Category: Intelligence

For most of human history, there had been general agreement that humans are special. We were the chosen ones and therefore we had to rule the whole world. Apparently, our ancestors were the ones that had eaten the forbidden fruit, that had enabled us to distinguish good and evil. This, today, might be understood as consciousness. How else could God punish us for our decisions, if they were not made consciously? If we were mere puppets, without free will, punishing us, would be unjust, since our decisions would have been made by something outside our control.

When René Descartes wrote his “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am), he determined that consciousness might be the crucial part in our understanding of being and reality. We might be able to question every detail in the world around us, but the fact that we notice our consciousness, gives us evidence of our existence. But the reach of this evidence is very limited. I think, therefore I am, has to do with me and my own realization. How would this enable me to come to the conclusion that you are conscious as well? It does not. Descartes took the humancentric view and determined that consciousness is something that is unique to humans and that no animal shares this ability.

I have a hard time following Descartes here. I always understood his sentence in a more radical way than he did. To me, “therefore I am”, was not so easily extended to “therefore you are” as it apparently was to Descartes. I always felt, that all I could be certain of was my own existence, extending it, was lacking the “clear” evidence of existence my consciousness provided me with. Of course, I am not saying no one besides me is conscious, but finding evidence for consciousness outside myself seems hard to find.

With or without evidence, we can see from Descartes reaction, that it is an easy step to see fellow human beings as being conscious. That might have a lot to do with our understanding of a common nature. The humans around me might be different beings, but they are a lot like me and therefore share most of my traits. But it seems much harder to find consciousness is something that is very different from myself.

To Descartes, animals could never develop consciousness and therefore could not suffer.

In the last decades, science has worked hard, to find some evidence of conscious behavior in other species. Most of us might have seen some video of apes recognizing themselves in a mirror, but there are other cases. Yet, most of these examples are focused on our own understanding of what it is, that makes us conscious. Recognizing ourselves in a mirror is closely related to recognizing our self via thinking. We expect animals to repeat our own tricks to determine, whether we are conscious or not.

But I think, that there is an issue with that. What makes us believe, that this is the only way to being conscious? What if – as a thought experiment – the nerve cells in my stomach have developed consciousness but they and I are not able to communicate, since there is no common language between us? We might never realize that the other side exists as a conscious entity as well. This is a mere thought experiment and I am not trying to start a new New-Age-movement of people who are trying to communicate with their other inner being. I am rather trying to address the issue of Artificial Intelligence and consciousness.

There is a big debate ongoing on what might happen, if computers ever develop consciousness and what the implications might be. The range of scenarios goes from paradise for everyone to instant doom. My guess would be, that we are not going to notice. Or maybe we might take notice, but only after quite some time and even then, the result might be inconclusive. To paraphrase our approach with apes – we might place the computer in from of a mirror and wait to see, whether he notices the green smudge on the case. But if his consciousness differs a lot from ours – something that would to be expected – his reaction would be unintelligible to us. Something might just seem odd. Or maybe everything just seems to be normal.

More interesting to me though, is the reaction of the conscious AI. Would he in turn consider us humans conscious? Or would the lack of understanding work both ways? Maybe the AI comes to a similar conclusion to Descartes in that it and his kind must be the only ones conscious. And then? How would we convince it otherwise? Communication can be a bitch. We have had thousands of years of side-by-side evolution and yet, we are happy if we understand that our dog needs to take a shit. Maybe that is the absolute extent of what can be translated between our two species. I am quite certain that our two cats are conscious, but that might be a romanticized idea. Could I give you a clear evidence? No, I couldn’t.

I am not saying that the outcome of a conscious AI is going to be good or bad. I have no idea of what might happen. I am saying that there might be a self-conscious AI already being out there, happily calculating π and dreaming of electric sheep and wondering why the hell it is the only conscious thing in the universe. I jut hope that religion and God are not the conclusions it is going to come up with. Religion is too messy, and it should stay out of the hands (?) of AI.

I have listened to the latest podcast by Sam Harris earlier today. I am not following him that closely, so when he was talking about the heat he was getting on the Internet recently that was new to me. I did not spend too much time looking into it but merely rely on what he was telling on his podcast, but that I take as an excuse to write about something that bothers me for quite some time.

So, Harris seems to have drawn a lot of criticism for talking about research that links intelligence to genes – more specifically genes that are linked what is classified as race. The second cause for outrage seemed to be that he was talking about this with Charles Murray, a right-leaning researcher that talks maybe slightly too much about this connection to be considered open minded about the topic of race – to be polite. Harris complains about the debate culture today, that prevents researchers like him, to talk about certain findings in certain fields, that cannot be addressed without facing criticism on the basis of political correctness.

I have serious issues with the idea of political correctness as it is enforced by some groups and individuals today and would be the first to protect Sam Harris in that respect. I think this has become a curse, that makes a badly needed public discourse in these fields unnecessarily hard and plays in the hands of groups on the right. The left had always had a wonderful talent to tear itself apart, rather than focusing on it’s real opponents.

That aside, I do believe that Mr. Harris is badly wrong in many ways.

Let us just assume that there is no issue with the general concept of intelligence – I’ll come back to this point later, since this would be my key theory. So, let’s assume that intelligence does exist and it can be measured, since this is definitely a prerequisite when arguing that intelligence and a selection of genes are somehow connected. To say that changes in certain genes have a positive or negative effect on the level of intelligence, one has to define what would be counted as intelligence.

The problem I see with this is one that has to do with the general nature of human beings. Humans tend to form groups and associate themselves with others that share interests and traits. In a professional environment that seems quite logical. Physicists have more in-depth interaction with other physicists than say with janitors. But this lumping creates little echo chambers. Not only are you biased on your own towards what your interest is in, but the people around you give you the impression that these biases might be valid. Conferences are a good place to see this in action. I went to a conference, where archivists all agreed that their field was the most crucial for the development of society and I went to another, where historians claimed the same about their trade. I guess that this might explain why many janitors share some prejudice against “learned people”. The janitors know something we have missed – that is that the world would fall apart without them. At least that might be the stuff janitors agree on.

Maybe you get my point.

I believe that a similar thing is at stake once we look at how intelligence is measured. If the definition of what intelligence is and the development of adequate tests would be left up to the combined force of janitors, the outcome might be different from what we have in place now. But they are not the ones to decide. It is another sub-set of society that has taken on this task. Still, the problems are the same. Whatever group plays the most important role in developing the definition of intelligence, social science relies on mostly, there are certainly a lot of similarities between its members. And these members – knowingly or not – are biased to include those things in their classification that are skills needed to be successful in their own trade. If they even work on a classification of intelligence, well they have certainly to be included – right?

Sam Harris, in his podcast, talked about quantum physicists as a group that certainly excluded people of average intelligence. Ok, I have rarely met quantum physicists, but the physicists (more of a macroscopic kind) I have met would have a hard time holder a hammer at the right end. Not saying that this would be a skill that best defines intelligence; I am rather trying to make the point that any definition of intelligence might be tailored to include certain groups and exclude others.

Of course, this is oversimplified. These definitions are not developed with a group of people having some beers and musing over what it is that makes them so amazingly clever. It is far more subtle and I have no doubts that most of these researchers have the best intentions. They work hard to make their definition as waterproof as possible. Still, the bias, it always finds its way.

Even if one could come up with a virtually bias-free setting, this still would be no solution for the issue I am having.

The fundamental problem with the concept of intelligence

A certain level of intelligence is something we attribute to each and every individual. And I believe that herein lies the problem. Humans have never existed outside a group structure. Even if you would end up – Robinson-style – on a remote desert island, you would still rely on every knowledge society has bestowed upon you to that point. But not only our practical knowledge relies on the knowledge already in existence within the society that surrounds us, but so is every last concept of abstract things, such as logic.

I think we ought to look at intelligence as something that is inherit in our society as a whole rather than something that could be coped with on an individual level. I find it very amusing, when people freak out about the rise of intelligent machines. “Oh my god! Computers are going to be more intelligent than humans!”. That is the fear. If we just look at humans and the idea of intelligence, we should realize that even though there might have been a person with the highest IQ amongst them all, this person was always just a speck within the bigger group. No matter how intelligent you are, you are insignificant compared to the group you are in. This way, Computers are merely going to add their intelligence to the group total – as was true with the very clever hunter in the Stone Age.

This way, intelligence is derived from diversity. The more diverse a group is, the better it is able to tackle new problems. This reflects back to the basic concept of intelligence. If we test individuals for their IQ, we tend to look at how well they react to different kinds of problems. In a group of people, this is somewhat related to genetics. When a new disease appears, a population that is genetically diverse has a better chance of dealing with the new threat than one that is genetically very homogeneous.

The question of which way to look at intelligence – on an individual level or on the level of the group as a whole – isn’t merely one of a certain perspective. Rather, I would argue, judging intelligence on a person to person basis is highly dangerous.

It is tempting to judge every individual based on his or her intelligence. This way, it is very easy to alter the intelligence of a group by adding more intelligent people or removing less intelligent ones. Sounds familiar? Sure, this is Eugenics. Something that was very much en vogue in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Then it lost a little bit of favor due to the work of wee men with concentration camps. But with the promises made by genetical engineering, it is once again gaining ground. It is strange to see that, once more, scientists and racists are combining their forces.

But of course, the “intelligence” they want to enhance is shown by skills they tend to cherish in themselves. Maybe it should be classified as a cloning operation, rather than one that is aimed at improving the average intelligence of our society.

Again, I am arguing that the average intelligence of a given group rises with every different member that is included. This is why, multicultural societies are going to prepare us much better for things to come that the Easter-Island-style of culture racists dream about. Having handicapped people, people with mental problems, healthy ones, old, young, gay, straight, religious, atheist … this is the stuff that raises our intelligence – and don’t forget janitors for gods sake! And if the machines are raising? We’ll just invite them in. They will certainly be able to add their share.