Hofstadter and the rest of the field, Jeff Hawkins for example, are collaborating, just indirectly. The "Pentti Kanerva" described in the article as an "old fri

Hofstadter and the rest of the field, Jeff Hawkins for example, are collaborating, just indirectly. The "Pentti Kanerva" described in the article as an "old friend of Hofstadter" and his first wife, Carol, was the originator of the "sparse distributed memory" idea that appears to be what NuPIC is based on and, I believe, either co-founded Redwood Neuroscience / Numenta with Hawkins or soon joined it. (I'm sorry, I'm fuzzy on the details.) Researchers such as Hawkins are well aware of Hofstadter's ideas, and Hofstadter's grad students take his ideas out into the world of AI research with no real need for Hofstadter himself to personally attend conferences. Every one of them would love to use any idea that has been overlooked by the rest of the field to make a name for himself/herself with some career-making breakthrough that can do what humans can do but other AI systems can't. Hofstadter himself spoke here at Stanford a few years ago to a standing room only audience. I don't dispute the notion that mindsets and political agendas can delay the acceptance (or work on, or resources to) a good idea for years, but anything of use in his work will eventually be put to use. He can keep doing what he's doing, and brainstorming with his grad students, and anything useful they find will be disseminated.