Artificial Intelligence scholar Jeff Hawkins to speak at Case Western Reserve University

Thu, 03/19/2009 - 05:50 - NLN

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University announced today that Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of companies such as Palm and Handspring, and author of On Intelligence, will be the featured speaker at the semi-annual Allen and Constance Ford Distinguished Lectureship Series on March 31, 2009 in Cleveland. The program Hierarchical Temporal Memory: How a theory of the neocortex may lead to truly intelligent machines is free and open to the public.

Hawkins has pioneered the development of a technology platform based on his theories of how the human brain processes information.

Hawkins has long fought the idea that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is simply a matter of programming and mathematics. He continues to seek first to understand how human intelligence works and then move forward from there. His theory, called Hierarchical Temporal Memory, explains how the hierarchical structure of the neocortex builds a model of its world and uses this model for inference and prediction.

“The biggest reason I thought computers would not be intelligent is that I understood how computers worked … and this knowledge gave me a strong intuitive sense that brains and computers were fundamentally different…” Hawkins states in his book, On Intelligence. “After understanding how the neocortex worked, then we could go about building intelligent machines, but not before.”

“Jeff Hawkins has challenged the pervasive approach to the development of Artificial Intelligence machines by studying the root of intelligence as opposed to the root of computers,” said Dr. Hunter Peckham, Donnell Institute Professor of Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University. “His theory may be the basis of some of the most groundbreaking technologies of our lifetime.”

A co-founder of such companies as Palm and Handspring, Hawkins has since co-created a company called Numenta to turn his theories into a useful technology.

The Allen and Constance Ford Distinguished Lectureship Series as part of the Ford Visiting Professorship Program was established in 2004 by Allen and Constance Ford, alumni and longtime benefactors of Case Western Reserve University. The semi-annual series provides Case Western researchers and clinical providers with access to some of the world’s foremost leaders in a variety of scientific disciplines.

The lecture is scheduled from 4:30 – 5:30 on March 31, 2009 at the Wolstein Auditorium on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. For more information, click here.