Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (464)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Too much chatter - less information. Disappointed. 

  • 3-CPO lol

  • brilliant 

  • Constant predictions based on matching patterns\ sequences.. that's storing and processing of information.. and recognizing patterns.. that's robotic intelligence.

    Human intelligence is to react on unmatched patterns, unknown situations, totally new circumstances.

    Ability to think, imagine, create and learn during unpredictable events is human intelligence.

  • @souravbindia However I also would say that this 'robotic intelligence' that you quote is also definitely a large part of things that we consider as intelligent. But it definitely does not deal with creativity. Actually, I'm interested in what he has to say about the issue of creativity.

  • "Some people say 'Brains can't understand brains'"

    I agree with them.

    It's not just "very zen-like." Assuming the mind and our understanding is limited to functions of the brain, unless there's some new neuroscience I don't know about the brain can be understood as a logical system. We can create our own systems of understanding understanding, but we can't understand understanding on a level greater than understanding itself.

  • @JonmanXmusic I see where you're coming from, but you seem to be mixing philosophical and biological definitions of "understanding understanding." The question of whether or not epistemology can be understood on a level higher than epistemology is one of philosophy. The question of whether or not we can find out how the brain creates epistemology in an anatomical context is a more scientific one.

  • @trivea Mhm. Yes, we could definately try to model knowledge structures biologically. But I just dislike how Jeff Hawkins bashes dualism based upon his work in neuroscience. Materialism is a good working assumption for the feild of neuroscience as it leads the scientist to be more ambitious and to leave no rock unturned, but to say that a science as incomplete as brain science somehow implies a metaphysical position such as materialism is making a total leap of faith in my opinion.

  • @JonmanXmusic True. I guess he went about it wrong, but I think he means to say that a metaphysical approach from the outset is probably bad because it could lead us to put up false logical barriers (ie. brain can't understand itself so no use trying).

  • @trivea That, I agree with. I think that attempting to understand the brain is a noble endeavor. We'll be able to actually answer some questions about what makes up a human when we understand the functioning of neural circuitry. But until then, I think we should hold our horses on the implications! Science says nothing definitive about anything outside of it's current capabilities. Jeff Hawkins certainly has a lot of influence, and I feel like he's presenting his own philosophy with his science.

  • This is boring..

  • Predicting isn't just what it does, though it's a part of it. It also compares current visual/other sensory perceptions (sets of it) to previous sets to see anomalies and then compares it to laws (theories) to see whether they can explain the anomaly. It might also look at all the unexplained data and see if it makes another. Haven't thought about it much, but I'm sure it does many other things. Also, telepathy happens regularly (how many times do you know just before someone calls you?)

  • get a life!

  • I was watching this, thinking about all the awesome possibilities that neuroscience could have when combined with computer technology, but then I saw that this video was uploaded more than four years ago and my hopes just died.

  • I think he's mostly right, but still there's something missing. I bet we will wait some other fifty years to know how the brain works anyway

  • Looks like Skynet will be online soon!

  • I have predicted, that the the shots on the end are going to be a car commercial.

  • Haha, absolutely love his out-of-nowhere stab at dualism :)

  • Comment removed

  • this make a lot of sense.

  • Excellent! Let cognition be understood! It will change our society hugely.

  • He designed the Treo? Booooooo

  • Fantastic lecture!

  • It's really sad that people are so repulsed by spirituality. If the people who despised it so much could wrap there minds around some form of it for themselves, because it must be understood intimately and personally first, they may be able to see what they're missing, . Spirituality has nothing to do with religion. I don't know why but maybe my mind and body and brain are disposed to having a sense of spirituality that seems as real as the keyboard beneath my hands right now.

  • @sunsplash1980 Spirituality is not superstition. It's not about making claims about reality. Spirituality is cultivating humility in our claims, leaving the facts of reality to those who have worked to study it rigorously. Spirituality is about taking those facts, and building a perspective, set of priorities, and practices which allow us to appreciate the 'essential' in life, living more fully within the reality we're given, rather than the one we want. This is why I am a Spiritual Naturalist.

  • "people used to think there was a life force to be living and we know thats not true at all" is there not a a death force either like when my skull gets crushed in?

  • @sunsplash1980 That's not a "force," that's a poor stop-gap for describing physics.

  • 16:08 lol

  • Jeff Hawkins: comedian, zombie and all around good pretentious(?) guy.

  • Computer science is about to fundamentally change the brain

  • Such an awesome point and so obvious, never crossed my mind.

  • *** Successful human brain prediction releases a feel good chemical ***

    I'm a graduate level EE working in research, that's what I was made for!

    At age 7, I was puzzled why people like music. It took 2 decades for my observations to create a viable hypothesis (as detailed in line 1).

    This human brain system of 'prognistication-reward' explains why we

    as humans are driven to many behaviors.

    Now build a system that can feel pleasure and you'll have an android that

    can grow!!!!!

  • how can a spiritual perspective be inhernetly unscientific? thats the biggest bunch of malarky i have heard

  • @dimitriosmichael opposed to 1 man building a boat big enough to hold every animal in the world in it?

  • @dimitriosmichael its useless in the development of AI.

  • @zeebenzine hi. not talking about conventional religion. I am talking about the metacarnal

  • Perhaps he could speak a little bit faster.

  • It's interesting that he says that intelligence is the trait of predicting what is about to happen, and how we will begin with such things as intelligent cars. It reminds me that most creatures' predictive abilities are best-suited for linear tasks. Most creatures have very poor exponential predictive abilities. E.g., acceleration is difficult for many creatures to predict, even if it is steady. Some creatures, such as cats, are wired to intercept, even if they should be avoiding, such as cars.

  • Very interesting talk! Although I must say I tend to see the brain more like an antenna. NDE's are very well documented over the past few decades and whether we like it or not, memories can be stored outside the brain...

  • wow very good talk, hoping to study neuroscience myself currently undergrad. I believe one of the currently biggest problems in neuroscience is what was adressed in this talk. The problem is lack of interdepartmental help. If we wan't artifical inteligence perhaps it would help to understand how real inteligence functioned first. Similarly if we want to understand how the brain works we need to understand the physics and the mathematics, the logical processes behind it.

  • Emotions play a larger role in intelligence than patterns do. For example if It wasnt for are desires we would not do anything at all. Patterns from experience may or may not get us the results we seek to satisfy are wants, needs, and desires which manifest through emotions. If patterns do not give us are 'desired' outcome we have the free will to try anything we 'feel' may get us to our goals. Brilliance is born through failure. Imagination is born through emotion and all progress has been made

  • @tanthonight "For example if It wasnt for are desires we would not do anything at all" - My engine management system in my car doesn't have 'desires' but it DOES do something.

    What is the difference between an emotional desire, and a goal oriented programmed device? None in regards to getting things done.

    An engine management system 'feels' the car is cornering left, so it 'decides' to stiffen left hand suspension.

  • @mikeyo1234 You do have a point. I guess my only hang up on artificial intelligence is that no matter how intelligent computers become throgh sensors and data analysis to make decisions the program is only possable because of human will. all A. I. has the factor of our desire from the start. It doesnt do any thing unless we first put our goals into the system. We can act and react without an emotional desire. I dont think that makes us intelligent.everything reacts to external forces we can

  • @tanthonight "the program is only possable because of human will" - Why is that a concern?

    If we created a simulation of a human mind and then made it evolve it could feasibly become more intelligent than us. The question is that if this new intelligence then builds more AI, then it would no longer be human based desire driving the next AI, as that AI would be autonomous to us regarding it's design process.

  • @tanthonight "Is everything intelligent?" - We need to formally define intelligence to answer that question.

  • is his posture like an ape or is it me?

  • TRUE 13:00

  • I strongly recommend his book, "On Intelligence". He goes very much into detail, and backs up his theory with hard science. All the way through he keeps it understandable and the language easy, all you really need to be able to understand his theory is a rough knowledge of what a neuron looks like and how they transmit signals.

  • I can't escape the suspicion that even with all the new information they still don't have a clue. But that makes it more interesting.

  • Wow fast talker!

  • I like his no-bullshit attitude. 1-The brain is not the most complex thing in the universe. I have a brain, plus other stuff, so I'm more complex (and we don't give up social sciences (studies of human behaviour), so there). 2- Let's assume brains can understand brains, or else we stop looking. 3- We can reject dualism and other "silly" notions that stump speculation, so lets do it. 4- We should reject intuitive strongly held assumptions that lead to dead-ends theory-wise.

  • @FamousPhilosopher I agree, its quite refreshing.

  • Determine the probability of something happening differently from how you've experienced it in the past, and if the probability is below a certain threshold bring it to your attention and react accordingly.

    I think he's onto something here

  • theres nothing special about this biological machinery that happens to be the substrate of our consciousness; its just a matter of crossing that threshold, of engineering the first general AI; either you have airplanes or you dont, either you have harnessed atomic energy or you havent;

    in any case this venue of research could result, in the worst of cases, in much improved narrow AI

  • Smart guy

  • spiritual answer only help us cope with the infinite possibilities of what exists in our universe. The brain on the other hand might not need a spiritual answer. If that were the case why would the brain be so complicated if the spirit or soul is there to maneuver the body supposedly.

  • There is a theory of how the mind works and it's called the computaional theory.

  • @platermanone

    It's a theory but not in the sense that it is the accepted theory of mind by all the sciences, in the way that there is an accepted theory of evolution despite schools of thought within/through. Dawkins peddles the notion that we are vehicles for our genes and this guy makes a similar error, "And after all we are our brains. My brain is talking to your brain. Our bodies are hanging along for the ride but my brain is talking to your brain."

    .

    This is shallow neuro-centrism.

  • @platermanone

    If you have a few minutes check out Fora.tv and the talk 'Hardwired for Life?' and in section 9. Neuroscientist Stuart Derbyshire says "Humans interpret the world, not neurons or genes."

    .

    As this guy says he is in love with the brain but this subject-centrism (of which Dawkins and others are guilty of) happens when you try to explain hypercomplexity all from your own discipline.

    .

    "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow.

  • this guys a legend! thought provoking stuff, my background is in psychology but this truly fascinates me

  • so essentially the programming for brains would be to make a program which flashes back memories of similar events, then orders them by priority based on relevance. Then it takes information from what it deems relevant and makes a future prediction. From there it compares what is the accurate, and where its predictions failed (missing the moved door handle) Then stores the event for future reference. This is how we accumulate the ability to predict ie learn I see.

  • another fundamental peice of brain theory will be explaining how we are capable of metaphor. We communicate extremely often with them and they are key to the brain forming complex theories (you use metaphors to teach)

    Metaphors might also offer a way of grouping memories that are relevant to the current experience by priority, or the most contributive to forming accurate predictions.

  • 16:24 my favorite part lol

  • 3-CPO?

  • smart guy

  • google Doe's Account.

  • What?

  • He is certainly on to something. I am struggling to apply the theory to how I form my current sentence actually. I'm not predicting my own sentence am I?

    I agree, when listening to others or hearing a song or walking along, it's quite similar and I'm predicting my environment based on what I've seen before.

    But what about an artist painting? Me writing or typing?

    I'm curious to see where he goes.

  • Okay check this out. You're predicting your grammer as you type. It is still a patern. He is talking about input and simple process. Watch the Jeff Hawkins on Artificial Intellegence All the parts. kk? You'll understand how he came to it.

  • wow he was right...i did tend to think of intelligence as behavior...

  • That is invalid code :(

  • As we draw closer to broader exposure to human programmed highly suffisticated intelligent machines in our day to day human activity we must also be weary of the larger risks and dangers of human error in programming or malfunction that could cause serious problems

  • What? Maybe you should watch it again and switch your brain on this time.

  • oh here we go with the typical derogatory responses, by that i mean "switch your brain on" comment, dont get hasty now...I do agree 100% with him in that there needs to be a theory of the brain, NO DOUBT, therefore lets start with it...there there, all better now?

  • Read his book "On Intelligence" which goes deeper into prediction using spacial/temporal feedforward/feedback run through 5 senses fed against invariant representations on a heirarchial structure. In addition on each of the HTM levels he goes into the 6 layers and columns of the specific level composed of billions of neurons. L1 mostly of dentrites and how L5 connects to thalamus and the function it plays. He only has 22 minutes to give a preview on this talk. You can also Google "Numenta".

  • You just said he didn't give a theory, then you went on to state his theory and say it was ridiculous.

    You're retarded.

  • What a thought provoking argument.

  • Perhaps it is equally untestable at the moment, thought there is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest.

    The fact remains however that through deductive logic it is the most reasonable position to assume that consciousness is not magic.

    As far as religious views I agree of course, it is entirely possible to believe in one type of magic but not another, but it does not make either of those more valid.

    However if you do believe in one type of magic it is less of a jump, in theory.

  • @DSBrekus How can you observe Mind??? Matter is its manifestation, you can only observe products of mind - matter or ideas, not Mind itself, this is the very nice mystical point of God, every thing and no thing at the same time:)

  • @DSBrekus Here stand again with Lao Tzu, Heisenberg, ancient Hindus etc. before the utmost paradox of observer and observable... The utmost mystery of Universe in fact, yes it exists we can see its manifestation in nature in us, but because not observable itself we call it GOD:)

  • "An you go: oh shit!" lol

  • Totally awesome BUT it makes me a little skeptical when this guy demands a complete explanation on brain theory yet so easily dismisses a spiritual worldview?

  • ...Because a "spiritual worldview" is inherently unscientific, perhaps?

    I mean, what would a "spiritual" perspective- whatever that would mean- have to offer in regards to explaining the workings of the brain? The idea that there is some part of you "outside" the brain is... untestable, to say the very least.

    Also, the idea of coming at this (or any) question with a spiritual explanation already presupposed flies in the face of the scientific method.

  • Non physical consciousness, or one that does not depend on the brain and a spiritual worldview are not the same thing. Most of the worlds great religions, contrary to popular opinion, don't hold this view and some take an agnostic position. Take the example of the Abrahamic faiths; they view man as a psychosomatic unity. That does not at all conflict with science. However, the notion that consciousness is a function of or is confined to the brain is equally untestable at this point in time.

  • @jpawlikowski well the last proof is really just about leaving body and asking yourself facing God... what did i do for mankind?:)...

  • @jpawlikowski Not really... If there IS a spirit, then the brain will have to be somehow connected/work with it..and whos to say it is "outside" anyway... In effect you are looking for the science of the spiritual, but perhaps we're just not advanced to do that yet...if at all.

  • @jpawlikowski "The idea that there is some part of you "outside" the brain is... untestable, to say the very least."

    It's called your environment.

    By the way are you a scientist or do you just like to LARP as one?

  • @jpawlikowski I wasn't aware you could test a worldview. I am going to go test communism now.

  • @0Krusnik0 communism isnt a worldview.

  • @jpawlikowski I agree with you when you say that a "spiritual worldview" is unscientific but only because ANY worldview i.e. belief system is unscientific for Science is a process of discovery. Spiritual PRACTICES on the other hand are very scientific, to which I think you'll disagree. :) And why would a spiritual practice and any belief system stemming from such need/want to say anything about the brain - the material object - when they have so much to say about the mind.

  • @buffingtonr How exactly do you think he might incorporate magic and mysticism into a discussion on how to describe a brain?

    Hawkins is a discoverer and you can only discover things inside yourself that you already know from spiritual knowledge.

    For that same reason Francois Isaac de Rivaz did not study the bible for hints on how the combustion engine might work, and Daimler Benz did not look in the Koran for hints on how to attach it to a car!

    Both used data outside what they knew already!

  • i <3 ted

  • this will be handed out to  the unscrupulous people, and this will be the end of the human mind, the free will mind.

    Control, Control, Control.

  • @labruja666 If you really had 'free will' then you would not be limited by the content of your mind. The physicist would have as much knowledge as the cab driver.

    The fact is you don't really have free will... you are limited by your knowledge of the world around you. Thats the cage, which your mind is trapped in. You can't make decisions based on information or knowledge you don't have.

    Would these be the same unscrupulous people that gave you the PC you are using? or the cure for polio?

  • @MumblingMickey

    I dont think that you are limited by you knowledge, you making to have the knowledge by learning process and knowledge just adding layers to the learning proces for to be more complicated.

    If you are in the cage, as you saying, you wount be able to learn.

    Free will is about, that you can expand with no limitations.

    Which we can.

  • @TheNeurall well seriously...everyone answering any question about anything is limited by their knowledge of that subject.... it is stupendously daft to assume someone could answer any question with anything other than their opinion correctly if they don't have any information at all.

    you are free to express an opinion for example on the probability of a higgs boson particle being discovered...but your opinion will be certainly less accurate than mine.

    and thats stuff we know exists or not!

  • @TheNeurall Free will is the ability to make a decision independently... so for example... Julius Caesar had no opinion and could give you no insight into whether Boeing or Airbus manufactured the safest aircraft. He simply didn't know...and had no way of knowing.

    He could have an opinion if you asked him... but it would not be one based on any knowledge.

    So Caesar there had a limitation...his knowledge of flight, aircraft, safety procedures and modern technology. Was his will free?

  • @TheNeurall No, we cant expand with no limitations. One serious limitations is that any choise we make, is based on all the other choises we made before, which led as into the situastion we are in right now, as well gave as the motives, experience etc. that we have. This goes all the way back. So, there is nothing like free will.

  • Math is for the most part based on laws not theories. Probablility is the area for prediction. Multiplication, subtraction and division are not. Neither is the ability to spell. Its largely regurgitating what we have learned and remember. No prediction for the most part. I can enjoy a movie or novel without trying to figure out what happens next. I relate to or understand what I have seen because of intelligence. I ponder or laugh at the dialog, because of memory empathy and analysis.

  • even creativity is prediction. It comes from knowing the world. So everything you named is about predictions. Take for example planes and their building. How did they create planes:D It took them time. They made test and failed so they made more accurate predictions until they succseeded. Take creation of theories. First theories fail, but once there is enought data the theory is succesfull.

  • No it isn't. You're both reductionists. Some intelligence is just rote learning. The ability to memorize procedures. Addition tables. Spelling. As for creativity a song pops into your head, you record it. You stumble upon something on guitar or keyboards, and record it. Calling all intelligence prediction is just a moronic oversimplification. Making reality seem to conform to a theory rather than visa versa. When you use times table you are not predicting anything, but applying established laws

  • no you just learn numbers and with the rules you make a procedure to predict the number. We call it calculation but its just a intelligent prediction. Two apples and two apples are for apples and thats it. And I agree the brain is big and gives us a lot, but he explains it in 20 minutes and he assumed that people understand the need for theory. We look smart because we learn for a looong time.

  • 011010010110110101101101011001­010111001001110011011001010010­111001101001011011100111010001­101111001011100111001101111001­011011100110010101110010011001­1101111001

  • 0001 1110 1111 0101 0111 0001 1101 1010 0100 0110 1001 0101 1010 0000 1111 0101 1101 1001 0110 1001 0111 1110 0001 1110 0001 1010 1011 1110 1001 0100

  • @Sahuagin you should make a book for children, but spelled out in binary. that would be a very mind exploding book. but people will buy it.

  • @Sahuagin actually what sahuagin said in binary was "please stop spamming"

  • @tiptiptapable You think perhaps that a car which can't drive your kids to school on its own is a bad idea? Maybe a tram, train, bus or aircraft that doesn't need a pilot?

    Maybe the advent of the car dumbed humans from learning all about how to look after horses... so what? Who needs horse shit all over the place?

    Its called progress... and yes some people are now more stupid than ever... but on average thats not the case.

  • Comment removed

  • He is not the best, but he is somebody whose ideas are closest to ai theory.

  • what he said about what intelligence is , is what the commonsense is about.

  • This guy looks like the green goblin from spiderman. I can imagine him trying to take over the world with his army of intelligent robots.

  • :-))))))

  • when people fully understand the brain that will be the start of the end of freedom cause someone is going to figure out how to send out a signal or whatever and just control everyone

  • Sometimes a wrong theory is a good step towards a better theory. Newton gives way to Einstein gives way to Strings, etc..

    The problem with brains is that different people react to input in different ways so it's hard to predict to the level of accuracy that scientists like to see. It's good that he's trying to attack a single aspect and explore it in detail as a theory. He could be wrong, but it's a step.

  • @Ragentor different reactions doesn't mean that not all of those reactions are intelligent. You need a human model that is generally accepted as highly intelligent and just don't give a shit about those who think that person is dumb. After all there are people who think Einstein was an idiot. So what?

  • "and that was how the world ended son"

  • His name was C3PO, not 3CPO.

  • isnt predictive text on our cell phones intelligent?

  • Not if you've ever used an Iphone

  • nope

  • jesus..

  • @Wescas05. No it's Jeff Hawkins.

  • 5:28 - Maybe we will be able to build intelligent people, too! =p

  • I doubt it'll be sillicon. It'll probably be biochemical re-engineering. Using a rat brain to guide a small machine etc.

  • so what does that make you? a creationist? xD

    you are nothing lol

  • Mental masturbation!

  • Thought provoking if nothing else.

  • He holds the views he does after drawing conclusions from research, experimentation and study. This is why he ignores some other ideas, because he does not think they are correct, not because he is ignorant.

    On your second point, imagine a baby is born with no input into its brain. Can it imagine new things? Can it even imagine? Is it conscious? If so what of? No one can answer these questions with certainty. But perhaps "new connections" really cannot be made.

  • No of course it cannot. But to have absolutely no imputs is very extreme and I would imagine rare.

  • your true.

  • you should watch his other videos. don't forget this is just a 20 min talk he had. there is a 1 hr + speech on youtube where he addresses your questions.

  • I have done exactly that, thanks. :)

    His work agrees with and extends what I'd been hypothesising and trying to do myself, but is far better. I hope to understand how his methods work exactly.

    I haven't seen or read anything recent about his work. He said he hoped to solve the cat-dog problem, do you know how is he doing with this?

  • Haven't seen anything new on youtube, but given he is a company director and he's doing this research with a view to creating a product, i'd expect him to be quite tight lipped about successes and failures until they are ready to roll out.

  • I'll refine what Hawkins said a little bit. Intelligence doesn't start with prediction. A baby could be extremely intelligent, but he can't make good predictions because he doesn't know anything yet.

    So, intelligence is the CAPACITY to learn and see invariant spatial and temporal patterns in noisy data.

  • Thank you for that.

  • np, murderface.

  • Following up on what I said earlier, intelligence actually does increase quite a bit throughout childhood due to a process called myelination, which begins from about age 3 until adulthood.

  • Lookup "Processing in Memory" that's the model that can take the computer closer to the brain. It can already be implemented : massively parallel computing can be programmed in FPGAs. Eventually we will create specialized FPGA logic blocks that will allow to map even large programs by allowing to quickly switch between contexts in memory that is evenly distributed among the programmable logic structures!

  • What other forms of intelligence are there than pattern recognition? Any ideas?

    Btw, I love watching jeff hawkins videos on youtube. I think he's on to something new. It's only a matter of time b4 we reverse engineer the mind on a chip... and that'll open a lot of doors. It's not our job to guess where that will go, it's our job to open that door. If the scientists who discovered the principles of fission had stopped to think about its weaponized use, we might not have fission.

  • Other forms of intelligence are, (Imho) Musical, Mathematical, Linguistic, Literary, Athletic, Artistic, and many more. There are, of course thousands of derivitives of those types of intelligence. Like philosophical...etc...He is very right about what he says, but he focuses on a very small spectrum of what our brains do. Its sad that TED only allows 20 minutes, though it is a blessing as well. Definitely awesome video.

  • I think intelligence is all about prediction and patter-recognition, or rather the CAPACITY to learn invariant patterns in noisy spatial and temporal data.

    The ability to hold several things in your head simultaneously is also the same thing, I think.