On Intelligence
Jeff Hawkins, the high-tech success story behind PalmPilots and the  Redwood Neuroscience Institute, does a lot of thinking about thinking.  InOn IntelligenceHawkins juxtaposes his two loves--computers  and brains--to examine the real future of artificial intelligence. In  doing so, he unites two fields of study that have been moving uneasily  toward one another for at least two decades. Most people think that computers are getting smarter, and that maybe  someday, they'll be as smart as we humans are. But Hawkins explains why  the way we build computers today won't take us down that path. He shows,  using nicely accessible examples, that our brains are memory-driven  systems that use our five senses and our perception of time, space, and  consciousness in a way that's totally unlike the relatively simple  structures of even the most complex computer chip. Readers who gobbled up Ray Kurzweil's (The Age of Spiritual Machinesand Steven Johnson'sMind Wide Openwill  find more intriguing food for thought here. Hawkins does a good job of  outlining current brain research for a general audience, and his  enthusiasm for brains is surprisingly contagious.--Therese Littleton--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.