While researching and writing “What is Intelligence,” I came across an infographic on LinkedIn from Joshua Freedman, CEO and co-founder of Six Seconds, asking an intriguing question:
Is AI making emotional intelligence more valuable?
Source: Joshua Freedman, CEO & Co-founder of Six Seconds. Originally shared on LinkedIn.
His premise is compelling: as AI gets better at what he calls “AI stuff,” humans need to get better at “human stuff.”
The infographic highlights five qualities: self-awareness, self-management, empathy, relational intelligence and purpose.
I liked it.
I reposted it, and several people responded positively. It was encouraging to see others looking beyond the familiar debate about whether AI will replace jobs and asking instead a much more interesting question:
What becomes more important for humans as AI becomes more capable?
Freedman argues that real human connection is becoming rarer—and therefore more precious. I think there is something important in that.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether the question goes even deeper.
AI is developing at an extraordinary pace. Predicting exactly where it will take us is difficult, and much of what any of us say about its future remains just that—prediction and opinion.
I broadly agree with the infographic’s direction, but I think there may be more to the story.
Perhaps emotional intelligence is only part of it.
Because before we decide which forms of human intelligence will matter most in the age of AI, there is a much more fundamental question we rarely stop to ask:
What Is Intelligence?
For much of the modern world, intelligence has been associated with reasoning, memory, knowledge, calculation and problem-solving.
- We built tests to measure it.
- We created educational systems around it.
- We rewarded professions that demonstrated it.
Then we built machines that became extraordinarily good at many of the very things we had used as evidence of intelligence.
They can:
- calculate.
- reason.
- analyse.
- recognise patterns.
- translate languages.
- write, code, research and solve increasingly complex problems.
Perhaps AI hasn’t merely given us something we call artificial intelligence.
Perhaps it is forcing us to reconsider what we meant by intelligence in the first place.
Intelligence May Not Be One Thing
Human intelligence has never fitted comfortably inside an IQ score.
There is analytical intelligence, certainly.
But what about emotional intelligence?
- Social intelligence?
- Creative ability?
- Practical understanding?
- Intuition?
- Insight?
- Common sense?
The ability to understand another person’s feelings without being told?
The ability to see connections others don’t see?
The extraordinary abilities sometimes found in people on the autism spectrum—including individuals whose capacity to communicate conventionally may be limited while other cognitive abilities appear remarkable?
What about the intelligence involved in music, movement, spatial awareness or understanding the natural world?
And then there are the harder edges of the question.
Existential Thought
Intuition that seems to arrive before conscious reasoning.
Claims of extraordinary perception and communication that remain controversial and scientifically disputed.
We don’t have to accept every proposed form of intelligence as established fact to recognise the larger point:
Human cognition is far more complicated than being good at answering questions.
And perhaps that is where our comparison with Artificial Intelligence becomes interesting.
Artificial intelligence is already remarkably capable at things we once regarded as signs of intelligence. But capability may not equal understanding. Intelligence may not be the same as consciousness. And neither intelligence nor consciousness necessarily gives us wisdom or common sense.
Those distinctions are becoming increasingly important.
Perhaps the arrival of AI gives us an opportunity not simply to understand machines better, but to understand ourselves better.
The Nature of Intelligence
I don’t think we have a simple answer.
That’s precisely why the question matters.
Summary points on what matters
AI is not simply becoming more capable. It is challenging many of the assumptions we have made about intelligence itself.
Perhaps the most interesting question isn’t whether machines can become more intelligent.
It’s what their evolution may teach us about ourselves.
Summary Video
Related Topics
The AI revolution
THE SERIES: LIVING WITH AI
After exploring who we are in the RoguesCulture Identity Series, Living with AI turns to where we are going. It explores how artificial intelligence is transforming work, creativity, communication, and decision-making, and how people and businesses can thrive in a world increasingly shaped by intelligent systems.
Working Smarter. Staying Human.
Prelude – Living with AI: The Future Of Work
Living with AI introduces the ideas, opportunities, and challenges that will shape the AI era. Rather than fearing change, the series explores how people, businesses, and communities can understand AI, adapt to it, and use intelligent systems wisely while remaining unmistakably human.
Episode 1 – The Rise of Intelligent Agents
AI is no longer just a tool. It is becoming an intermediary between people, information, creativity, and decision-making. This article explores how intelligent agents are reshaping work, business, and everyday life as they become the new interface between humans and the digital world.
Episode 2 – The Future of Search in an AI World
Search is undergoing its biggest transformation since the birth of Google. Discover how AI agents are reshaping search, websites, SEO, advertising, and online discovery—and why trust, authority, and credibility are becoming the new foundations of digital success. It asks what happens to the major pillars of the search economy:
What Happens to: Search in The Age of AI
Search Becomes Recommendation
Beyond Search | Advertising | Your Website | SEO
Episode 3 – The Curse of Abundance
Artificial intelligence is creating an age of unlimited information, media, and content. But when everything becomes abundant, trust becomes scarce. This essay explores why credibility, authenticity, and human judgment may become the world’s most valuable resources.
Episode 3A – Cosmic Abundance
As artificial intelligence demands ever greater computing power and energy, humanity is beginning to think on a planetary scale. Cosmic Abundance explores how ideas once confined to science fiction—from orbital computing to space-based solar power—are becoming serious engineering discussions, and why technology expands our possibilities while humanity still decides our future.
Episode 3B – Abundant Wisdom
If intelligence becomes abundant and trust becomes scarce, what becomes humanity’s greatest advantage? The Wisdom Economy explores why judgement, ethics, creativity, experience, and purpose may become the most valuable resources of the AI era.
PODCAST 12 – Living With AI
The complete Living with AI conversation. A lively, thought-provoking deep dive that brings together the ideas, assumptions, challenges, and opportunities explored throughout the series. Through engaging discussion, humour, and fresh insights, Podcast12 examines artificial intelligence, work, creativity, search, trust, the Wisdom Economy, and what they may mean for humanity in the age of Abundant Intelligence (AIx).
Why Horses Don’t Pull Trains Anymore
An idea that emerged from the podcast, expanded into a short essay about technological disruption, adaptation and what history can teach us about living with AI.
Also see the follow-up blog and 5-minute podcast:
PODCAST 13- What Horses Teach Us About AI
Living With AI Epilogue – The Real AI Revolution Isn’t Artificial
Artificial Intelligence describes the technology. Abundant Intelligence (AIx) describes the era it has created. This essay explores what happens when intelligence becomes abundant, why value shifts from knowledge to judgement, trust, and wisdom and how humanity can thrive in the Age of AIx.
SERIES: INTELLIGENCE
The many faces of intelligence: why intelligence, common sense and wisdom are not the same thing
This series explores the nature of human, artificial and superhuman intelligence—where they differ, where they overlap, and where they may be heading. It examines intelligence beyond reasoning and knowledge, exploring consciousness, emotional intelligence, wisdom, character and the emerging capabilities of AI: As well as the opportunities, uncertainties and risks they may bring.
Episode I – What is Intelligence – soon
NEXT SERIES: THE MIND WORKERS
After exploring how artificial intelligence is changing our world in Living with AI, The Mind Workers asks a different question:
Who must we become?
Thinking Smarter. Creating Better. Staying Human.
The Mind Workers explores how writers, researchers, educators, creators, entrepreneurs, and independent thinkers can thrive alongside intelligent systems—preserving the uniquely human qualities that artificial intelligence cannot replace.
The Mind Workers – Prelude: https://roguesinparadise.com/mindworkers/
FUTURE SERIES – BUILDING WITH AI
Building with AI explores how individuals, creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses can design, evaluate, and work intelligently with AI agents. The series focuses on practical applications, real-world examples, and emerging opportunities while emphasising the importance of human creativity, judgment, ethics, and authenticity.
Building With AI then puts these ideas into practice through real-world experiments, workflows, and practical applications.
Prelude: https://roguesinparadise.com/building-with-ai/
INSPIRED BY THE BOOK
ROGUES IN PARADISE
How Britain’s First Slave Colony Became a Global Force.
A Creative Chronicle of Unlikely Heroes, Rogues, and Legends
in Empire’s Shadow
Explore the ideas behind the book —or
Go straight to the story.
Unlikely voices, rogues and legends, rising from Britain’s blueprint for slavery to a republic beyond the Empire’s shadow
