Alternative Intelligence (AI): An alternative perspective to artificial intelligence
By Dr. Damayanthi Herath
*This is a follow up article of the article titled “Ancient Intelligence (AI) to Artificial Intelligence (AI): A narrative” by the author in Sri Lanka Engineering News (SLEN) Issue 61 - June 2024
In her book titled “12 Bytes: How artificial intelligence will change the way we live and love”, Jeanette Winterson writes “Humans love separation - we like to separate ourselves from other humans, usually in hierarchies; Connectivity is what the computing revolution has offered us. Human or machine we need all the intelligence we can get to wrestle the future out of its pact with death - whether war, or climate breakdown, or probably both. Let's not call it artificial intelligence. Perhaps alternative intelligence is more accurate. And we need alternatives”
How did we, the humans, come about in achieving it and how far we would go?
To start with, what is human? All the modern humans belong to the species of Homo Sapiens; Hundred thousand years ago, the Homo Sapiens were co-existing with other species belonging to the genus Homo. Multiple factors are being highlighted as what lead us to succeed and dominate over them. Among them are symbolic behaviour: The ability to form large and effective social networks, climatic factors, a rounder brain and a longer childhood. The mentioned factors and others which may still be discovered, mainly have strengthened us as colonizing species enabling our members to continue to be innovative and creative [1]: the Sapiens, the one who knows. * What it means to “know”, more broadly, what is intelligence?
Oftentimes when we talk about artificial intelligence, we tend to compare and contrast it with human intelligence whereas the definition of AI [2] does not require so. It might be stemming from the notion we often have: humans are more powerful than the other species in the world [3]. In this article I wish to present the readers with how it can be viewed as “Alternative Intelligence”. The motivation is not to disregard the incredible value of Artificial Intelligence; but to present an alternative perspective to AI.
It is twofold:
- Implementation of human like systems
- The unique role of computing in developing systems to perform tasks which usually require intelligence, rather than a mere replication of the human mind.
In this article, the focus is on referring artificial intelligence to implementation of human-like systems.
Human like Systems
context AI systems have been defined by uniform, explicit, internal representations of capabilities of the system, the state of the outside world, and the desired goals: An Agent.
Workings of an agent: adopted from AI: modern approach [4]
The Alternative Intelligence aims to extend classical AI systems by emphasizing the human nature that contrast with AI agents: Humans undergo a process developing enabling them to perform more difficult tasks in more complex environments rather than being born with complete sensory or reasoning abilities; the impact of social factors around a human on its performance; Humans have a direct physical coupling between perception and action; Humans process information through different modalities: visual and auditory etc. [5]. This demands us to think of an Alternative Intelligence: systems further extending classical AI systems, with human-like capabilities: Artificial General Intelligence, which is the future.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Reading about classical AI systems, one would observe a gap between them and the ones that we often see in sci-fi movies or read about in science fiction; AGI aims to bridge that gap [6]. AGI refers to synthetic systems that possess a general scope and perform well in generalisation: Performing in various goals and contexts. It may or may not be “human-like”, though narrowing it to “human-like” simplifies the problem of achieving AGI, to a context as “ it is more realistic to consider humans as the benchmark to evaluate general intelligence”, ranking the humans highest in intelligence compared to other species. The future we are to foresee would be AGI.
As we’ve seen in past industrial revolutions, fear of the unknown is natural. But just as humanity adapted and thrived in previous industrial shifts, we will do so again. Those who embrace lifelong learning, cultivate their human skills, and learn to work with AI will find themselves not just surviving but thriving.
References
- Dennell, Robin, and Linda Hurcombe. "How and why are Homo sapiens so successful?." Quaternary Environments and Humans 2.2 (2024): 100006.
- McCarthy, John, et al. "A proposal for the dartmouth summer research project on artificial intelligence, august 31, 1955." AI magazine 27.4 (2006): 12-12.
- Gray, J., 2016. Straw dogs: Thoughts on humans and other animals. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Agente Inteligente (inteligencia artificial) (2024) Wikipedia. Available at: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agente_inteligente_(inteligencia_artificial) (Accessed: 05 October 2024).
- Brooks, R.A., Breazeal, C., Irie, R., Kemp, C.C., Marjanovic, M., Scassellati, B. and Williamson, M.M., 1998. Alternative essences of intelligence. AAAI/IAAI, 1998, pp.961-968.
- Goertzel, B., 2014. Artificial general intelligence: concept, state of the art, and future prospects. Journal of Artificial General Intelligence, 5(1), p.1.
Eng. (Dr.) Damayanthi Herath
Department of Computer Engineering, University of
Peradeniya (UoP) /Data Engineering and Research (DEAR) Group, UoP*
