and correct any misunderstandings I still maintain about how machine learning is not analogous to developing human brains?
