Natural, Artificial, and Human Intelligences

Human achievement, whether in culture, science, or technology, is unparalleled in the known existence. This achievement is tied to the enormous communities of knowledge, made possible by (especially written) language: leaving theological content aside, it is very much true that "in the beginning was the word". There lies the challenge regarding modern age chatbots: they can 'do' language apparently as well as ourselves and there is a natural question of whether they can be considered intelligent, in the same way as we are or otherwise. Are humans uniquely intelligent? We consider this question in terms of the psychological literature on intelligence, evidence for intelligence in non-human animals, the role of written language in science and technology, progress with artificial intelligence, the history of intelligence testing (for both humans and machines), and the role of embodiment in intelligence. For the most unique accomplishments of human intelligence (such as music symphonies or complex scientific theories), we think that, together with language, there are four essential ingredients, which can be summarised as invention, capacity for complex inference, embodiment, and self-awareness. This conclusion makes untenable the position that human intelligence differs qualitatively from that of many non-human animals, since, with the exception of complex language, all the other requirements are fulfilled. Regarding chatbots, the current limitations are localised to the lack of embodiment and (apparent) lack of awareness.

@article{pothos2025_2506.02183,
  title={ Natural, Artificial, and Human Intelligences },
  author={ Emmanuel M. Pothos and Dominic Widdows },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.02183},
  year={ 2025 }
}