The real definition of intelligence (and pitfall of AI) - our ability to acquire and apply knowledge & skills

in writing •  7 years ago 

It is quite difficult having a conversation about intelligence without really understanding what it means, and through the modernisation of the education system (or rather, it becoming a business) our obsession of measuring intelligence in order to improve it has made us rather ignorant of the many different dimensions of intelligence.

The definition of intelligence, as stated above, is about the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. And since there are many different domains of knowledge and skills developed to apply those knowledge, it only seems logical that there are various strands/aspects/dimensions of intelligence. Interestingly enough, when people have a perceived impairment to learn in a certain way (e.g. if they have congenital conditions) then the brain compensates by focusing on other areas or heightening their ability to learn in other ways.

I guess my point is that we are all intelligent beings, capable of learning in many different ways and applying that learning to a wide range of activities. Yet there is always this constant perception that some people are more intelligent than others, when in fact we are not comparing apples and oranges.

I think this is one of the fundamental flaws in our approach to designing artificial intelligence, that we rely too much on the algorithms of machine learning, when in actual fact learning occurs through all of our senses and interactions with the world. Not only that, we put emphasis on the ability for the algorithm to calculate in a way that is almost mechanical, sort of like a supercomputer that takes lots of inputs and crunches the numbers. I would argue that very few decisions made by humans work that way, simply because we have too many different ways of acquiring knowledge and applying those skills than to just make mathematical calculations alone.

Perhaps when we re-evaluate and apply our understanding of intelligence in an intelligent way, then there will better ways to educate our future generations and unlock their individual talent + potential.

Perhaps when we re-evaluate and apply our understanding of intelligence in an intelligent way, then we can open up new possibilities for humanity and future intelligent entities that we want to create...

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