Articulating A Practical Definition Of "Intelligence"
The meaning of "Computer" shifted dramatically with mechanization. Will "Intelligence" go the same route?
Human Computers
To all but perhaps the oldest of the humans alive in 2026, the word “computer” refers to a type of machine. With the possible exception of the more geriatric or historically inclined of us living humans, this type of machine is electronic and digital, assembled from integrated circuitry that is printed in angstrom-scale directly onto silicon wafers.
To the humans alive a century ago in 1926, however, this modern definition would have elicited a bout of confusion. To this cohort, “computers” did exist (the term had existed for 300 years at this point), but it referred to people, not machines.
Mechanistic Intelligence
“Intelligence is whatever machines haven’t done yet”
The title of this section is a famous quip by Larry Tesler (a delightful hero of computer history who is also famous for inventing copy-paste, among other things). This quote is circa 1970, well before the famous 1997 chess win by Deep Blue.
The Spectrum Of Animal Intelligence
In his book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, behavioral biologist and ethologist Frans de Waal explains the rich history of psychologists hillariously underselling the intelligence of non-human animals.