Four attributes of intelligence, a thousand questions

Jeff Hawkins is one of those rare individuals who speaks the languages of both AI and neuroscience. In his recent book, "A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence", Hawkins proposes that current learning algorithms lack four attributes which will be necessary for true machine intelligence. Here we demonstrate that a minimal learning system which satisfies all four points can be constructed using only simple, classical machine learning techniques. We illustrate that such a system falls short of biological intelligence in some important ways. We suggest that Hawkins' list is a useful model, but the "recipe" for true intelligence-if there is one-may not be so easily defined.