The rapid ascent of artificial intelligence in recent years, exemplified by the skyrocketing popularity of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, has seen these technologies tackle an array of tasks that were once exclusively within the realm of human cognition. Yet, despite their increasingly proficient linguistic abilities, these machine learning systems surprisingly fall short when it comes to making the kind of cognitive leaps and logical deductions that an average teenager can accomplish with ease.
In this week’s excerpt from “A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains,” AI entrepreneur Max Bennett delves into the intriguing gap in computer competency by exploring the origins of the organic machinery that serves as the blueprint for AI: the human brain.
Bennett’s exploration focuses on the five pivotal “breakthroughs” that paved the way for the evolution of our modern minds. These breakthroughs, amidst a sea of genetic experiments and evolutionary dead ends, are the very foundations upon which our species has built its intellectual prowess. Remarkably, these advancements that took eons to shape the human mind can also be harnessed to guide the development of AI technologies in the future.
