I'm Rufus Griscombe, and I'm Caleb Bissinger, and this is the next big idea.

Today, is AI really that different from the human brain? Caleb, I thought it'd be fun to introduce this one together and share a little background on how we go about selecting the books and brilliant guests we have on the show.

Well, I mean, I hate to spoil the mystery for listeners, but I think the honest truth is that it's not a very scientific process.

We just comb through dozens and dozens and dozens of books until we find one that just grabs our attention, that just makes us sit up in our chairs.

And a couple of weeks ago, I saw this book called The Emergent Mind, How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines.

It doesn't come out until October 21st, but I sent it to you right away, and I was like,

how soon do you want to get these guys on the show?

Right, and clearly my answer was freaking immediately

because we recorded this almost two months before the book comes out.

So this, I think, is a treat for folks.

This is, I believe, the first interview that they've done.

And I, of course, feel entirely transparent and predictable.

As you know, I've been fascinated by this notion that our brains

and the brains of every other animal, even insects, are shockingly similar in their components

and structures, same neurons, ganglia, many of the same neurotransmitters as other animals.

And though individual neurons can't think on their own really at all, something magical

happens at scale.

Intelligence emerges.

And now we're building this AI in neural networks that are similar to our own.

And it feels like an opportunity to better understand ourselves and study how

that sophisticated thinking emerges out of relatively simple components in both silicon and

carbon, our own biology.

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