I think "On Intelligence" is a good book. It made an impact on me when I first read it, and it lead to me reading a lot more neuro science since then. Indeed in hindsight is seems strange to me that I was so interested in AGI and yet I hadn't seriously studied what is known about how the brain works. Indeed almost nobody in AI does, even people working on artificial neural networks.
Anyway, having read a fair amount of neuro science since then it has become clear to me that while Hawkins' book is a good understandable summary of a particular view of neuro science, the claims he makes are all either well known facts, or things which a fair number of neuro scientists already believe. So there isn't anything really new in there that I know of. The other thing is that he presents a greatly simplified view of how things really work. This makes the book readable for non-scientists, which is great, however nobody really knows how much of all those details he glosses over are unimportant implementation stuff, and how much of it is critical to understanding how the whole system behaves. Of course, nobody will really know this for sure until the brain is fully understood. If you're read On Intelligence and are interested in a basic undergraduate overview of neuroscience I'd recommend the classic text book "Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior" by Kandel, Schwartz and Jessell. Once you've read that much of the scientific literature in the field is understandable. Shane On 2/21/07, Aki Iskandar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'd be interested in getting some feedback on the book "On Intelligence" (author: Jeff Hawkins). It is very well written - geared for the general masses of course - so it's not written like a research paper, although it has the feel of a thesis. The basic premise of the book, if I can even attempt to summarize it in two statements (I wouldn't be doing it justice though) is: 1 - Intelligence is the ability to make predictions on memory. 2 - Artificial Intelligence will not be achieved by todays computer chips and smart software. What is needed is a new type of computer - one that is physically wired differently. I like the first statement. It's very concise, while capturing a great deal of meaning, and I can relate to it ... it "jives". However, (and although Hawkins backs up the statements fairly convincingly) I don't like the second set of statements. As a software architect (previously at Microsoft, and currently at Charles Schwab where I am writing a custom business engine, and workflow system) it scares me. It scares me because, although I have no formal training in AI / Cognitive Science, I love the AI field, and am hoping that the AI puzzle is "solvable" by software. So - really, I'm looking for some of your gut feelings as to whether there is validity in what Hawkins is saying (I'm sure there is because there are probably many ways to solve these type of challenges), but also as to whether the solution(s) its going to be more hardware - or software. Thanks, ~Aki P.S. I remember a video I saw, where Dr. Sam Adams from IBM stated "Hardware is not the issue. We have all the hardware we need". This makes sense. Processing power is incredible. But after reading Hawkins' book, is it the right kind of hardware to begin with? ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
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