Jeff Hawkins - Human Brain Project Keynote [Screencast]

On October 15, 2018, Numenta Co-founder Jeff Hawkins gave a keynote presentation at the Human Brain Project Summit Open Day in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Because we were not able to get a recording of that talk, we created a screencast of Jeff presenting the material in our office. The material covers our research paper that was released two days prior to the Human Brain Project Summit, "A Framework for Intelligence and Cortical Function Based on Grid Cells in the Neocortex."

[mattanimation]

Really glad to get to get the chance to hear this presentation, can't wait to hear more like this in the future.

[tulpjeeen]

Slowly but surely things are coming together. Amazing stuff!

[lawrencewalter]

Great to hear about the latest progress Jeff. I’ve been following your work closely since reading your book as an undergrad. Your passion for neuroscience is inspiring. Thought is at the center of all humanity and as you express so eloquently should be a primary focus of our scientific endeavors. Your talks are extremely compelling to this end and adeptly blend foundational and advanced concepts, to cater for diverse audiences. With Numenta’s role as a theoretical pioneer and evangelist for new brain concepts is there a way to capitalize on new mediums such as VR to increase bandwidth and accelerate audience acquisition of the new brain models you describe and explore. What would a Jeff Hawkins VR tour of the brain be like? Visualizing functions of columns and layers in exciting visceral new ways! Until then keep us updated on new breakthroughs!

[SergioHernandezCerezo]

Hum... then, somehow, displacement cells are just a 2nd tier of location cells: they represent where the "location cells firing on the Logo point x" are placed in relation to the "location cells firing on the cup point a".

Nice recursive idea: at the same time that a cup has a location space, the location cells used to represent points in that space have another "location space" of their own.

Then, if a 2nd layer of location cells add relative positions of objects, a 3rd layer of such structure could account for relative movement between objects and so on.

[dshin]

How do grid cells and displacement cells handle object dilation? The description in this lecture appears to assume that the logo has a fixed size.

[manfredadams]

You need 4 points to represent a point in 3d space. You need a group of grid cells to represent the origin of the cup. You then need a group of grid cells to represent the origin of the cup relative to your personal origin.

[RohitWason]

4:59 "The ones that are *active represent your current thoughts and perceptions?"

[paulpallaghy]

Great stuff Jeff, I've been following you guys since On Intelligence came out which was wonderful. I wonder if anyone has seen something like grid cells & displacement cells EMERGING in (artificial) deep learning networks (with appropriate training)? Because we do see edge and corner & nose & eye & wheel & window neurons emerging automatically in visual deep learning networks . .

[justgivemethetruth]

47:50 - Very interesting what he says about Mars colonization not happening without explorer and builder robots going before us to prepare places for us to live. Hard to disagree with that. The whole colonization of space that as a kid I used to be so gung-ho for has a whole complexity to it that was never really put out there. Assuming that we survive long enough to build these robots.

[pasdavoine]

Really inspiring. Moreover your presentation is easy to understand. Thanks a lot.

[justgivemethetruth]

4:58 - the neurons that are inactive represent our current thoughts and perceptions ????
Do you mean to say active? How many times has this guy given this dinner napkin speech ... does he mean that the inactive neurons are doing something?

[Adhil_parammel]

At end they will say "only neurons can do brain things, and neuron can't be replaced with nothing"~by neurons

[AbbundanceOasis]

Amazing, mind blown! This can really be applicable on self driving AI and general robotics. Andrej Kaparthy is implementing something very similar at Tesla Autopilot

[richardfrench]

So I guess place cells can be derived by learning simultaneous firing (good old Donald!) of particular grid cells? Hmmm.... I suspect abstract reasoning is thus formed by columns responding to inputs purely from the activity of other columns and hence have an "abstract modality". Everything else follows from there... hopefully!

[Stan_]

"In humans, 90% of the cerebral cortex and 76% of the entire brain is neocortex"
"There are between 14 and 16 billion neurons in the cortex". 86 billion - brain total.
These numbers don't make sense: if neocortex is 76% of the brain then it should have more neurons.

[lasredchris]

Human neocortex - 75% of brain
Organ of intelligence
The most important scientific problem of all time

[michelechaussabel]

Wonderful watching as we get closer to the construction of a thought. But I’m a little tired of hearing about the cup. Please more on to language and abstract concepts. Describe how the sentence, “Do we have free will?” Would form in the brain.

[fergusmoffat]

Further proof of your meta-theory?

[thorkrynu]

"Would not expect to see a door on the ceiling, on the floor". Unless you're Dr. Suess

[danbreeden]

We could eventually control the emotional states and mental states