Link here.

Joining us is Matt Taylor (/u/rhyolight), who is /u/Numenta‘s community manager. He’ll be answering the bulk of the questions here, and will refer any more advanced neuroscience questions to Jeff Hawkins, Numenta’s Co-Founder.

We are on a mission to figure out how the brain works and enable machine intelligence technology based on brain principles. We’ve made significant progress in understanding the brain, and we believe our research offers opportunities to advance the state of AI and machine learning.

Despite the fact that scientists have amassed an enormous amount of detailed factual knowledge about the brain, how it works is still a profound mystery. We recently published a paper titled A Framework for Intelligence and Cortical Function Based on Grid Cells in the Neocortex that lays out a theoretical framework for understanding what the neocortex does and how it does it. It is commonly believed that the brain recognizes objects by extracting sensory features in a series of processing steps, which is also how today’s deep learning networks work. Our new theory suggests that instead of learning one big model of the world, the neocortex learns thousands of models that operate in parallel. We call this the Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence.

The Thousand Brains Theory is rich with novel ideas and concepts that can be applied to practical machine learning systems and provides a roadmap for building intelligent systems inspired by the brain. I am excited to be a part of this mission! Ask me anything about our theory, code, or community.

Relevant Links:

• Past AMA:
  /r/askscience previously hosted Numenta a couple of months ago. Check for further Q&A.
• Numenta HTM School:
  Series of videos introducing HTM Theory, no background in neuro, math, or CS required.