It is rather straightforward to attribute a certain level of intelligence to other people. After conversing with someone, we can intuitively estimate their intelligence level. For instance, those who spoke to the likes of Einstein or von Neumann say that they were amongst the most intelligent humans to have ever lived. But what does this qualitatively mean? Despite attempts to claim certain individuals as the most intelligent, we refer to an elusive human quality. Fundamentally, intelligence is a by-product of our brain which is still a misunderstood organ. Therefore, it does not seem plausible to construct a satisfying theory of intelligence. Nevertheless, we humans have detailed personal experiences with this notion and therefore we should still be able to make judgements on what a theory of intelligence may look like. After all, we are trying to re-create it artificially, so it would seem wise to discuss what the notion of intelligence is.
Let us suppose that there is a single notion of quantifiable intelligence for any individual and it relates to the structure of their brain. These assumptions may be false, but we will discuss this later. As our ability to prove the brain of a living individual is limited, we are left to perform empirical investigations to obtain external signals that are representative of the internal structure. For example, IQ tests are ubiquitously used as a proxy for intelligence. These tests correlate performance on a range of mental tasks to an individual's intelligence level. For the most part, they match our internal sense of intelligence, however, it is still susceptible to spurious correlations and adversarial manipulation. Meaning it is missing some fundamental aspect of the notion. The IQ test was developed by conducting investigations to identify correlations with intelligence and then exploiting these correlations in the test's design.
It is important to note at this stage that an underlying assumption being made here is that intelligence is an inherently human attribute. Who is to say that human intelligence is the only manifestation of intelligence in the fundamental sense? How are we to know that other systems, organic and non-organic, are not exhibiting some other form of intelligence? Currently, we are developing artificial systems that mimic human intelligence, so it is reasonable to assume that the intelligence they behold has much overlap with our own. However, it is still not clear that this is the only form of intelligence that may arise. For example, one often says that the weather has a mind of its own. That's interesting, does this mind operate the same intelligence as our own?
By definition, we are not capable of comprehending these alternative forms of intelligence. Although it is reasonable to assume that we could spot when it is present. For example, we humans live in a three-dimensional world. We are aware that a fourth dimension could exist even if we cannot comprehend it. Who is to say that some alien organism is not restricted to three dimensions, but has access to this fourth dimension? Then from our perspective, this intelligent alien may seem docile, however, in the extra fourth dimension it may be executing actions beyond our imagination. As we train more powerful artificial systems, we begin to traverse a treacherous border of capabilities. It may appear on the surface that these systems still lack high levels of intelligence, however, it may just be operating in a domain beyond our comprehension. Exhibiting a form of intelligence we are blind to, which may have the capacity to exploit and inflict power onto humans. There is much debate as to whether such an intelligence agent would be power-seeking and pose a risk to humanity, spanning topics including human values, morality, and consciousness.
It has been popular to assess the capabilities of these artificial systems by letting them complete standardised tests and comparing their results to human performance. Thus we get the IQ, and other standard intelligence measures, of many of the cutting-edge models and use them as a metric to compare them. Recall, that these tests were developed by performing tests on humans, who is to say that we can extrapolate these results as a proxy for artificial intelligence? Indeed, it has been the case that these models are performing well on these tests, but we are still yet to say that any of these models are generally intelligent. On the one hand, they may possess a narrow intelligence that allows them to excel at a small set of tasks that correlate with these standardised tests. On the other hand, they lack the general intelligence required to complete tasks such as long-term planning.
Consequently, we should be asking questions about the way we are testing intelligence currently in our society, as it seems that high performance on these tests can be achieved without possessing all the qualities we would associate with an intelligent individual. Therefore, when a model achieves a score of 140 on an IQ test, what comparison can we make to a human individual with an IQ of 140? It is clear the model has some form of reasoning, or memorisation, capability, but it is not clear how this compares with human intelligence. We are missing a fundamental component of what it means to be intelligent.
In this vein, we question the assumption that intelligence is solely a function of the brain. Consider a modern human placed within a hunter-gatherer society. Would it be reasonable to assume that this human would be the smartest individual in this society? On the surface, we would probably say yes. If we put aside their increased amount of acquired knowledge, by being brought up in a substantially more developed world, we could assume that their mental skills such as problem-solving and reasoning are more advanced. However, we can attribute this to the structured curriculum the individual went through. It bears no resemblance to the different architectural properties of the brain, and we know this because, over the relatively short period between these societies, evolution has not had enough time to alter the brain structure. It is not the case therefore that intelligence is purely a function of the brain. It is also not the case that intelligence is an attribute of a single human. Intelligence may be an emergent phenomenon arising from a large collection of people. A large cohort can organise themselves to resonate with their intelligence and enhance the collective intellectual capacity that permeates the individual level.
Consider language, a construct we have developed to communicate our thoughts and ideas. My hypothesis is that language and thought have evolved simultaneously in a positive feedback loop. Humans have mechanisms for generating sound which over time we learn to use to encode patterns and gain the attention of other humans. From an evolutionary perspective, this was beneficial as it could be used strategically to reduce one's likelihood of death. With continued experience in operating our vocal mechanisms, we learned how to encode more sophisticated information, which then motivated the ability to construct more sophisticated sounds, and so on. Eventually, we developed a construct that could encode information that allowed one to organise their thoughts and increase their capacity to think abstractly. It is because of this that we have become a more intelligent species, despite there being no advances in our brain architecture. This is by no means a claim that all our intelligence is attributed to the environment, as other animal species have not developed sophisticated forms of longs. However, our intelligence is due in large part to the society we are embedded within, and perhaps the general intelligence we are trying to artificially create is an emergent phenomenon of this.
Still using the notion of evolution, we can claim that humans possess the lower form of intelligence possible for establishing a civilisation. Major advances in technology, nutrition, philosophy, well-being, and the natural sciences can all be attributed to work carried out in the recent past. The rate of societal change and improvement has been growing exponentially. Humanity has developed into an established civilisation within a preposterously minuscule amount of time compared to the grand scheme of life on Earth. In comparison, breakthroughs on the front of evolution have been essentially non-existent. Why was it then that complex societies were formed earlier? Well, perhaps it is because they only formed once humans reached the minimum intellectual capacity required to operate such societies. Hence, if we assume that intelligence levels exist on a scale, from this observation we may deduce that our point on the scale is far below the end of the scale, supposing that such an end exists. We may also conclude that super-intelligent artificial intelligence is possible. However, it is not clear that organisms that exist above our positive on the scale reap all the benefits we may think come with that greater intellectual prowess. Perhaps, the human intelligence level sits in a Goldilocks zone where we have sufficient capacity to develop societies but are not advanced enough to induce our failure modes.