How to Build a Mind: Toward Machines with Imagination

by Igor Aleksander

Book Overview

Igor Aleksander heads a major British team that has applied engineering principles to the understanding of the human brain and has built several pioneering machines, culminating in MAGNUS, which he calls a machine with imagination. When he asks it (in words) to produce an image of a banana that is blue with red spots, the image appears on the screen in seconds.

The idea of such an apparently imaginative, even conscious machine seems heretical...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231120125
• ISBN13: 9780231120128
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Personal, insider's view of the field of Artificial Intelligence

The book is a parallel presentation of the evolution and struggles of AI on one hand, and the author's personal evolution and struggles on the other. It tells the story of an experimentally-minded academic who has to balance his thirst for knowledge with personal, political and bureaucratical considerations. I think anyone involved in so controversial a field as AI is prone to "err" into philosophy, and Aleksander's imaginary dialogues with philosophers from Aristotle to Dennett are entertaining and to the point. I'm puzzled why he seems to favor Searle over Dennett, when Searle's vague points about "aboutness" are a pale reflection of Dennett's extensive explorations of intentionality. (For those who label Dennett's approach "materialist", the paper "Real patterns" could be an eye opener.) For the non-technical level of the book, the intuitive explanations of neural networks in terms of dimples or attractors are as good as they can be. Given the author's "hardware" background (Sophia, Minerva etc.), his anti-software bias is understandable, but by the time we get to MAGNUS a strange position emerges (pun intended): On one hand he honestly accepts that MAGNUS is a software simulation, and clearly recognizes the advantage of doing it this way. On the other he completely muddles the waters when answering the question if a machine can be conscious: my impression is that he's saying that the software-MAGNUS is just a simulation we use to figure things out (and not capable of consciousness), but once we got it down we'll build a neuron-based hardware-MAGNUS which will be conscious. Huh? The references are a good selection for those who want to study further. Just one correction: Rosenblat's book is titled "Principles of neurodynamics; perceptrons and the theory of brain mechanisms", not "Introduction ..."

a good example of how to write science books

First, I must admit that some of what Aleksander says goes over my head, at least right now. (I'm not that seriously into this subject, at least so far.) But you can tell, just from the way he writes and what he says, that he comes from a position of genuine competence WRT his subject. Also well worth noting: Either Aleksander has exceptionally good language skills, or a great copy editor, as I saw very few errors in grammar, spelling and so on.

Only if you need convincing

Read this book only if you need to be convinced that machines will be capable of thought and imagination. It is quite philosophical and argues points that seem obvious to me. The book seems to be intended for doubters. The first 11 chapters get three stars from me.On the other hand, if you want to understand how the brain works, turn to the last chapter (Ch# 12 On Being Conscious) it is an excellent summary of our current knowledge. This last chapter gets five stars.