Hah, same here. How is [colour, shape] or [blue, red, square, circle] not a vector? How does a NN work if not by operating on vectors/matrices/tensors?

This Quanta Magazine is absolute horseshit. Might as well just remove all that text and link to the author's paper. But hey, it makes for a nice article with a progress bar that animates as you scroll up and down.

The papers:

https://neuroscience.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05...

https://redwood.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/kane...