Facebook is a Neural Network — Social Graph Connections Look Like Brain Maps
My Social Graph on Facebook
The image above was generated by the Nexus application on Facebook. It is a visualization of my social graph: The interconnections between the people I know on Facebook. Social graphs look a lot like how we visualize neural processing in the brain. The image that follows is just such a neural processing map from Brainmaps.org.
Brain network image from brainmaps.org
The computer on your desktop processes explicit instructions sequentially. Your brain, on the other hand, uses parallel processes to recognize patterns in sensory input and generate implicit instructions.
Social networking technology enables us to communicate more quickly with more people with far more contextual cues than ever before. It is not surprising that when lots of brains start to connect and share information on social networks, it looks like a biological system.
Some might think of all these extra cues as noise, but there is little doubt that the latency in connecting people is being reduced radically. The question is what will emerge as more of the earth starts to build more relationships in this new way.
I don’t think Facebook is a Neural Network because connexion are limited to friends, family, known people. The process to add/remove a connexion is tricky.
On the other hand I really think Twitter is a Neural Network.
- ReTwitt are the K+ factor to forward information.
- Add/Remove connexion is motivated by the information flow.
Comment by Jean-Philippe Encausse — August 6, 2009 @ 1:27 am