The artificial intelligence or "AI" label is slapped on almost anything electronic these days, from "smart" toothbrushes to cancer-curing supercomputers. If you're like me you've become jaded by the AI rubric, realizing we're still a long way from true intelligence in machines. Now what?

Jeff Hawkins is co-founder of machine intelligence company Numenta and author of a new book "A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence" that offers a theory of what's missing in current AI. I don't normally do author interviews, but Jeff has a history of knowing where things are going in tech, including, in my opinion, being a primary developer of the modern smartphone at Handspring and Palm.