A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence

by Jeff Hawkins

Intelligence: Of the three, intelligence is the most benign. An intelligent machine will not on its own start to self-replicate, nor will it spontaneously develop drives and motivations. We will have to go out of our way to design in the motivations we want intelligent machines to have. But unless intelligent machines are self-replicat...

We are at an inflection point in the history of Earth, a period of rapid and dramatic change to both the planet and the life-forms that inhabit it. The climate is changing so rapidly that it is likely to make some cities uninhabitable and large agricultural areas barren in the next one hundred years. Species are going extinct at such a rapid rate that some scientists are calling it the sixth great extinction event in Earth’s history. Human intelligence is the cause of these rapid changes.

Viral models of the world prescribe behaviors that spread the model from brain to brain in increasing numbers.

False models of the world can spread and thrive as long as the false beliefs help the believers spread their genes. The history book and the people who believe it are in a symbiotic relationship. They help each other replicate, and they evolve over time in a mutually reinforcing way. The history book may be factually incorrect, but life is not about having a correct model of the world. Life is about replication.

There is only one way, that we know of, to discern falsehoods from truths, one way to see if our model of the world has errors. That method is to actively seek evidence that contradicts our beliefs. Finding evidence that supports our beliefs is helpful, but not definitive. Finding contrary evidence, however, is proof that the model in our head is not right and needs to be modified. Actively looking for evidence to disprove our beliefs is the scientific method. It is the only approach we know of that can get us closer to the truth.

We have viral false beliefs to blame for this. Like the fake history book, memes rely on brains to replicate, and therefore, they have evolved ways of controlling the behavior of brains to further their interests. Because the neocortex is constantly making predictions to test its model of the world, the model is inherently self-correcting. On its own, a brain will inexorably move toward more and more accurate models of the world. But this process is thwarted, on a global scale, by viral false beliefs.

Human-caused climate change is a result of two factors. One is the number of people who live on Earth and the other is how much pollution each person creates. Both of these numbers are going up. Let’s look at population growth.

Simple logic says that the Earth would be less likely to experience some form of human-caused degradation and collapse if there were fewer people. For example, if there were two billion people instead of eight billion, then it is possible that the Earth’s ecosystems could absorb our impact without rapid and radical change.

Belief in an afterlife, on its own, is benign. For example, belief in reincarnation provides an incentive to live a more considerate life and seems to pose no existential risks. The threat arises if you believe that the afterlife is more important than the present life. At its extremes, this leads to the belief that destroying the Earth, or just several major cities and billions of people, will help you and your fellow believers achieve the desired afterlife. In the past, this might have led to the destruction and burning of a city or two. Today, it could lead to an escalating nuclear war that could make Earth unlivable.

Humans could suffer a similar fate. If our species becomes extinct, will anyone know that we once existed, that we once lived here on Earth? If no one finds our remains, then everything we have accomplished—our science, our arts, our culture, our history—would be lost forever. And being lost forever is the same as never existing.

two existential threats: nuclear weapons and climate change.

We can use our intelligence to imagine a better future, and we can take actions to achieve the future we desire. But the old brain could ruin everything. It generates behaviors that have helped genes replicate in the past, yet many of those behaviors are not pretty. We try to control our old brain’s destructive and divisive impulses, but so far we have not been able to do this entirely.

The main difficulty with living on Mars is that Mars is a terrible place to live.

Species are ever changing. We are not the same, genetically, as our ancestors who lived one hundred thousand years ago. The rate of change may be slow, but it never stops. If you look at Earth this way, then it doesn’t make sense to try to preserve species or to preserve Earth. We cannot stop the Earth’s most basic geological features from changing, and we can’t stop species from evolving and going extinct.

Every environmentalist would be happy to see the extinction of some living things—say, the poliovirus—while simultaneously going to great lengths to save an endangered wildflower. From the universe’s perspective, this is an arbitrary distinction; neither the poliovirus nor the wildflower is better or worse than the other. We make the choice about what to protect based on what is in our best interest.

As to the other animals on Earth, we can choose to help them or not. But as long as we are here, there is no option to let things go their “natural” way. We are part of nature and we must make choices that will impact the future.

There is a direction to knowledge. Knowledge of gravity can go from no knowledge, to Newton’s, to Einstein’s, but it can’t go in the opposite direction.

A future driven by genes has little to no direction and only short-term goals: stay healthy, have kids, enjoy life. A future designed in the best interest of knowledge has both direction and end goals.