Subvolts take Understand intelligence by exploring brain evolution and its AI implications. Dec 30, 2025 - Developers
- Understand core intelligence mechanisms to potentially build more capable AI systems by drawing parallels with biological evolution.
- Business
- Gain insights into the fundamental differences between human and artificial intelligence, informing strategic AI development and application.
This is a solid interview with an author connecting evolutionary neuroscience and psychology to AI, offering unique insights.
Your Brain is Running a Simulation Right Now [Max Bennett]
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Machine Learning Street Talk features Max Bennett discussing how brains evolved over 600 million years, shaping human intelligence and AI. Bennett, a tech entrepreneur, blends comparative psychology, evolutionary neuroscience, and AI. The episode explores the brain as a simulation, why optical illusions work, and differences between human and AI intelligence. It also touches on animal cognition and language.
Your brain constantly guesses what's happening, using your eyes to check its work, which is why optical illusions trick you. This episode explores how brains evolved over millions of years, offering clues about what makes human intelligence different from AI.
This episode offers a unique perspective on intelligence by connecting evolutionary biology with AI. It's for anyone curious about the fundamental differences between human and artificial minds, and how our evolutionary past influences our present thinking and AI development. Listeners will gain insights into why AI might differ from human cognition and what features to consider for future AI systems. This connects to frontier labs' ongoing research into AGI and understanding the core mechanisms of intelligence.
- HostTim Scarfe
- GuestMax Bennett
- Guest: Max Bennett
- Episode Title: Your Brain is Running a Simulation Right Now
- Show: Machine Learning Street Talk
- Length: 197 minutes
- Brain Function: Your brain builds a simulation of what it thinks is out there and uses your eyes to check if it's right.
Tim sits down with Max Bennett to explore how our brains evolved over 600 million years—and what that means for understanding both human intelligence and AI.
Max isn't a neuroscientist by training. He's a tech entrepreneur who got curious, started reading, and ended up weaving together three fields that rarely talk to each other: comparative psychology (what different animals can actually do), evolutionary neuroscience (how brains changed over time), and AI (what actually works in practice).
*Your Brain Is a Guessing Machine*
You don't actually "see" the world. Your brain builds a simulation of what it *thinks* is out there and just uses your eyes to check if it's right. That's why optical illusions work—your brain is filling in a triangle that isn't there, or can't decide if it's looking at a duck or a rabbit.
*Rats Have Regrets*
*Chimps Are Machiavellian*
*Language Is the Human Superpower*
*Does ChatGPT Think?*
(truncated description, more on rescript)
Understanding how the brain evolved isn't just about the past. It gives us clues about:
- What's actually different between human intelligence and AI
- Why we're so easily fooled by status games and tribal thinking
- What features we might want to build into—or leave out of—future AI systems
Get Max's book:
https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Intelligence-Humans-Breakthroughs/dp/0063286343
Rescript: https://app.rescript.info/public/share/R234b7AXyDXZusqQ_43KMGsUSvJ2TpSz2I3emnI6j9A
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Introduction: Outsider's Advantage & Neocortex Theories
00:11:34 Perception as Inference: The Filling-In Machine
00:19:11 Understanding, Recognition & Generative Models
00:36:39 How Mice Plan: Vicarious Trial & Error
00:46:15 Evolution of Self: The Layer 4 Mystery
00:58:31 Ancient Minds & The Social Brain: Machiavellian Apes
01:19:36 AI Alignment, Instrumental Convergence & Status Games
01:33:07 Metacognition & The IQ Paradox
01:48:40 Does GPT Have Theory of Mind?
02:00:40 Memes, Language Singularity & Brain Size Myths
02:16:44 Communication, Language & The Cyborg Future
02:44:25 Shared Fictions, World Models & The Reality Gap
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REFERENCES:Person:
[00:00:05] Karl Friston (UCL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNYWi996Beg
[00:00:06] Jeff Hawkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VQILbDqaI4
[00:12:19] Hermann von Helmholtz
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermann-helmholtz/
[00:38:34] David Redish (U. Minnesota)
https://redishlab.umn.edu/
[01:10:19] Robin Dunbar
https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/robin-dunbar
[01:15:04] Emil Menzel
https://www.sciencedirect.com/bookseries/behavior-of-nonhuman-primates/vol/5/suppl/C
[01:19:49] Nick Bostrom
https://nickbostrom.com/
[02:28:25] Noam Chomsky
https://linguistics.mit.edu/user/chomsky/
[03:01:22] Judea Pearl
https://samueli.ucla.edu/people/judea-pearl/
Concept/Framework:
[00:05:04] Active Inference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkR24ieh5Ow
Paper:
[00:35:59] Predictions not commands [Rick A Adams]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23129312/
Book:
[01:25:42] The Elephant in the Brain
https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyday/dp/0190495995
[01:28:27] The Status Game
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58642436-the-status-game
[02:00:40] The Selfish Gene
https://amazon.com/dp/0198788606
[02:14:25] The Language Game
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Game-Improvisation-Created-Changed/dp/1541674987
[02:54:40] The Evolution of Language
http
- comparative psychology
- Max Bennett
- studying what different animals can do
- evolutionary neuroscience
- Max Bennett
- how brains changed over time
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1 h 17Questions people ask
- What is the core idea about how our brains work?
- Your brain builds a simulation of the world and uses your eyes to verify it, explaining phenomena like optical illusions.
- How does brain evolution relate to AI?
- Understanding how brains evolved provides clues about the differences between human intelligence and AI, and what features might be useful for future AI systems.
Page generated Oct 19, 2026. Summaries are Subvolts' own; the audio, artwork and notes belong to Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST).