Your Brain is Running a Simulation Right Now [Max Bennett]
Tim sits down with Max Bennett to explore how our brains evolved over 600 million years—and what that means for understanding both human intelligence and AI.
Max isn't a neuroscientist by training. He's a tech entrepreneur who got curious, started reading, and ended up weaving together three fields that rarely talk to each other: comparative psychology (what different animals can actually do), evolutionary neuroscience (how brains changed over time), and AI (what actually works in practice).
*Your Brain Is a Guessing Machine*
You don't actually "see" the world. Your brain builds a simulation of what it *thinks* is out there and just uses your eyes to check if it's right. That's why optical illusions work—your brain is filling in a triangle that isn't there, or can't decide if it's looking at a duck or a rabbit.
*Rats Have Regrets*
*Chimps Are Machiavellian*
*Language Is the Human Superpower*
*Does ChatGPT Think?*
(truncated description, more on rescript)
Understanding how the brain evolved isn't just about the past. It gives us clues about:
- What's actually different between human intelligence and AI
- Why we're so easily fooled by status games and tribal thinking
- What features we might want to build into—or leave out of—future AI systems
Get Max's book:
https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Intelligence-Humans-Breakthroughs/dp/0063286343
Rescript: https://app.rescript.info/public/share/R234b7AXyDXZusqQ_43KMGsUSvJ2TpSz2I3emnI6j9A
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Introduction: Outsider's Advantage & Neocortex Theories
00:11:34 Perception as Inference: The Filling-In Machine
00:19:11 Understanding, Recognition & Generative Models
00:36:39 How Mice Plan: Vicarious Trial & Error
00:46:15 Evolution of Self: The Layer 4 Mystery
00:58:31 Ancient Minds & The Social Brain: Machiavellian Apes
01:19:36 AI Alignment, Instrumental Convergence & Status Games
01:33:07 Metacognition & The IQ Paradox
01:48:40 Does GPT Have Theory of Mind?
02:00:40 Memes, Language Singularity & Brain Size Myths
02:16:44 Communication, Language & The Cyborg Future
02:44:25 Shared Fictions, World Models & The Reality Gap
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REFERENCES:Person:
[00:00:05] Karl Friston (UCL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNYWi996Beg
[00:00:06] Jeff Hawkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VQILbDqaI4
[00:12:19] Hermann von Helmholtz
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermann-helmholtz/
[00:38:34] David Redish (U. Minnesota)
https://redishlab.umn.edu/
[01:10:19] Robin Dunbar
https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/robin-dunbar
[01:15:04] Emil Menzel
https://www.sciencedirect.com/bookseries/behavior-of-nonhuman-primates/vol/5/suppl/C
[01:19:49] Nick Bostrom
https://nickbostrom.com/
[02:28:25] Noam Chomsky
https://linguistics.mit.edu/user/chomsky/
[03:01:22] Judea Pearl
https://samueli.ucla.edu/people/judea-pearl/
Concept/Framework:
[00:05:04] Active Inference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkR24ieh5Ow
Paper:
[00:35:59] Predictions not commands [Rick A Adams]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23129312/
Book:
[01:25:42] The Elephant in the Brain
https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyday/dp/0190495995
[01:28:27] The Status Game
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58642436-the-status-game
[02:00:40] The Selfish Gene
https://amazon.com/dp/0198788606
[02:14:25] The Language Game
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Game-Improvisation-Created-Changed/dp/1541674987
[02:54:40] The Evolution of Language
https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Language-Approaches/dp/052167736X
[03:09:37] The Three-Body Problem
https://amazon.com/dp/0765377063
Max Bennett (on the history of intelligence)
Max Bennett (A Brief History of Intelligence) is a researcher and author. Max joins the Armchair Expert to discuss his lack of an academic background, how he became interested in the way the human brain works, and why neurons evolved. Max and Dax talk about reenforcement learning, how emotions developed in the human brain, and how artificial intelligence is being designed to have curiosity. Max explains the paper clip conundrum, how language allows us to transfer thoughts, and chain of thought prompting.
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A Brief History of Biological and Artificial Intelligence with Max Bennett
In this episode, Nathan sits down with Max Bennett, author of the book: A Brief History of Intelligence. They discuss the five major breakthroughs in evolution that resulted in human brains and cognition. They delve deeper into the workings of each breakthrough, the evolution of intelligence, and how AI can benefit from understanding these principles. If you need an ecommerce platform, check out our sponsor Shopify: https://shopify.com/cognitive for a $1/month trial period.
We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.
LINKS:
A Brief History of Intelligence: https://a.co/d/6VPWTf7
SPONSORS:
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X/SOCIAL:
@labenz (Nathan)
@maxsbennett (Max)
@CogRev_Podcast
TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Intro
(06:00) Max's background on commercializing AI in technology
(09:53) AI has taught us a lot of our intuitions are wrong
(11:22) Why we're better off avoiding defining intelligence
(14:38) The Five Breakthrough Model - steering, reinforcing, simulating, mentalizing, and speaking
(15:43) Sponsor - Brave Search API | Shopify
(18:20) The story of the first breakthrough - Steering
(21:40) Evolution doesn't have forethought and every generation has to survive
(23:05) The study of nematodes - how did this first brain emerge?
(27:10) yet in bilaterians, but the idea is you classify things in the world into good and bad.
(33:00) Netsuite by Oracle | Omneky
(36:16) The story of the second breakthrough - Reinforcing
(1:32:44) The story of the fourth breakthrough - Mentalizing
(1:45:57) The story of the fourth breakthrough - Speaking (pls listen to the audio book / read the book)
(1:46:46) How evolutionary paradigms will shape up in the future
(1:55:03) A unified theory of value or moral patienthood that can be applied to the five breakthroughs
(1:59:21) Wrap + Sponsor | Omneky
This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.