Wired for Thought

Overview

Stibel first debunks common beliefs about the brain. From a physical basis, he clears up the misperception that the brain is mainly grey matter (it turned out to have more white matter). From a biological basis, he explains that the brain uses nothing more than electricity and chemistry to create intelligence. From a cognitive perspective, he debunks a number of myths about the brain, such as the adage that only 10% of the brain is used. Stibel also argues that the brain is a technical wonder, saying that its hardware is billions of interconnected neurons densely interconnected in rich but disassociated “neural networks.” Its software is richer still (a semantic network) and has developed throughout the cerebral cortex to create memories, category formation, and ultimately consciousness. The Internet, Stibel argues, is a replication of the brain—the hardware being millions of computers connected like neurons to one another, and the software being the World Wide Web and the surrounding infrastructure that build a rich semantic network (the semantic web). He acknowledges that the Internet, the Web, and the intelligence of the Internet and the Web are in their infancy, at least from an evolutionary point of view, but says that they are growing fast.

The book also criticizes the term artificial intelligence. Stibel claims that the word itself is misleading, causing people to associate A.I. with something fake or “less than” intelligent. Instead, he says that what is needed is an artificial brain to create real intelligence, “much in the way that an artificial heart is used to create a real heartbeat.”

The book's first section outlines the scientific basis for the development of the Internet as a brain. Stibel reviews the works of Daniel Dennett and James A. Anderson, whom he calls his mentors. He builds on Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes by saying websites are spreading memes across the web in the same way that thoughts spread among minds. Stibel also outlines arguments from Steven Pinker, Ray Kurzweil, Nova Spivack, John Brockman, Douglas Hofstadter, Nassim Taleb, and Marvin Minsky.

The book's second section provides case studies to support and expand the first section's claims. Stibel outlines a theory for decision making on the web, using examples from Netflix, Amazon.com, and Google. He argues that the Internet has, and will continue to go through, fits of creative destruction, much like human memory succeeds because of its fallibility. The book then focuses on Internet search and the linguistic underpinnings of the web, using the development of Google by Larry Page and Sergey Brin as a case study. Stibel then provides a cross-section of the social networking space, saying that it has evolved in line with neural network theory, which he caps off with a display of Facebook’s “network of networks” approach to the brain.

The final section is prospective and provides an outlook for the next 10 to 20 years. Stibel discusses a new technology called Braingate—a chip implanted into the brain that allows people to control electrical devices with their thoughts. The book’s vision for the future focuses less on the grave concerns and risks associated with an “artificial intelligence” than on the prospect of creating new intelligence. Stibel believes that Moore’s law, Metcalfe's law, and many of the other laws that described hyper-growth during the early years of the Internet will break down. At that point, the hardware of the Internet will have evolved and the real advances will all be driven from the software of the World Wide Web. This is where rapid spurts of intelligence will come from, just as the brain leapt forward after it began growing semantically instead of physically (presumably with the development of the cerebral cortex). For the Internet, the final chapter of the book provides a detailed look into the next 20 years of the Internet and how it will evolve into increasing levels of intelligence and eventually forms of consciousness.