On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines is a book by PalmPilot-inventor Jeff Hawkins with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee . The book explains Hawkins' memory-prediction framework theory of the brain and describes some of its consequences. (Times Books: 2004, ISBN 0805074562)

Hawkins outlines the book as follows

The book starts with some background on why previous attempts at understanding intelligence and building intelligent machines have failed. I then introduce and develop the core idea of the theory, what I call the memory-prediction framework. In chapter 6 I detail how the physical brain implements the memory-prediction model—in other words, how the brain actually works. I then discuss social and other implications of the theory, which for many readers might be the most thought-provoking section. The book ends with a discussion of intelligent machines—how we can build them and what the future will be like. (p. 5)

The first chapter is a brief history of Hawkins' interest in neuroscience juxtaposed against a history of artifical intelligence research. Hawkins uses a story of his failed application to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to illustrate a conflict of ideas. Hawkins believed (and ostensibly continues to believe) creating true artificial intelligence will only be possible with intellectual progress in the discipline of neuroscience. Hawkins writes that the scientific establishment (as symbolized by the Massachusetts Institute) has historically rejected the relevance of neuroscience to artifical intelligence. Indeed, some artificial intelligence researchers have "[taken] pride in ignoring neurobiology" (p. 12).

External links

• Official website
• Dileep George's Vision Research Page (includes implementations of framework)
• A Hierarchical Bayesian Model of Invariant Pattern Recognition in the Visual Cortex (Conference paper by George & Hawkins)

Reviews

• Machine Intelligence Meets Neuroscience (By Bob Colwell, published in IEEE's Computer, January 2005)
• A review by Franz Dill
• On Intelligence, People and Computers (Arnold Kling, Tech Central Station, 11/22/2004)