On Intelligence

Amazon.com

Jeff Hawkins, the high-tech success story behind PalmPilots and the Redwood Neuroscience Institute, does a lot of thinking about thinking. In On Intelligence Hawkins juxtaposes his two loves--computers and brains--to examine the real future of artificial intelligence. In doing so, he unites two fields of study that have been moving uneasily toward one another for at least two decades. Most people think that computers are getting smarter, and that maybe someday, they'll be as smart as we humans are. But Hawkins explains why the way we build computers today won't take us down that path. He shows, using nicely accessible examples, that our brains are memory-driven systems that use our five senses and our perception of time, space, and consciousness in a way that's totally unlike the relatively simple structures of even the most complex computer chip. Readers who gobbled up Ray Kurzweil's (The Age of Spiritual Machines and Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open will find more intriguing food for thought here. Hawkins does a good job of outlining current brain research for a general audience, and his enthusiasm for brains is surprisingly contagious. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the Palm Pilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he is revolutionizing neuro-science and computing with this new look at intelligence itself. In On Intelligence, Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent. The brain is not a computer but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness. Based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines, ones that will likely exceed human ability in surprising and useful ways. Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee and endorsed by a host of scientists and technology experts, On Intelligence reveals how we truly think and how this understanding will transform the technology age.

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From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines.