george’s Reviews > A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains > Status Update

Theory of mind as an essential component of an integrated, "Detroit Become Human" level of AI... gPFC responsible?! I think this might be my favourite part of the brain - using our own explanation of intention to explain the intention of others once again feels like science fiction. But on a large enough timeline, a monkey on a typewriter could randomly type out all the works of Shakespeare.

We're on primates now: and it's getting VERY good. Chimpanzee politics is no joke whatsoever. Caught myself pretentiously musing over how arbitrary all their efforts and anxieties about social hierarchy are: remembered human life is genuinely no different. We just think more about thinking. What if some species is currently studying us, thinking about thinking about thinking? There's got to be a bigger fish?

Breakthrough #3 complete - last chapter covered the motor cortex, and developed the role of the basal ganglia in taking over the execution of automatic / learned habits and movement patterns. Introduction of aPFC has been interesting. Moving onto primates and "mentalizing" - I am excited to find out what on earth that means...

Near to the end of part III - just learnt how attention, working memory, planning and self-control all stem from an ability for mammals to imagine an internal model of the world. Habits are actions ancient parts of our brain (basal ganglia) learn by rote, by-passing this simulation 😮

Had to abandon Chapter 13: my dog kept bringing her ball to me. Currently discussing the three subsections of pre-frontal cortices in mammals. Interesting only when focused, else I have no idea what's going on

Around 3/4 through the part on early mammals simulating environments. The section on rumination was particularly interesting. I think the volume of concepts to recall is difficult, like TD-learning and credit assignment, and I keep having to check the glossary. I've wholly forgotten the importance of the basal ganglia...

Reading this for a general interaction to the development of the brain / human learning. Not particularly interested in its applications for the future of AI. Just found it to be a decent introduction, and a good basis for studying Psych this September