Integrated Intelligence

Key Points:

• The concept of "Integrated Intelligence" examines how AI is becoming intertwined with and extending human cognition, both individually and collectively.
• Generative AI like large language models can amplify certain human skills like creativity when used effectively. However, AI has uneven competencies across tasks.
• The boundaries between human and artificial intelligence are fluid and opaque. Determining optimal collaboration requires ongoing learning about AI's capabilities and limitations.
• Historically, humans have thrived by combining our collective strengths. Integrating AI "minds" with different abilities into the collective intelligence network raises important questions.
• As AI permeates cognitive tasks, it may reshape how we conceptualize intelligence and what we value as uniquely human traits.
• Understanding the multifaceted impacts of AI integration on individual minds, human culture, and collective intelligence remains an open challenge and opportunity.

Imagine a scribe in ancient Sumer etching symbols onto a clay tablet with a newly designed stylus. This simple act—transferring thought to tangible medium—was revolutionary. By externalizing ideas, the Sumerians didn't just record information, they transformed the very concept of intelligence. The stylus and tablet, in essence, became extensions of the scribe's mind, broadening the scope of cognition and recalibrating what knowledge means. 

This evocative image parallels a groundbreaking idea by philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers from the late 20th century—the concept of the extended mind. They posited that our cognition doesn't halt at the boundaries of our skulls. Instead it spills over, intertwining with external objects or tools. 

We hold one idea above most others: aspirational AI should serve as a mind for our minds.

Building on this, our passion for Integrated Intelligence is rooted in real-world evidence. We consistently hear from individuals whose lives are impacted by AI. Through our research, we see measurable shifts in human behavior and perspectives due to AI integration. As generative AI blends into cognitive tasks, it reshapes how people allocate and perceive the value of their time.

Our perception of human intelligence is changing. Our interaction with AI is a mix of collaboration and conflict, and finding a balance is challenging. We're re-evaluating what makes us special and questioning if being unique still holds significance. The traditional concept of intelligence evolves, especially as we discover more about AI's capabilities. For instance, while humans pride themselves on being creative, AI can now generate highly creative images in seconds, pushing us to redefine our understanding of “creativity.” The very definition of intelligence seems to dematerialize.

Before generative AI, the value of AI lay in its ability to predict. It excelled at analyzing vast and intricate data, making sense of both the minuscule and the massive. Any human who used AI gained an edge in their ability to recognize patterns. The strength of machines was their repeatability. This freed us to focus on our innate strengths: creativity, reasoning, and collaborative problem-solving. As long as a task didn’t demand uniquely human traits like contextual awareness or moral discernment, we could delegate anything big, boring, or basic to AI.

Today's generative AI can be seen as an expansive, digital annex of our thought process. Take the example of how large language models change knowledge work. AI can effectively simulate creative, empathic, and emotional ideas because it’s learned how important human constructs are represented in language. It can help us reason and apply our judgment across multiple contexts, a cognitive crutch for when we’re new to a field. Using generative AI can amplify human skills. Using it well unlocks superpowers. 

Amid the hype, it’s easy to lose sight of AI’s weaknesses and how these manifest in new conceptualizations of human intelligence. It’s not just a matter of degree. Generative AI is uneven in its smarts. The boundary of its intelligence is highly dynamic. It, of course, expands with each successive generation of models. The shape of it isn’t linear—even within a set of tasks that require a similar level of skill, an AI can be remarkably variable. And it can wobble—waxing and waning because the algo-masters make tweaks to one portion that impacts the performance of a distant constellation in the model. To top it off, all of this dynamism is opaque to a user who has no choice but to learn by trial and error. 

Our obsession with Integrated Intelligence extends beyond individual minds. Everything achieved by the human experiment has been done collectively. Human intelligence has been shaped by our social natures. We evolved within the context of group social dynamics, our brains evolving to specialize, so that each individual could make use of their own, unique talents. This made others strange, more foreign, and gave rise to emotions such as jealousy. To compensate we invented ways to neutralize these psychological tensions. We have rituals and practices that allow for coming together, for belonging. Stories, art, sex, funerals: these are all examples of ways we draw together, to experience what we share in common so that we can think powerfully as a collective. Now machines tell stories in the same way we tell stories. We have brought them into our fold.

The science of collective intelligence is young, yet it has already provided valuable perspectives on human decision-making and action. As we start to realize how much of our personal knowledge is merely a perception, understanding that we learn collectively, machines enter the mix. Their integration is multifaceted. The community becomes a web of intertwined human and machine intelligences: one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-many

Across the history of our species we’ve consistently shown that our superpower is our collective intelligence: the ability to solve problems by cooperating with each other. This collective is being disrupted. Machines do not have the same kind of intelligence nor do they necessarily share our intentions. Yet they are integrating with our intelligence whether we are aware of it or not.

We are obsessed with understanding how machines are extending us, how they are a mind for our minds. Integrated Intelligence explores a multifaceted world of intelligence as machines insinuate themselves in our lives: how we experience it individually, how we conceptualize intelligence when we outsource cognition to machines, and how we act when our collective intelligence includes AI that has a mind of its own.

Note: The boundary between human and AI intelligence has also been called "the jagged frontier."