Jeff Hawkins Explores a New Theory of Cortical Function

Jeff Hawkins (Click to play interview) My Brain Science podcast was partially inspired by Jeff Hawkins bestseller On Intelligence, so I am very pleased to post a new interview (BS 139) in which we discuss the exciting work he has been doing at Numenta. Hawkins is committed to understanding how the neocortex generates intelligence and he feels that his latest paper marks an important landmark in that work.We started our conversation by discussing some of the work that Hawkins published in 2016 including two key papers. One presents a new model of the neuron that incorporates active dendrites and the concept that not all synapses can generate an action potential. The Numenta model proposes that synapses located more distally actually help prepare the neurons to fire, thus presenting a prediction signal that includes context. Another important concept is sparseness, which Hawkins explains very clearly in this interview.Finally we discuss the latest paper (and model), which proposes the that a key feature of cortical function is that a second input to the cortical column (beside the primary sensory signal), represents the location of the signal relative to the object itself.Hawkins explained, "as soon as you add this location signal, then all kinds of things make sense, and all kinds of mysteries get resolved, and all of a sudden we can understand what all these layers are doing, and it tells us that the cortex, even a single column of the cor...
Source: the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Artificial Intelligence Brain Research Cognitive Science Computation Interviews Neuroscience Podcast Show Notes Source Type: podcasts