[zero_iq]

The ideas in this article are strongly reminiscent of those in Jeff Hawkins' "On Intelligence" (2004).

The idea of the brain operating (at least in part) as a "prediction machine" is certainly not a new one. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for this sort of experimental confirmation and theory to become more mainstream.

[jonmc12]

"Being You" by Anil Seth, released last month, is a great primer on predictive processing and its relationship to the science of consciousness. Its a great complement to Hawkins' latest. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W2J9WWD

[ethbr0]

It's been known in many communities, I think.

There's been a number of articles on HN over the years on saccades / visual interpolation.

See: https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-guide-to-s...

[carrolldunham]

For thousands of years:

>The mind has a basic habit, which is to create things. In fact, when the Buddha describes causality, how experiences come about, he says that the power of creation or sankhara—the mental tendency to put things together—actually comes prior to our sensory experience. It’s because the mind is active, actively putting things together, that it knows things.

>The problem is that most of its actions, most of its creations, come out of ignorance, so the kind of knowledge that comes from those creations can be misleading.

The second paragraph is getting off the topic - or is it?

[_0ffh]

>The idea of the brain operating (at least in part) as a "prediction machine" is certainly not a new one

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head right there! The idea goes back at least as far as Hermann von Helmholtz (19th century).

[SubiculumCode]

On any serious discussion of neuroscience, I'd advise to keep Jeff Hawkins out of it. Not only are the ideas he publishes often gross simplifications with little data to back it up (but does wonders as marketing), they were ideas pushed and developed by real working neuroscientists. Just my opinion.

[LesZedCB]

isn't that pretty face value what Numenta's goal is though? They read research papers on neuroscience and try to distill it down to applicable engineering problems for their HTM and see what works.

i can't speak much as to their original research efforts, but i personally appreciate the engineering-research side of what they are doing.

[SubiculumCode]

I personally don't mind what his company is doing, but I just don't think his views represent the understandings of my field all that well.

[blueblimp]

What resource would you recommend for getting an intro to those topics in neuroscience, that provides a better representation?

[SubiculumCode]

google scholar

[Invictus0]

Thought of this as well. Have you read his newer book? I haven't decided if I should pick it up or not.

[metanonsense]

I have read the book and I really liked the first half, which explains the "thousand brains theory of intelligence". Very inspiring and thought-provoking (at least to me as an interested amateur in this field). The second half, however, would better have been a book of its own. It's about Hawkins' ideas on AGI implications and whatnot, which is quite entertaining but devalues the first half, in a way.

[KingFelix]

It's alright, I didn't end up finishing it. I really like On Intelligence, wasn't pulled in to finish. Might have been state of mind at the time etc

[chalcolithic]

Oh, he has a newer book! Thank you!

[cr4zy]

Prediction machines, yet critically, taking actions that pursue states which we are not quite able to predict. https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0896627315007679?...

[Raphaellll]

It’s basically how large language models like GTP-3 work. They simply predict the next most probable word and suddenly you can prompt them to give you answers to rather intelligent tasks.