Introduce yourself!

[brnelson.bn]

I’m 75. Too many years in programming to be content in retirement. I took Fortran in my senior year of College in 1965. Main frames to pc’s, Unix(X windows also) to DOS and Windows xx.x and Linux. Mostly employed in a manufacturing and scientific orientation in implementation setting. Familiar with Fortran, Oracle, Proc C, C, C++, Pascal plus others. I read Jeff’s book shortly after it came out. My scanning the net brought me to Numenta. I have taken over a software company for 6 months in the owner’s absence. Other management experience also.

My interest is the code and working with Python and your implementation. I have yet to get to a point of downloading and setting up and I need to set up an environment for development. Current objective is getting familiar with Virtualbox and some HPC stuff. I’m monitoring Numenta. I’ll eventually get there - God willing.

[Sergey_Taraban]

Hi to all. I’m Sergey from Ukraine, I am 29. I am a senior programmer (Game Developer), master of physics. I am interested in Computational Neuroscience a lot.
I’ve read the book “On Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins. Also took some courses about Neural Networks and Medical Neuroscience.

I want to help the HTM Community to create the real intelligent machines together.
I am going to look close into HTM framework. Also I need to finish HTM School.

[codewallah]

Hi everyone,

AI (but not GOFAI) enthusiast here. Or rather “machine intelligence” as Numenta calls it. With a sciene/math educational background, I’m moonlighting as a natural philosopher, currently working my way through the “Learning the 3D Structure of the World” paper. I have a day job as a code monkey (yes I know, I’m sorry I’m young and need the money).

I’m also stupid beyond belief. Words can’t describe my inability to comprehend the universe. Therefore my motivation to study and devleop AI is for AI to serve as a tool to augment the human intellect, not more and not less. I watched a video by Numenta where the stated goal was to create a “math savant” that solves scientific problems. This reflects the popular view of “an AI” being some sort of black box that acts in mysterious but (hopefully) ultimately beneficial ways. I find this idea very alienating and won’t have any of it.

For that reason, in lockstep with developing AI, I am interested in developing the human-machine interface that makes handling that AI circuitry feel as if it was a part of oneself, to form a “human-AI hybrid”. This doesn’t have to mean sci-fi ways of plugging cables into one’s head, it could be a well-conceptualized UI based on the I/O devices we have today. People and their smartphones today are already, while not quite human-AI, yet human-machine hybrids if you ask me.

I am also interested in how AIs or rather above mentioned human-AI hybrids could form networks, both in the technical and organizational sense of “network”. I have a tangential interest in multi-agent systems and game theory. AI potentially blurs the line between humans and machines, upsetting some deeply held notions about the nature of the world and therefore being the subject of much popular fascination. However, improved networking abilities and the ability for multiple actors to effortlessly act as a single entity could force us to re-evaluate our view of the world at least as much and warrants investigation from early on.

“Like” this post if you think the same way.

Richard

[rhyolight]

@codewallah

I have a day job as a code monkey (yes I know, I’m sorry I’m young and need the money).

No shame there. I spent 10 years code-monkeying.

@codewallah

I’m also stupid beyond belief.

Same.

@codewallah

I watched a video by Numenta where the stated goal was to create a “math savant”

That’s not Numenta’s goal, it was just an example of something that might occur if HTM technology is followed through to fruition.

[Deric_Pinto]

Hi , I am Deric , I got into AI by much of Numenta’s work , and a couple of books of Sebastina Seung , offcourse Jeff Hawkins and others , i wrote a blog about my interest here’s the link - if anybody wants to try : https://artificialcognition.blogspot.com/2017/05/artificial-intelligence-one-phrase-that.html

[jimmyw]

Hi all,

AI enthusiast from Australia here. First got really into ML after covering it in CS undergrad back in 2005, where it was presented as more or less how the brain works (and I knew no better!). Have maintained an interest ever since, but always a little disillusioned with pace of innovation and the long term potential. Since graduating 10 years ago, I have worked in various software development/consulting/infrastructure/continuous delivery roles, and now as a data architect for an insurance company. I also run a local futurist meetup.

I’m quite late to the HTM party and came across it by chance earlier this year. I had read a book called “The Illusion of God’s Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing”, and there was a chapter toward the end which discussed sensory perception and attention in a way I’d never encountered before; in a biologically constrained way but staying at a high enough level to be a useful enough model to understand the whole. I was so intrigued that I emailed the author and asked if he could recommend any further reading in that area, and he recommended I read On Intelligence.

Needless to say I devoured the book and felt a renewed interest in AI, and have since worked my way through HTM School which has been excellent (thanks @rhyolight!).

Since then I’ve been lurking on the forums and playing around with Nupic, but with a baby and toddler in the house I currently have limited spare time for meaningful code contributions. Regardless, the book and the papers on HTM have been great food for thought, and intuitively it feels like a very satisfying high level model for how the brain works.

Eager to see what Numenta produce in the coming years, and I hope to be able to contribute back at some point.

[Pegasus]

Hi all
I’m Pegasus, from China. Theoretically, I am still a postgraduate. I came across HTM just two month ago! As I am studying on machine learning(including deep learning), I find HTM is a brand new idea to deal with data. since I got my bachelor degree in bio-technology, I love her(HTM) as soon as I know her. Now I am working on to handle her.

[Paul_Lamb]

I realized that I never actually introduced myself on the forum – I just rudely joined to post a question about hierarchy

I don’t have any background in neurosciences – I’m a computer programmer. I taught myself from a young age, and prior to my current job I really only did it as a hobby. I have had experience in a lot of computer programming subjects, though: I have designed video games, built interactive web pages, designed databases and interfaces, experimented with AI (mainly from the perspective of video games), and worked with both 2D and 3D graphics in numerous computer languages and libraries.

One of my more notable accomplishments was writing the 3D Sound System library that was used in Minecraft. I even used to be in the credits, before the Microsoft acquisition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VWsq1JXVWY&start=537

Another notable accomplishment was porting Mupen64Plus (a Nintendo 64 emulator) to Android. All N64 emulators currently on Google Play are forks of that original port.

My interest in HTM happened rather randomly after a conversation with a colleague about the theoretical “Technological Singularity”. The argument my colleague was making, which I disagree with, was that the singularity would follow almost immediately after human-level artificial general intelligence was created (i.e. as soon as a machine were to become self-aware). I argued that there is nothing magical about human-level intelligence which would automatically lead to the singularity (there are already 7 billion human-level intelligences in the world now, right?)

My own argument about there being nothing magical about human-level intelligence got me thinking, though. What level of intelligence would be necessary for a recursive trans-mutative routine to function? Would cockroach-level intelligence be enough? What aspects of the “Technological Singularity” theory might be used to generate an AI with a higher level of intelligence than what it initially started out with? Could such a system be used to produce robust utility AIs that could later be plugged into other systems (a toy robot, for example)?

Can AI be applied to the problem of improving on its own code? This question led me to researching AI strategies to see what would best apply. I wanted a technology that could be applied to a diverse range of problems (not specialized to a single problem), since there are may aspects to the concept of “intelligence”. During my research, I stumbled across one of Jeff’s videos on the Principles of HTM and from there to several other videos about HTM. I was immediately hooked – the general-purpose concepts of HTM like SDRs, semantics, context were exactly the types of capabilities I was looking for.

I originally joined the forum to ask questions and fill gaps in my understanding of the core concepts of HTM. I have since gained a fair understanding, and have even been able to use HTM concepts in my job (so its not just a hobby any more)

[stepan]

Hi everyone,

My name is Stepan. I’m from Russia, a software engineer.
I read On Intelligence about 3 years ago. This book got me really interested in how the brain works and how a general AI could work.
In my research, I actually started from ideas of the book. However, I chose a little different approach and got pretty far from the initial model.

Recently I read some papers of Numenta team members and I was surprised how close my model to the HTM in many aspects. If it’s ok with you, I’ll create a separate topic with a short description of my work and a comparison with the HTM. I hope that the point of view from a “different direction” could be interesting.

[rhyolight]

@stepan

I’ll create a separate topic with a short description of my work and a comparison with the HTM. I hope that the point of view from a “different direction” could be interesting.

Sure, we’d love to hear about it in #htm-theory:tangential-theories.

[David_Keeney]

Hi, I guess I should introduce myself.

My name is David Keeney. I am a Retired Contract Software Engineer. Most of my experience has been in C/C++ but at one time or another over the last 45 years I have touched on nearly all major programming languages under both Windows and Linux. My resume can be found on the Software Contractors’ Guild at https://scguild.com/Resume/1002R.html (Oh, the ScGuild website is one of the websites I maintain).

After retiring from PayPal I looked around for something interesting to do. After a couple years doing free websites I thought there had to be something more interesting. I stumbled onto the Numenta website and was hooked. So I have been skulking around on the forum for a while and finally decided to expose myself. I have no Neural Science background. I had some exposure to AI back in the 1989 but that AI was going nowhere. Today’s AI has a chance of actually becoming intelligent and it seems to me that the Numenta approach is the most likely to succeed.

As an Engineer I build things based on first principles and the research of the scientist rather then do the research myself. That is what engineers do. So I have been looking for just enough of the pieces that I might be able to have a part in building the first truly Intelligent machine.

[brev]

Hey all,

My name is Brev Patterson. I was around a bit when the mailing list first started, and at a few of the Hackathons. I’m just getting back up to speed on HTM Theory. I’m aimed at helping out on NuPIC, building my own small HTMs for personal learning, and developing some successful HTM Apps.

I worked at Numenta most recently, doing development and design for HTM Apps (Grok, HTM Studio, etc.) and Websites. I spent time at Yahoo and Red Hat before that.

I’m pretty good with computers, but rather new to serious science of brains and neocortex.

Besides this, I’m currently focused on meditation, yoga, and learning kung-fu (wing chun).

Anyway, I hope to be more active around these parts. Thanks for all of the hard work.

Brev

[rhyolight]

Hi Brev! Nice to hear from you again!

[ekdunn]

Hi all,
My name is Elijah. I have a BS in physics, but I dabble in AI. I have been playing around with Nupic for a year or so. I had C++ classes in college but switched over to python just as soon as I tried it. As of this writing I’m swarming over a very large dataset of cryptocurrency trade information. Just curious what comes out.

Pair of Xeons hard at work.
I think nupic is the best implementation of a cortex out there. I hope to contribute to core at some point in the future.

[Falco]

Hello everyone. My friends call me Falco.

I’m an early retired programmer. I used to work in the automotive sector as a commissioning engineer (writing in ladder logic and STL) and later in IT, writing in the embedded SAP language ABAP (an unholy union between SQL and COBOL). I am glad I got out alive…

I studied philosophy of free will and I am convinced we don’t have any. I am also a big fan of Ray Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns. Yet, I am an open-minded skeptic. I also study music theory and play the piano (poorly), which gives me interesting insights in how my brain works.

When I learned about HTM and Numenta (through video’s by Jeff Hawkins and Matt Taylor), it blew my mind. I feel I need to learn everything I can about this. I am currently reading On Intelligence.

I must say I’m a bit overwhelmed by most people on this forum, and I don’t know where to start. I have watched the HTM school video’s with great interest and several of Jeff Hawkins presentations. (I am honestly dumbfounded why the AI community is not paying more attention to HTM).

But this is all very daunting. I have dabbled in about a dozen or two programming languages (from 8086 assembly to Java) but I’m only proficient in ladder logic and COBOL. And I never even installed a Linux system. I also have big motivational problems. But somehow I feel strongly I need to understand HTM. I think it is going to be essential in the coming years.

[Ed_Pell]

Hi Ed Pell here, I grew up next to IBM Research in Yorktown. I was in high school early 70s when IBM was doing natural language question answering. I have a MA in physics from Columbia University. Have worked 30 year in the semiconductor business, circuits in Fishkill, CPU and Cache in Poughkeepsie. Now I work on machine intelligence in Yorktown. I hope to teach Hal to read. That is read with comprehension and ability to discuss what it learned by reading.

[Ed_Pell]

I used to be a fan of python but now I am liking node (aka nodejs) with zeromq. You might want to look at Julia.

[Jose_Cueto]

Hey there, I’m Jose an IT generalist (firmware, software, hardware) and my background is in theoretical computer science, I DIY (all sorts of things), brew beer, and play the blues/tronic as much as I can. What led me here was accidental. I’ve always been fascinated with how the our mind works and in general how we behave and learn and since I’m not into any Neuroscience study, I’ve been open to any theories and always been fascinated with them. Recently, I’ve studied and experimented with DL-based AI and quite fascinated at first, however there is always that conscience that tells me - that isn’t how our mind works. So I keep searching and looking for other theories and boom I found Jeff Hawkins youtube video about HTM and from then I started reading On Intelligence. My fascination grew more as I was reading the book, as my own theory of the brain is similar to HTM (without the temporal part). I’m also quite interested with Stephen Wolfram’s science about the Cellular Automata, and I’ve been trying to consolidate these simple computing machines purpose with encoding, compression, and evolutionary programming.

I’m glad and thankful for Numenta sharing this theory to everybody, it is an opportunity for us small-time experimenters to try or compare our brain/mind theories. After all we all have brains, and we all own the theory of how the mind works.

[dub3]

Whilst a different background (dance for 12 years, design for a couple, then software for 14 years), my story is much the same (fascination with how the brain learns, some study in DL for Computer Vision then the realization that DL, whilst useful in a professional sense was no what I was after).

Since finding a lecture of Jeff’s, I have been reading/watching/audiobooking everything I can on both HTM and neuroscience.
For the first time since I moved into the digital realm (the early days of html) I’m invigorated and inspired.

When I first looked into AI, one of the topics I thought would be interesting for study was this concept of ‘creativity’. As soon as I saw how HTM works I knew they were on the right path.

So without wanting to hijack Jose’s thread, I’d also like to sincerely thank Jeff, Matt Taylor and the other members of Numenta and it’s community for allowing us the oppotunity to follow along with your breakthroughs.

…and thanks Jose for the opening!

Eternally grateful,
Mike Pearce

[David_Berneda]

Hello !
If you know Delphi, I’m the guy behind the charting controls (TeeChart).
Time to recycle and catch-up into AI, exploring new pastures !

david