What separates humans from other living things, or even from inert matter? Many would answer: intelligence. But the rise of seemingly intelligent machines is calling this notion into question. Companies behind new artificial intelligence technologies, such as ChatGPT and its rivals, talk about achieving artificial general intelligence: machines with human-level intelligence across a range of tasks.
Does the rapid advancement of AI undermine human intelligence, and therefore what makes us unique? Neil Lawrence, professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge, doesn’t think so. In fact, he thinks we should abandon the idea of artificial general intelligence altogether.
In his new book Atomic Human: Understanding Yourself in the Age of AILawrence argues that only by better understanding our own intelligence and how significantly it differs from artificial intelligence can we get the most out of both. Here he says: New Scientist I explain why I believe both human intelligence and artificial intelligence are misunderstood, why it is pointless to compare the two, and why we ultimately need a more nuanced understanding of intelligence.
Alex Wilkins: What do you think about the trend of comparing artificial intelligence to human intelligence?
Neil Lawrence: Most of these arguments are pointless and irrelevant. Of course, the nature of intelligence found in AI is quite different from human intelligence. It is absurd to talk about this intelligence as if it has anything to do with humans. …
