Review: On Intelligence

On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, is a book that rethinks the way we think in an attempt to further define why computer scientist and mathematicians have had trouble creating artificial intelligence. But the book goes further than that, by explorer the human consciousness that defines our intelligence. One of the primary proofs that Jeff puts forth is that our computers today run at nearly 3 GHz and yet cannot produce the same results as a computer at image recognition, sound recognition, or any other form of pattern analysis, and yet the human brain can run about 100 MHz (as defined by mathematical computation).

Jeff postulates that our mind is wired for patterns partly because we are always predicting what stimulus will come next. We see lightening, so our brain anticipates hearing thunder. We hear a siren so we anticipate seeing an ambulance or fire truck. Many of his ideas have a good deal of merit from my non-expert level opinion because it gives us another way to attack the problem of pattern analysis, which could lead to better disease analysis, weather prediction, or other problem solving activities. I highly recommend this to dabblers in expert systems and like as well to those that are interested in neocortex of the brain.