What Can Deep Neural Networks Teach Us About Human Thought?

Intelligence is a property of networks, not objects - Each neuron in a neural network is extremely simple, but if you wire them together in the right way then the network can be extremely intelligent. Similarly what makes humanity so intelligent is the way that relatively unintelligent individuals can be wired together into super-intelligent societies. Understanding is less important than iteration and measurement - Neural networks generate models that are far too complex for us to understand. However, that's okay provided we have metrics that tell us how effective they are at whatever we want them to do, and provided we have ways to iteratively improve their performance against that metric. Similarly, humans rarely have a good rational understanding of how they actually solve problems and learn best when they have the opportunity to repeatedly practice something and know when they are getting better.