TBP Retreat February, 2025
The team spent a week together undertaking intense brainstorming, problem solving, team building, cooking and eating and going on hikes. It was a lot of fun and work and we made significant progress on how the cortical column models behaviors of objects.
We also took a team photo and Niels produced a fun pub quiz!
Thinking in patches
A core premise of the Thousand Brains Theory is that there is a repeating unit of computation in the mammalian neocortex, and that unit is the cortical column. Cortical columns only see a tiny patch of the overall input hitting your touch or vision system and to get an intuitive sense of this, we played a few games where you reduce the number of columns receiving input to the smallest number possible.
Lots and lots of brainstorming
The retreats primary focus was on brainstorming ideas to move the Thousand Brains Project forward. These in person events are foundational as they allow fast and compact information transfer – the ideas move quickly, reducing friction and keeping discussions efficient. Hypothesis exploration – the concepts can be tested, challenged, and refined in real time. Collaborative idea corrections – The group input helps refine and strengthen ideas before they move forward.
It’s intense and draining, and we went through several whiteboard markers in the five days. 🙂
TBP Sensorimotor Olympics
In order to determine who was the best overall human, a set of grueling competitions was created. (See whiteboard for a full list of the trials).
From this day-long, sensorimotor olympics, a winner emerged. Your humble narrator took gold, with Tristan and Niels taking silver and bronze respectively.
Never before has one person achieved so much, with so little preparation.
A Hike up Mount Tamalpais
Jeff took the team on one of his favorite walks up Mount Tamalpais. We reached the top and learned about the Muir Woods Railway, nicknamed the “Crookedest Railroad in the World” and the amazing people that are restoring Engine #9 – you can read about/support the project here: https://www.friendsofno9.org
Cooking, Relaxing, Talking, Eating
Each day ,a different member of the team and their designated sous chef undertook the task of cooking the evening meal. An amazing and tasty way to bond as a team. We played music, chatted, played with robots, went in the hot tub and sat around the fire pit talking about all the interesting things in life.
While this week long retreat is not the the usual day to day of building sensorimotor intelligence we do think it’s a critical part of how we produce our six month roadmap of work and how we’re going to work together as a team in the future.