D鈥檕h! Why human beings aren鈥檛 as intelligent as we think

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Human attempts to define intelligence are largely motivated by a desire to prove we have more of it 鈥� but a look at the world around us suggests a different story

By Alison George

11 December 2019

Graduates holding diploma

INTELLIGENCE has enabled humans to reach for the moon, cure disease and generally dominate this small blue dot of a planet. Arriving at a working definition of intelligence still defeats it, however.

It certainly isn鈥檛 just IQ. Tests of pattern finding and word matching capture many of the mental skills that correlate with performance in academic exams and in many workplaces. But they fail on other measures such as wisdom, social sensitivity and practical sense. 鈥淣o single number captures the rich complexity of what it means to be intelligent,鈥� says , an intelligence researcher at the London School of Economics.

There are things we can say. Intelligence 鈥渞eflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings 鈥� 鈥榗atching on鈥�, 鈥榤aking sense鈥� of things, or 鈥榝iguring out鈥� what to do鈥�, is one oft-quoted attempt to define it. It puts the ability to learn from experience and change behaviour accordingly at the heart of a quality called general intelligence.

This isn鈥檛 an exclusively human trait: an octopus鈥檚 ability to solve puzzles or an antelope鈥檚 talent for assessing the most nutritious grasses is also intelligent behaviour. 鈥淚ntelligence is the capacity to solve problems relevant to that species,鈥� says Arden.

In our unusually big and well-connected brains, general intelligence has morphed into special talents for abstract thinking, detailed forward planning, understanding the minds of others and insight 鈥� those 鈥渁ha!鈥� moments when we connect cause and effect.

But we shouldn鈥檛 get blown away by our supposedly superior abilities: we share virtually all our intelligence skills with close animal relatives. 鈥淗umans are limited by our size, our evolutionary history,鈥� says Arden. 鈥淎ctually we have the sort of intelligence that would have evolved for a species like us.鈥�

It follows that our intelligence is unlikely to be the last word in grand, dot-joining thinking. Unfettered by biology鈥檚 constraints, the next big strides in intelligence are likely to be made by intelligences we create.

Machine-learning systems are already beating humans in complex games of strategy such as Go and the video game StarCraft II, which involves weighing up many potential choices and deciding between short-term pay-offs and long-term gains.

Impressive as such feats are, however, these artificial intelligences focus on one specific goal. They are a long way from the broad array of human cognitive skills 鈥� or indeed the sort of general intelligence that characterises an octopus or antelope.

There is no reason to think they can鈥檛 get there, however. Once they do, we could see an intelligence explosion. Without the need to rely on firing neurons, such 鈥渟耻辫别谤颈苍迟别濒濒颈驳别苍肠别蝉鈥�, as philosopher Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford has called them, could compute much faster than our own brains. Linking many of them together might result in cognitive capabilities far beyond our own. As for what that means for the future of intelligence 鈥� well, that strains even the most intelligent minds today.

Cutting-edge science throws up all sorts of controversial, nebulous and mind-bending concepts. Here鈥檚 your guide to how to think about some of the fiddliest of them:

Topics: Animal intelligence / human evolution / human intelligence

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