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?

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

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