Tech leaders think AI is smart but chimps may beg to differ

Don't underestimate other primates in all the excitement over AI

- FAYE D. FLAM

AI lacks some mental skills that chimpanzees display.

(ISTOCKPHOTO)

For something so admired, so synonymous with merit, the concept of intelligence is remarkably poorly understood. Our society operates on the assumption that people with greater intelligence deserve access to better schools and better jobs.

Many believe that animals with higher intelligence deserve to be treated more humanely, or at least not eaten. Tech leaders obsessively compare human intelligence with the latest AI systems. Many people claim that once these systems surpass us in intelligence, they will enslave us, destroy us, or solve all our problems.

How can we compare human and machine intelligence when we can't decide which species is more intelligent? Scientists who study human or animal behaviour and brainpower tend to break intelligence down into abilities they can actually measure. What impressed them was a recent paper providing experimental evidence that chimpanzees can use reasoning to weigh different strengths of evidence, draw rational conclusions, update beliefs, and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their own knowledge.