Jeff Hawkins book 'On Intelligence': Great insights. Quotes John Searle and his Chinese Room (To Read:
The Rediscovery of the Mind)!
Chapter 1 (Artificial Intelligence): Background... Cornell EE -> Intel. But heart with understanding the brain. Declined support to proposals in Intel because AI was 25 yrs behind (and rightly so). Tried MIT but they were blind to the 'understanding brain' approach. Persisted with taking correspondence courses in biology and wrote exams and finally got grad admission into UC Berkeley in biophysics! Summary... AI is the wrong approach, Chinese Room argument sums it up. Understanding how brain works is fundamental. The means not the end is what is important and needs research. So far everything has been based on replicating the 'ends' in a 'behavioral' sense.
Chapter 2 (Neural networks): Neural nets are examples of right approach, although trends were not satisfactory. They are to the brain what transistor based radios are to computers. Handspring not based on neural nets (although still mysterious on what it is based on).
Relevant Courses:
Neurobiology,
Statistical Learning,
Probabilistic Models In AIJeff Hawkins's
SCPD talk here
