Off the Beaten Path - HTM-based Strong AI Beats RNNs and CNNs at Prediction and Anomaly Detection

Summary: This is the second in our "Off the Beaten Path" series looking at innovators in machine learning who have elected strategies and methods outside of the mainstream. In this article we look at Numenta's unique approach to scalar prediction and anomaly detection based on their own brain research. Numenta, the machine intelligence company founded in 2005 by Jeff Hawkins of Palm Pilot fame might well be the poster child for'off the beaten path'. More a research laboratory than commercial venture, Hawkins has been pursuing a strong-AI model of computation that will at once directly model the human brain, and as a result be a general purpose solution to all types of machine learning problems. After swimming against the tide of the'narrow' or'weak' AI approaches represented by deep learning's CNNs and RNN/LSTMs his bet is starting to pay off.