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Metafísica y Persona. Filosofía, conocimiento y vida
Año 15, Núm. 30, Julio-Diciembre, 2023, ISSN: 2007-9699
What kind of “intelligence” is Articial Intelligence?
¿Qué tipo de “inteligencia” es la Inteligencia Articial?
panielosberto.reyes@upaep.mx
In this article I carry a study of some comparative terms that aim to help narrowing down
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ing the acts of a kind of agent, a mind that interprets and knows itself while knowing, and as
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tegrated view of intelligence emerges, and hence sheds light about what kind of intelligence is
and psychological conceptions of intelligence, and hence we have been able to interpret to what
Keywords
Philosophy of Mind.
En este artículo realizo un estudio de algunos términos comparativos que buscan acotar
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para la integración de los actos de un cierto tipo de agente, una mente que interpreta y se
conoce a sí misma mientras conoce las cosas. La inteligencia también emerge como el con-
junto de operaciones y funciones que tienen los seres inteligentes. Con tales aspectos de la
inteligencia se construye una visión más integrada y apropiada del término y así se adquiere
es un punto de partida necesario para entender los problemas de las visiones reduccionistas
puramente psicologistas o funcionales de la inteligencia, y desde allí se juzga hasta dónde
Palabras clave
1
Recepción del original: 01/06/2023
Metafísica y persona. Filosofía, conocimiento y vida
Año 15, Núm. 30, Julio-Diciembre, 2023, ISSN: 2007-9699
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A very important problem
describing the senses in which the concept has been understood and its gener-
alisations present in the inter-sectional and trans-disciplinary character of the
from knowing the origins and theories of intelligence that were advanced by
the great minds of the past, this will reveal both the limitations as well as the
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we will pursue their understanding. In addition, it is also the case that our time
has produced a renewed inquiry over the varieties of human intelligence and
in our time on the role that emotions play in our conscious and intellectual
intelligence to construct a more integrated view of AI: we aim for an enriched
view that will include metaphysical aspects of intelligence, epistemological
aspects of our knowledge of intelligent beings, as well as psychological traits.
technological, theoretical and practical challenges demand.
The origin of the term “intelligence”
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to the composite origin of the term we ought to follow St. Thomas Aquinas,
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interpreter is an intelligence that captures the sense or meaning of the inter-
pretation. The doctrine of intelligence, that Aristotle introduced in his famous
On the Soul) is examined by St. Thomas and incorporat-
ed to a metaphysical theory of intelligence and being. In his treatment he dis-
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What kind “intelligence” is Artificial Intelligence?
that concerns human intelligence. Broadly introduced, Thomas Aquinas tells
us that the intellect in general can be conceived from the metaphysical theory
of modes of being of act and potency, leading us to see that there are poten-
contemplates the intellectual concepts by which we can think, while the in-
tellect in act (intellect agency) carries mental operations while is conscious of
them. In this way, the medieval theory of intelligence, particularly the Aristo-
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ing to its functional properties, but its contents too and, furthermore, includes
2
Going even further back in time, for thinkers as St. Augustine, who is one
of the main sources for the understanding of the history of the concept of
intelligence in the Middle Ages, Intelligence (mens) is a faculty that is above
the simple ability to reason logically; it also includes the ability to remember,
to think, to judge and to deliberate and decide meaningfully. This antecedent
was important for St. Thomas and later Aristotelians like John Duns Scotus.
of the two intellects explained above. For St. Thomas, as it has been stated,
means, in the interpretation provided by Peter Geach
3
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tively thought. Saint Thomas also not only understands intelligence as an
activity (act) but as a habit, he tells us that intelligence is a habitus principiorum
(habit of principles), a continuous activity that happens according to princi-
ples. The relevance of these ideas is that they tell us what is the fundamental
metaphysical nature of intelligence: intelligence is a mode of being, not only
a set of operations and functions.
Early Medieval Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Sina (known in the Latin
Medieval West as Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (known in the Latin Medieval
West as Averroes) used the concept of intelligence in order to make sense
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terpreted. In doing their contribution to the topic of intelligence the Islamic
philosophers explained intelligence as the ability to follow laws of thought
that belong to a logic. The knowledge that an intelligence develops over a
2
Cf. , S., I, q. 14, a 1, q. 55, a. 1, q. 79, a. 2; y Coment. In De An.; L. III, c. 2, lec. 2; c.4, lec. 7
y 9, c. 5, lec. 10; c. 7, lec. 12; c. 8, lec. 3, etc.
3
, God and the Soul,
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given topic depends on the logic in which that topic falls: an intelligence is a
and develops habits about such operations.
some proper traits of intelligent lives are not only the functions and opera-
tions. In our own time and grounded on the above tradition, philosophers
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views of S-AI because they reduce intelligence to an ability of perform op-
erations that forgets about the meaning and consciousness of them. In other
words and following Searle’s reasoning, it is not only about describing the
logical syntax of language, but to make sense of how can we have a con-
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An American polymath and philosopher of the 19th Century, Charles
Sanders Peirce, reminds us of thought as the using of signs; a sign can only
and, therefore, underlies the importance of understanding how signs work.
Should we wanted to understand the nature of thought, we need to under-
stand the nature of signs. Peirce formed a rigorous science of signs to give
interpretation is an essential aspect of the sign-relation: each sign needs in-
terpretation in order to be a sign of something. There are there basic kinds of
signs from the view point of the interpretant (the way of interpretation that
we might have of it): icons, indices, and symbols. Each kind of sign involves
three characteristics:
1.
2. That of what the sign is about, i.e., the object of the sign (for example,
a speed limit, road works ahead, etc.)
3. -
expect for a driver after seeing the sign).
According to Peirce, even the interpretant itself (z) is meant to become a fur-
ther sign. As such, the interpretant must be interpreted by a further inter-
pretant that is wider in scope, which in turn is interpreted for another… and
so on. Therefore, there is no limit to the process of interpretation. Inasmuch
as there is an intelligence, an intelligence will be so manifested as a capacity
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What kind “intelligence” is Artificial Intelligence?
which the convergence of interpreting minds will approach in their converg-
ing interpretations.
Since Peirce holds that interpretants are themselves signs and, hence, they
must be interpreted, he thinks that the interpretation of signs must be a com-
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volves generations of communities of interpretation. Intelligence is, therefore,
at least to a minimal sense, the ability to interpret signs in a self-conscious and
self-controlled way, not only performing some functional operations.
Modern and contemporary conceptions of intelligence
similar or related concepts such as understanding, intellect, reason. Ferrater
Mora rightly points out that in our time there is a pervasive use of the term
4
In such a case, intelligence can be interpreted
by some organisms to adapt to new situations using for such a purpose the
5
Thus, there are many famous experiments in which it is shown how an-
imals show and exhibit this kind of intelligence in the sense of being a psy-
experiments on chimps and their behaviour are presented to the reader as
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ed by such primates.
There is certainly no doubt that the contributions to psychology are valu-
able to contribute to an enrichment on the understanding of what kind of be-
haviours intelligent beings exhibit, and these are important to qualify distinct
intelligent behaviours. However, these ways of talking about intelligence
might hamper rather than help an inquiry into what is the meaning of intel-
ligence, since already take for granted that intelligence is adaptation, such
4
, Diccionario de losoa, Madrid: Alianza, 1990, p. 1873.
5
, Diccionario de losoa, p. 1873.
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with these kind of viewpoints is the total absence of fundamental metaphys-
ical and epistemological aspects of intelligence: a mind that interprets has to
be a very particular kind of being, not only one that functionally responds
to some operative expectations. This kind of reductionism about the concept
of intelligence has been the main obstacle to overcome some views of intel-
ligence that exaggerate the value of some technological achievements in the
Intelligence and technology
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-
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standing, living beings will exhibit certain functions that are acknowledged
as intelligent. Ferrater Mora tells us in his famous dictionary of philosophy
in the course of which calculations are carried, problems (mathematical and
otherwise) are solved, games are played (e.g., a Chess game), learning is hap-
6
Hence AI is more frequently understood as the ability to programme an
However, even as of today, machines function with a kind of programming
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technology has made great advances at an accelerated rate, and even in the
use of programming that does not necessarily depend on the logic mentioned
above, but trying fuzzy logics, multi-valued logics, even quantum logic that
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ics. But these advancements, though very impressive, still do not mean that
the systems that perform these highly sophisticated tasks are conscious.
According to a number of thinkers that follow the ideas of Alan Turing, if
a machine could develop in such a way that its operations and the linguistic
expression of these were indistinguishable from the ones of a human being
that is behaving rationally then this will entail the judgement that this AI is
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6
, Diccionario de losoa, 1875.
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What kind “intelligence” is Artificial Intelligence?
and operations that were thought only in the scope of intelligent human be-
However, American philosopher of ordinary language John Searle has
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ing’s ideas. Indeed, Searle articulated a famous thought-experiment known
argument of the Chinese room pictures a digital computer that executes a
behaviour of an intelligent human being a computer is, still does not mean
Behavioural and Brain Sciences in 1980 in the article
The argument is clearly addressed against the philosophical views that
understand intelligence through a computational or functional theory (i.e.,
they already presuppose a reductionist approach to intelligence). Most spe-
with correct inputs and outputs of information would have in virtue of that a
7
Searle’s thought experiment begins with this hypothetical premise: suppose
that some research on AI has been successful in construction a computer that
behaves as if could understand the Chinese language (let us say, Cantonese).
The programme assumes the Chinese characters and symbols in the input slot
and, following the instructions of a computational programme that describes
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pose that in the same way this computer carries its tasks so convincingly that
without a problem outstandingly passes the Turing test, consequently con-
vincing the Cantonese speakers that the program is a living speaker of Can-
tonese. Thus, to every relevant question that a person does, the output slot
of Cantonese is convinced that inside the room there is another human being
that actually understands the language. Finally, then, the question that Searle
7
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, núm. 3, 198, p. 1.
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Searle then, supposes that he himself is the one that is in the closed room
and has a book with an English version of the interactive, he also has papers,
pencils, erasers and a lot of information in relevant shelves. Searle could be
receiving Cantonese characters through the slot in the door, he could process
such characters with the book of instructions, and producing new pieces of
paper as answers. If the computer has passed the test of Turing in this way
it will necessarily follow that Searle did too, but they are only following the
manual of instructions, neither Searle nor the computer understand what the
whole thing means.
in the sense in which we think when we understand, we cannot then adscribe
a mind to the machine in the usual sense of the term. In consequence, Searle
the Turing test. However, even if Searle’s overall argument is perfectly sound
(as it really shows that there is a missing key aspect of intelligence, our con-
sciousness of experience), many computer scientists might claim that the colos-
al amount of computational networks has grown exponentially on the capacity
of predicting human behaviour, concluding that computers know ourselves
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er massive the amount of information could be recombined, this still does not
mean consciousness. This keeps being a qualitatively syntactic and functional
aspect of the operations, and it does not become what David Chalmers has
from a great syntactical web, it is needed to navigate willingly in the network
of meanings and experiences that the web might represent: it is the interpretant
missing in the sheer representation.
Intelligence and emotions
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sition between a rational life and emotions, as though intelligence in order
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What kind “intelligence” is Artificial Intelligence?
authors such as Daniel Goleman
8
have vindicated the Intelligent character of
the integration of emotions and the psychological life of the mind. However,
of the value of emotions to the intellectual life: thus, just to invoke an appeal-
ing example, there are interesting texts such as Brady.
9
Unfortunately, these
important developments have been struggling with a prejudiced view that
revokes emotions as fundamentally irrational. Contemporary philosophy of
emotions, as opposed to the negative assessment of emotions, values a positive
role in moral emotions in the formation of a mature and autonomous moral
character. Philosophy of emotion has even discovered that the sheer desire of
knowledge and the unrestricted search for truth is endorsed by an intellectual
emotion: even the classical philosophy of Plato and Aristotle is in tune with
this belief that intelligence starts with the desire for truth and knowledge. If we
examine our intellectual lives we discover that our consciousness and aware-
other words: a fuller sense of awareness and consciousness emerges from the
integration of our intelligence of our emotional states. In Hegel’s philosophy,
for instance, particularly in his Phenomenology of the Spirit
10
he introduces us
to a gradual growth of consciousness that allows us the understanding of our
experience and the intelligence of it not as a monolithic or uniform phenom-
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ence. Thus, far from expelling emotions from our consciousness, we become
more capable of evaluate our life as intelligent if we take on account the value
This clearly goes far beyond a purely functional aspect of intelligence.
The need to recover a richer conception of intelligence
In this article I have introduced some comparative terms that aim to help
-
dition that actually produced the term itself, acknowledging that it is a term
that has been suitable for integrating the acts of a kind of agent, a mind that
interprets and knows itself while knowing, and as the operations and func-
8
, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Maer More Than IQ, New York: Bantam Books,
1995; , Working with Emotional Intelligence, New York: Bantam Books, 1998.
9
, Emotion: the basics, London: Routledge, 2019.
10
, G. W. F., Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by Terry Pinkard, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2017.
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view of intelligence emerges. This view is a cornerstone to understanding the
problems of purely functional and psychological conceptions of intelligence,
and hence we have been able to interpret to what extend we can properly
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sidered that there is a growing realisation of the emotional component of
intelligence and therefore questions the functional reductionism. Consider-
conscious life goes beyond consciousness of thought: it is also consciousness
of feelings and the awareness of realities that are meaningful to us. An issue
that still remains open here, however, is the explanation of how the intelli-
gent life includes the consciousness of emotional experience as well as the
moral experience and the aesthetic experience. This has to be emphasised in
future explorations to avoid reductionists accounts of intelligence, but not
only that, we also need to open the discussion to a greater deepening on the
intelligence, but it will be wrong to mistake one for another.
References
, Emotion: the basics, London: Routledge, 2019
Diccionario de losoa, Madrid: Alianza, 1990.
, God and the Soul,
, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Maer More Than IQ, New
York: Bantam Books, 1995.
, Working with Emotional Intelligence, New York: Bantam Books, 1998.
, G. W. F., Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by Terry Pinkard, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017.
and,
Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1965.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, núm.
3, 198, pp. 417-57.
