A Brief History of Intelligence cover art

A Brief History of Intelligence

Why the Evolution of the Brain Holds the Key to the Future of AI

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Brief History of Intelligence

By: Max Bennett
Narrated by: George Newbern
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £15.50

Buy Now for £15.50

About this listen

 Bridges the gap between AI and neuroscience by telling the story of how the brain came to be.

'I found this book amazing' Daniel Kahneman, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and bestselling author of Thinking Fast & Slow

The entirety of the human brain’s 4-billion-year story can be summarised as the culmination of five evolutionary breakthroughs, starting from the very first brains, all the way to the modern human brains. Each breakthrough emerged from new sets of brain modifications, and equipped animals with a new suite of intellectual faculties.

These five breakthroughs are the organising map to this book, and they make up our itinerary for our adventure back in time. Each breakthrough also has fascinating corollaries to breakthroughs in AI. Indeed, there will be plenty of such surprises along the way. For instance: the innovation that enabled AI to beat humans in the game of Go – temporal difference reinforcement learning – was an innovation discovered by our fish ancestors over 500 million years ago. The solutions to many of the current mysteries in AI – such as ‘common sense’ – can be found in the tiny brain of a mouse. Where do emotions come from? Research suggests that they may have arisen simply as a solution to navigation in ancient worm brains. Unravelling this evolutionary story will reveal the hidden features of human intelligence and with them, just how your mind came to be.

©2023 Max Solomon Bennett Animals Biological Sciences Computer Science Evolution Evolution & Genetics Machine Theory & Artificial Intelligence Outdoors & Nature Science Human Brain Technology Physiology Data Science Machine Learning Robotics Emotions

Critic reviews

'I found this book amazing. I read it through quickly because it was so interesting, then turned around and read much of it again' Daniel Kahneman, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and bestselling author of Thinking Fast & Slow

‘I've been recommending A Brief History of Intelligence to everyone I know. A truly novel, beautifully crafted thesis on what intelligence is and how it has developed since the dawn of life itself’ Angela Duckworth, University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of Grit

‘Introduces us to an enormous range of concepts in biology, evolution, brain science and AI… there is plenty of food for thought here’ TLS

'Absolutely riveting. A Brief History of Intelligence is a spellbinding and fascinating tour of the origins of the human species, and a reminder that the human story began long before Homo sapiens. An illuminating, revelatory account of who we are and how we got here' Brian Christian, bestselling author of Algorithms to Live By and The Alignment Problem

'If you are interested in understanding brains or in building human-like general AI, you should read this book. This is a forward-looking book masquerading as history. A mind-boggling amount of details of anatomy, physiology and behavior of a variety of nervous systems are brought together in a coherent evolutionary tale and explained in their computational contexts. It is a joy to read – don’t miss it!' Dileep George, DeepMind, cofounder of Vicarious AI

All stars
Most relevant
This book is similar in historical sweep to Behave and Sapience, but I enjoyed it more than both of these. It's really informative and well structured

Fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The five layers of intelligence built up over million of years.
It answers a lot of questions on intelligence in an engaging way.
Highly recommended.

Fantastic overview of how human Intelligence works.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wanted more that Max left out of the original manuscript when he whittled it down.

The steps of evolution

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Anyone interested in how the brain works should listen to this book. Approaching the subject from the evolutionary standpoint puts so much into context. Also interesting to see the parallels and weaknesses in the development of Ai presented in such a clear and understandable way.

Can’t recommend this one enough

Amazing book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The most interesting book I’ve read for a long time. A hugely insightful journey. Essential for anyone interested in intelligence in all its forms.

Fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews