Human vs AI

Gain of Intelligence vs Time

There are a number of people pushing the concern about when “AI” will become more intelligent than a human. They present graphs like this.

However, this is of course misleading. Two fundamental concepts render this perception completely invalid.

First is that humans (Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals) have always had the same intelligence. Sure it varies from individual to individual, but a human 10,000 years ago was just as smart as a human now. What has changed is data accumulation, especially our ability to record and remember data as well as to communicate it with more other humans.

Do not mistake having more data for being more intelligent. Databases these days have a lot more data than they used to. You wouldn’t call a database intelligent.

Second is that AI does not have intelligence. AI has some very clever algorithms and very fast access to a huge amount of data. AI mimics intelligence. AI is woefully lacking in understanding context and AI lacks creativity (don’t mistake random numbers for intelligent creativity).

Now look at this graph and you may have a different impression of AI and any worries of a “Terminator” future.

“But John, AI is creative, look at the amazing photos it creates.” No, AI images start with noise and then attempt to make the noise look like the description of the image based on the data it’s been trained with. Consider the old saying of “Give a million monkeys a typewriter…”, well, the difference is that AI is a heck of a lot faster than the monkeys, that doesn’t mean it’s smarter.

Is AI useful? In Minnesota language: “You Betcha!”

AI is a phenomenally powerful tool. Like most new tools, it’s rapidly undergoing design improvements.

Will AI be able to do things humans can’t? Yes! It already can!

Where is the danger? The danger lies in humans misunderstanding and misusing the tools known as “AI”.

Perhaps you should go ask AI? After all, it’s more intelligent (or soon will be) than I am isn’t it? Being an intelligent being, I asked two AIs:

Copilot answers: “Intelligence is a fascinating and multifaceted concept, don’t you think? Think of me as a resourceful companion rather than a competitor.”

Grok answers: “Determining whether I'm more intelligent than you would require a nuanced comparison that considers various aspects of intelligence. I can outperform in specific tasks like data recall or computation, but in areas involving human experience, emotions, and personal creativity, human intelligence is unparalleled.”