On Intelligence

✍️ Jeff Hawkins

This book, from 2004, presents a speculative theory about how the brain works (specially the neocortex). It builds on Vernon Mountcastle work that described the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex and the common algorithm that run throughout the entire cortex for every cortical function. Hawkins states that the cortex works as a memory-prediction framework and that explains human intelligence. Hawkins also believes that any intelligent machine should emulate the neocortex as much as possible and current neural networks are still a very narrow form of intelligence in the sense that they do not understand (like us - i.e., knowing what a cat/dog really is) what they are doing, they simply do. In addition to the theory per se, the book also has an autobiographical tone where the author recalls his early passion for the brain and how he transitioned from the technological industry to neuroscience. Nowadays he is working at Numenta where he is still trying to build the elusive intelligent machine. They have a tutorial and some papers with details of their theory here