The Ruffian NEW PODCAST: Max Bennett On the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Aug 20, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Max Bennett, author of *A Brief History of Intelligence* and former AI entrepreneur, shares his insights on the evolution of human intelligence. He dives into the differences in learning between humans and AIs, emphasizing the vital role of reinforcement learning. Bennett explores how imagination arose from the neocortex and its impact on future planning. He also contrasts the curiosity of humans with the more passive nature of large language models, shedding light on how language enhances collaboration and learning.
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Book Born From Weekend Obsession
- Max Bennett wrote A Brief History Of Intelligence mostly as a weekend project while running companies.
- He read textbooks and papers for years, then took a year off to finish the book.
From E-Commerce AI To Neuroscience
- Max started in industry building AI tools for e-commerce with his company BlueCore.
- His engineering work sparked curiosity about why AI fails at tasks humans handle easily, leading to neuroscience study.
Different Learning Regimes: Batch Versus Stream
- Modern AI learns with backpropagation on huge batches of curated data, while brains learn from continuous streams and continual experience.
- Humans excel at continual learning without catastrophic forgetting, a capability AI still struggles to match.
