On Intelligence

During the past half-millennium the history of anatomy documents the peculiar custom of using the most advanced technology of each era as the definite model of the human brain. The first match was with clockworks during the sixteenth century; then with the steam engine, in the nineteenth century; one hundred years later with telephone switchboards in the first half of the twentieth century, and in the recent decades, naturally and expectedly, with electronic computers. However sound they might have appeared at each time, all these comparisons proved inadequate after a while. All have fallen short when matching up manmade machines with the extraordinary prodigy of the human organ that designed them.
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Twenty years ago Jeff Hawkins, the architect of many technologies and a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, decided to turn the metaphor all the way around and walk it in the opposite direction. Instead of starting from already invented equipment to develop explanatory models, Hawkins decided to first understand the way the brain operates—more specifically, how the cerebral cortex works—and design from there on a new technology. With such a challenge in mind, after studying neurology on his own and co-working with many scientists, the ambitious businessman initiates a monumental (if not chimerical) project to design and build electronic equipment that is to operate similarly to the human brain. Numenta, a company founded by Hawkins in 2005, has the mission to make this initiative a reality. His book ON INTELLIGENCE, written with science journalist Sandra Blakeslee, describes the reasoning behind his adventure, the factors that support the idea, the obstacles that make it extremely complex and the scientific developments that will contribute to its realization.
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There is only one chapter in the book complex and difficult to read (the author warns about this) that presents his view of a detailed model of the functioning of the cerebral cortex, the thin layer of thirty billion neurons that surrounds the brain. Even with this exception, ON INTELLIGENCE is an entertaining and educational book. The description of the four attributes of the cerebral cortex that make it radically different from electronic computers is fascinating. The first attribute is the storage of sequences of patterns (instead of isolated data interrelated by data models and database software) that enables the recording and recalling of stories or sequences. The second is the ability to pick the full story or sequence from only a fraction of any part of whole without the need to access the complete pattern (we recognize a song by just listening a bit of it). The third is the conservation of the essence of every pattern although the rest of the information might be variable (this is why we recognize incomplete objects or identify people we have not seen in years despite changes of age, contexture or makeup). The fourth, the difficult-to read chapter of the book, is the storage of the patterns in a hierarchical structure.
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These attributes provide the cerebral cortex an intellectual capacity quite different from those put forward in previous interpretations. According to Hawkins the cortex is an organ of prediction; predicting is the main function of the human brain and this capability is the very foundation of intelligence. The neurons involved in any activity (or some associated neurons yet to be discovered) are activated prior to the arrival of the corresponding sensory signals, be they visual, auditory or tactile, anticipating the coming events from some sort of extrapolation of all the patterns that the cortex has already in its memory. For example, when someone enters a restaurant where he never has been, he can "predict" with a good degree of certainty in what direction are the bathrooms. When the event is completed, if the result matches expectations (this happens most of the time), the owner of the brain does not even realize that a verification transaction was performed. If, on the contrary, expectations do not coincide with reality, there is a surprising reaction, followed by corrections and learning lessons that eventually lead to the creation of new patterns.
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In Hawkins’s perspective, the human brain is an organ that builds models based on patterns and analogies and generates with them creative predictions. When it does not find correlations, the brain invents them anyway with minimum consideration on how preposterous they may turn out. Pseudoscience, prejudices, intolerance and religions are the result of these inventions.
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The concept of prediction that Hawkins developed in 1986—we should remember that he did not graduate in neurology—was later confirmed in independent scientific studies. For example, Rodolfo Llinás, a neuroscientist at the New York University School of Medicine establishes in 2001: "The capacity to predict the outcome of future events—critical to successful movement—is, most likely, the ultimate and most common of all global brain functions." I believe the development of truly intelligent machines is an unfeasible project. Its endeavor, nevertheless, will lead to many new scientific discoveries. The brilliant entrepreneur recognizes that his target is neither the invention of an electronic model of human consciousness nor the production of machines that arrogantly say "I." His main interests aim at the development of computers with vision, the design of thinking robots and the construction of machines with capacity to learn. The invitation to the greed of the young generations to join in some way the great idea is outside the context and beauty of the whole project. Contributing to human growth or making a difference—not plain utilitarianism—should be the driving forces of scientific research. Still, from my perspective of cognitive science enthusiast, I consider that the very description of the functioning cerebral cortex (I suppose that a few neuroscientists may disagree with it) and the concept of prediction as the fundament of human Intelligence far deserve the reading of this excellent book.