[icandoitbetter]

Is Numenta's approach really that informed by findings regarding actual brain function? It's been a while and I don't remember most of Hawkins' model, but I don't feel that one needs to consult any actual neuroscientific results to use the general concepts of hierarchical design or top-down processing, which seem to capture the basic idea of his work.

This whole neuro-A.I. fad began with artificial neural networks, which had nothing to do with brains, and still hasn't died.

[snikolov]

Numenta's most recent algorithms are actually very strongly neurobiological. If you have looked at earlier work, you should check out the most recent white paper from a couple of months ago, which detail more than year of recent efforts in that direction.

http://www.numenta.com/htm-overview/education/HTM_CorticalLe...

There is also a recent talk by Jeff Hawkins from a few months ago on the same subject.

http://www.archive.org/details/Redwood_Center_2010_12_02_vs2...

You are correct that neural networks had almost nothing to do with brains. Numenta's new cortical learning algorithms, on the other hand, are very closely modeled on the structure and function of the neocortex.