AI SERIES: At the dawn of a new form of Human Intelligence

Since the appearance of the first primates on earth around 55 million years ago, the brain evolution has progressed following a rather flat linear progression. Then, around 2 million years ago, while the evolutionary line leading to hominins finally became distinct and the Homo Habilis was walking its first steps, the growth rate of its cranial capacity suddenly began to increase exponentially from around 500cm3 to 1.330cm3 of the modern human brain. Along with its growth in size, brain kept increasing in the number of neurons it contained: from an estimated 40 to 50 billion neurons for Homo Habilis to the 86 billion of a modern adult human. And neurons are heavily involved in determining general information processing capacity (IPC), as reflected by general intelligence. The new'extra' portion of the brain that our ancestors gained, the neocortex, together with the high availability of neurons, is what makes us so special by giving us extraordinary cognitive abilities including feelings, language, thinking, planning, and personality.