Evolutionary Mirrors: Human vs. AI Intelligence

Published Date : 1/10/2025 

Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google's CTO of technology and society, explores the computational similarities between human brains and AI, challenging the notion that AI is separate from human intelligence. 

The term artificial intelligence (AI) often implies that the intelligence of computers is inferior or separate from human intelligence. However, AI researcher Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that this may not be the case. During a recent event sponsored by Harvard Law School's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Agüera y Arcas delved into the evolution of both human and AI, highlighting their computational parallels.

Agüera y Arcas, the author of the new book “What Is Intelligence? Lessons from AI About Evolution, Computing, and Minds,” posed a compelling question: “Why has the computational power of brains, not just of AI models, grown explosively throughout evolution?” He noted that if we rewind 500 million years, we see only organisms with very small brains, and if we go back a billion years, we see no brains at all.

According to Agüera y Arcas, human brains evolved to be computational, meaning they process information by transforming various inputs into signals or outputs. Most of this computation takes the form of predictions, which is also a key function of AI systems. “I hear a lot of people say that it's a metaphor to talk about brains as computers,” said Agüera y Arcas. “I don't mean this metaphorically. I mean it very literally. The premise of computational neuroscience is that what brains do is process information, not that they are like computers, but that they are computers.”

Agüera y Arcas' book explores the evolution and social origins of intelligence, delving into the computational nature of intelligence, biology, and life as a whole. It draws on ideas from scientists such as Alan Turing and John von Neumann, who theorized about self-replication and universal computation, as well as evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis's theory of symbiogenesis. Margulis's theory suggests that merging different organisms to form more complex entities played a key role in cell evolution, a concept that Agüera y Arcas uses to explain the similarities between the computational aspects of biology and AI models.

Charles Darwin's theory of random mutation and natural selection is only half the evolution story, according to Agüera y Arcas. Symbiogenesis, characterized by cooperation, is the creative engine behind evolution. “Life was computational from the start,” said Agüera y Arcas. “It gets more computationally complex over time through symbiogenesis, because when you have two computers that come together and start cooperating, now you have a parallel computer, and a massively parallel computation that leads to more and more parallel computation. This is exactly what we see in nervous systems that consist of lots of neurons computing functions in parallel.”

During his talk, Agüera y Arcas demonstrated this concept through a video of experiments he conducted at Google. Using a programming language with only eight basic instructions, he showed how more complex programs could emerge from simple, random initial conditions through self-replication and increasing complexity. “It was an exploration of how self-reproducing entities can arise out of random initial conditions, which is how life must have arisen,” said Agüera y Arcas. “We know that life didn't always exist in the universe. There must have been initial conditions that are disordered from which life arises.”

Agüera y Arcas views intelligence as the ability to predict and influence the future. He traces the “human intelligence explosion” to the moment when humans formed societies and began cooperating and living together. The growth and evolution of human brains began when they banded together and created collective societies. The emergence of societies, he said, was a major evolutionary transition, citing the work of scientists Eörs Szathmáry and John Maynard Smith. “Human individuals are not very smart, but when we get together, we can do amazing things, like transplanting organs and going to the moon,” said Agüera y Arcas. “Those are not individual capabilities. No individual human can do that. That's a collective human intelligence sort of thing, and it comes about through specialization, through theory of mind, through us being able to model each other in order to work in groups.”

In conclusion, Agüera y Arcas's insights challenge the traditional separation between human and artificial intelligence, suggesting that both are part of a broader computational and evolutionary continuum. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 

Q: What is the main argument of Blaise Agüera y Arcas regarding human and artificial intelligence?

A: Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that human and artificial intelligence are not separate but share computational similarities, challenging the notion that AI is inferior to human intelligence.

Q: How does Agüera y Arcas explain the computational nature of human brains?

A: Agüera y Arcas explains that human brains are computational, processing information by transforming inputs into signals or outputs, and that most of this computation takes the form of predictions.

Q: What is the significance of symbiogenesis in the evolution of intelligence?

A: Symbiogenesis, characterized by cooperation, is significant in the evolution of intelligence as it leads to the formation of more complex entities and parallel computation, enhancing computational complexity over time.

Q: What does Agüera y Arcas mean by the 'human intelligence explosion'?

A: The 'human intelligence explosion' refers to the significant growth in human intelligence that occurred when humans formed societies and began cooperating, leading to collective human intelligence.

Q: How does Agüera y Arcas view the role of societies in the evolution of human intelligence?

A: Agüera y Arcas views the formation of societies as a major evolutionary transition that enabled humans to specialize, model each other, and work in groups, leading to collective achievements that no individual could accomplish alone. 

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