By Mark McGowan

Human Intelligence vs. Artificial Intelligence

What Is Intelligence?

by Mark McGowan, Director of IB/AP Programs

Each year, on July 5th, the results of the International Baccalaureate (IB) exams are released. Students, teachers, and parents wait anxiously for the scores. It can determine a student’s admission to university, and it can also mark a student’s success in an extremely rigorous program. But what do the results actually tell us about our students?

The maximum score in the IB program is 45 points. If a student achieves such a score, do we consider him or her intelligent? Many could say yes, and they may be correct. It is a significant achievement. However, just because a student obtains perfect scores in physics, mathematics, Greek, English, economics, and history, does that mean the same student would be considered the most intelligent member of a tribe living in the Amazon? Can they fix a car, make bread or know how it feels to be blind? The answers to these questions are probably “no,” and that is because intelligence is relative. Students should definitely be proud of their successes in school, but they should also be taught the variety and complexity of intelligence.

At the end of the 19th century, there was an attempt to measure intelligence with the well-known IQ (intelligence quotient) test. The IQ test has evolved and improved over the years. However, the focus of the test is on people’s cognitive and verbal abilities. It measures how people reason and solve problems. There is value in obtaining this knowledge, and there are also limitations. It can be biased – not all people reason the same way, and not all people have access to the same opportunities for learning. In addition, there is a lot that the test cannot measure.

In 1983, Howard Gardner popularized the idea of “multiple intelligences” in his book Frames of Mind, which discussed different types of intelligence, such as spatial, musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, logical, linguistic, and bodily intelligence. In 1995, Daniel Goleman wrote Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, where EI was linked to leadership performance, offering another evaluation of a different type of intelligence. However, with every new iteration of the examination of intelligence, there are always the limitations of subjectivity, cultural relevance, and whether such intelligences can be learned or are biological. Consequently, the ultimate definition or explanation of intelligence remains elusive.

Nowadays, a popular topic is Artificial Intelligence. Ironically, the name itself is an oxymoron: “unreal” intelligence. Nevertheless, AI is deemed to be an important part of our futures. Already AI has introduced driverless cars, robots that can build cars and do household chores, and computer programs that write poetry and beat world-champion chess players. Unlike other industrial revolutions that developed the manufacture of machines that transformed our lives, these machines can “think”, or at least respond to humans. Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, recently claimed that the company’s AI chatbot generator, LaMDA, had become sentient, meaning it was conscious of its own existence, but this is highly debatable . The debate centers around the idea that just because a machine can linguistically express a thought does not mean it can feel or have experiences that developed that thought.

There is no denying AI’s usefulness. AI machines are excellent at deep mining data that can save valuable time and solve important problems. Recently, DeepMind uncovered the structure of 200 million proteins, which could have enormous benefits to people’s health care . Yet, the eternal question remains: What is intelligence? Is it mining data? Is it applying knowledge? Is it adapting to different situations and environments? It is hard to escape the notion that no one knows everything, so how can a machine? Each year, when the IB results are released, we are proud to promote our students’ achievements, as we should be. This year, 31% of our students scored 40 or more points, and five students achieved a 44. That is incredible. Those scores are the result of a lot of hard work and intelligent, creative thinking. However, we always have one message for our students: you are more than a number. Whether you score a 45 or a 25, there is so much more to you, your abilities, and your intelligence. In fact, the best part of you can never be captured by a test. It’s important to keep that in mind when discussing who, or what is intelligent.