On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain Will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines

by Jeff Hawkins

The process of generating the sequence of predictions of what I will see, feel, and hear while walking from the living room to the kitchen also generates the sequence of motor commands that makes me walk from my living room to my kitchen and move my eyes as I do so. Prediction and motor behavior work hand in hand as patterns flow down and up the cortical hierarchy. As strange as it sounds, when your own behavior is involved, your predictions not only precede sensation, they determine sensation. Thinking of going to the next pattern in a sequence causes a cascading prediction of what you should experience next. As the cascading prediction unfolds, it generates the motor commands necessary to fulfill the prediction. Thinking, predicting, and doing are all part of the same unfolding of sequences moving down the cortical hierarchy. “Doing” by thinking, the parallel unfolding of perception and motor behavior, is the essence of what is called goal-oriented behavior. Goal-oriented behavior is the holy grail of robotics. It is built into the fabric of the cortex. We can turn off our motor behavior, of course. I can think of seeing something without actually seeing it and I can think of going to my kitchen without actually doing so. But thinking of doing something is literally the start of how we do it.