The Brain and Implications for AI

21st century artificial intelligence is dominated by deep learning. 

But one of the isues with deep learning is that it’s often completely data-driven. Prior knowledge is not incorporated. Adding prior knowlege reduces computation, but adds an element of judgment or subjectivity. 

And that will be an issue. We can go faster when we incorporate what we believe we already know. That's why we have "rules of thumb."

But humans process and perceive in ways that are not strictly based on "what exists in reality" but how we conclude things are in reality. We sometimes construct it, in other words. And humans are able to understand and sort through lots of abstractions we might just call "common sense."

Algorithms cannot do this unless they are taught. The "data" does not necessarily help. It's kind of how we had issues with machine vision. "Objects" humans easily recognized often were difficult for AI to perceive. We had to embed that knowledge in the algorithms. 

It all matters for applied AI since AI is about inferences. And inferences made by humans often involve all sorts of embedded rules that make inference generation easier and more accurate.