>A big new part of the book is that Hawkins and collaborators now have more refined ideas about exactly what learning algorithm the neocortex is running. [...] I’m going to skip it.

And so did Hawkins, in large measures. Hawkins believes the cortical algorithm borrows functionality from grid cells and that objects of the world are modelled in terms of location and reference frames (albeit not necessarily restricted to 3D); this is performed all over the neocortex by the thousands of cortical units which have been observed to have a remarkably similar structure. There's a lot of similarity to Hinton's capsules idea in this, including some kind of voting system among units which Hawkins, unfortunately, is very hand-wavy about.

If you're interested in Hawkins's theory at a functional level, this book will disappoint. Two thirds is spent on fantasizing and speculation about what Hawkins believes will be AIs impact on the fate of humanity.