# The Algonauts Project: A Platform for Communication between the Sciences of Biological and Artificial Intelligence

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.05675 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05675/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 May 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [The Algonauts Project 2023 Challenge: How the Human Brain Makes Sense of Natural Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03198/) (2023)
- [Deep Neural Networks and Brain Alignment: Brain Encoding and Decoding (Survey)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10246/) (2023)
- [The Algonauts Project 2021 Challenge: How the Human Brain Makes Sense of a World in Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13714/) (2021)
- [Brain Decodes Deep Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.01280/) (2023)
- [Visio-Linguistic Brain Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08261/) (2022)
- [Multimodal Recurrent Ensembles for Predicting Brain Responses to Naturalistic Movies (Algonauts 2025)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.17897/) (2025)
- [Net2Brain: A Toolbox to compare artificial vision models with human brain responses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.09677/) (2022)
- [Exploration and Comparison of Deep Learning Architectures to Predict Brain Response to Realistic Pictures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09983/) (2023)
- [Limited but consistent gains in adversarial robustness by co-training object recognition models with human EEG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.03646/) (2024)
- [Bayesian Comparisons Between Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.08739/) (2024)
- [MIRAGE: Adaptive Multimodal Gating for Whole-Brain fMRI Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29850/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In the last decade, artificial intelligence (AI) models inspired by the brain have made unprecedented progress in performing real-world perceptual tasks like object classification and speech recognition. Recently, researchers of natural intelligence have begun using those AI models to explore how the brain performs such tasks. These developments suggest that future progress will benefit from increased interaction between disciplines. Here we introduce the Algonauts Project as a structured and quantitative communication channel for interdisciplinary interaction between natural and artificial intelligence researchers. The project's core is an open challenge with a quantitative benchmark whose goal is to account for brain data through computational models. This project has the potential to provide better models of natural intelligence and to gather findings that advance AI. The 2019 Algonauts Project focuses on benchmarking computational models predicting human brain activity when people look at pictures of objects. The 2019 edition of the Algonauts Project is available online: http://algonauts.csail.mit.edu/.