I've seen very little about this, except for a video where (as I recall) a multilayer neural network can be trained while holding certain connections at a constant value. That way the network can be trained to do different tasks and then put back into those modes by setting those training connections to various values during runtime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdIURAu1-aU

Eventually another neural net could be trained to know which values to hold to get different behaviors. It sounds like one of the goals is to reuse logic for similar tasks, and eventually be able to adapt in novel situations like our brains do. I believe there was also a bit about how time figured into all of this, but I haven’t watched it for a while.

Anyway, I’m thinking that a lot of what we’ve learned about version control systems like git could be used to let an AI brainstorm in a sandbox and replace its own code as it improves, and always be able to revert or merge if needed. Throw in some genetic programming and decent lisp machines with 1000 cores and we could really have something.

When I think about this sort of “real work”, as opposed to the daily minutia our industry gets mired in, it makes me sad inside.