The concept of Artificial Intelligence has fascinated humans for as long as computers have been around. It should come as no surprise that countless engineers, programmers, and researchers are intensely studying AI in an attempt to create intelligent machines that can mimic human thought and behavior. Jeff Hawkins, the author of "On Intelligence," praises their efforts but believes that ultimately, they cannot possibly be successful using their current methods.
Hawkins believes that the underlying principle of creating an intelligent machine is understanding human intelligence. It is impossible to create a machine that can think or act like a human being if that machine does not follow the principles of intelligence that humans follow. Unfortunately, scientists in this field have not focused on understanding human intelligence, but rather, they have concentrated their efforts on writing computer programs that would first match and then surpass human abilities. The problem with this approach is that although AI machines can learn many functions and even surpass human speed and ability in calculating them, these machines cannot understand the connectivity between various tasks and they cannot analyze them from a general scope. The machine will basically be calculating difficult formulas and functions, but it does not have any intuition to actually understand the significance and meaning of the functions that it is undertaking.
[...] Hawkins gives us an excellent example: As you turn the pages of this book, you have expectations that the pages bend a certain amount and move in predictable ways that are different from the way a cover moves. If you are sitting, you are predicting that the feelings of pressure on your body will persist; but if the seat turned wet, began drifting backward, or underwent any other unexpected change, you would stop paying attention to book and try to figure out what is happening (Hawkins 96). [...]
[...] Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence The concept of Artificial Intelligence has fascinated humans for as long as computers have been around. It should come as no surprise that countless engineers, programmers, and researchers are intensely studying AI in an attempt to create intelligent machines that can mimic human thought and behavior. Jeff Hawkins, the author of Intelligence,” praises their efforts but believes that ultimately, they cannot possibly be successful using their current methods. Hawkins believes that the underlying principle of creating an intelligent machine is understanding human intelligence. [...]
[...] He believes that intelligence is not just a matter of acting or behaving intelligently: can be intelligent just lying in the dark, thinking and understanding” (Hawkins 29). Hawkins focuses most of his attention on the neocortex, which he considers to be the basis of human function. The neocortex is a thin sheet of neural tissue that covers most parts of the brain, and it is in this area that perception, language, math, art, and music are processed (Hawkins 40). The neocortex consists of millions of neurons, which contain all the knowledge, skills, and memories than an individual possesses. [...]
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