feeding into a virtuous cycle

[Seyyed Ali]

Salaam
What does "feeding into a virtuous cycle" mean in the following text please? Does it address an effective interaction between the two fields?

"At the time, neuroscientists had yet to figure out the mechanisms within the brain that allow animals to learn in this way. But Minsky was still able to loosely mimic the behavior, thereby advancing artificial intelligence. Several decades later, as reinforcement learning continued to mature, it in turn helped the field of neuroscience discover those mechanisms, feeding into a virtuous cycle of advancement between the two fields." (Source)

 

[teechar]

feeding into: promoting

virtuous cycle: This is a play on words. The standard phrase is "vicious cycle", but that has negative connotations. Thus, here the author uses a word that sounds like "vicious" but that has a clear positive sense. This is a good cycle where each field was helping advance the other.

 

[Rover_KE]

I see you posted the same question here.

We recommend posting a question on one forum only initially. If you do not get a satisfactory answer from that forum and you feel that you have exhausted its possibilities, then of course trying a different forum might help. It is only courteous however, to tell the second forum that you have already asked the question on another forum and then give a precis of the answers you received there, or provide a link to it, along with an explanation of why you are now looking elsewhere.

(emsr2d2)