“AI by chance made me consider within the idea of a human soul by displaying me what artwork appears to be like like with out it.” ~Unknown
What’s intelligence?
I’ve requested this query all my life—as a instructor, a filmmaker, a researcher, and now, as somebody shedding my imaginative and prescient to macular degeneration.
I ask it once I watch college students discover their voice.
I ask it once I take heed to an in depth good friend of mine, a world-renowned cosmologist, whose information appears limitless however whose humility runs even deeper. He can talk about black holes one minute and quote the Tao Te Ching the following. He doesn’t simply know details—he is aware of methods to hear. He is aware of methods to clarify one thing sophisticated with out making you are feeling small. That, to me, is actual intelligence.
And but… I’ve began to note one thing unusual.
Synthetic Intelligence is starting to resemble folks like him. It might write fluent sentences. It might summarize books I haven’t learn. Generally, it surprises me. And I discover myself questioning: is this additionally intelligence?
What AI Will get Proper—and What It Will By no means Really feel
Let me say this clearly: I’m grateful for AI. This very essay was formed with its assist. I’ve superior macular degeneration. Proofreading my very own writing is troublesome—generally unattainable. Instruments like this usually are not a luxurious for me. They’re a present. A lifeline. With out them, I wouldn’t have the ability to hold writing. For that, I’m grateful.
However there’s a sort of intelligence that AI won’t ever know.
It received’t really feel the panic of forgetting your strains onstage, or the push of remembering them mid-breath. It doesn’t lie awake at evening questioning whether or not your work issues. It doesn’t weep when your mom now not remembers your identify. It doesn’t get nervous earlier than a job interview. It hasn’t failed, or recovered, or beloved.
It might assist categorical a sense, but it surely can’t have one.
A Software, not a Thoughts
We name it “synthetic intelligence,” but it surely’s extra like synthetic fluency. It’s quick. It’s competent. It might impress you. But it surely doesn’t know in the way in which we all know. It hasn’t spent years working towards an instrument at midnight or educating a scholar who doesn’t consider in themselves—till in the future, they do. It doesn’t develop from expertise.
It doesn’t grieve. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t change.
So when folks say, “AI goes to interchange us,” I all the time marvel—which a part of us? The half that fills out varieties and writes reviews or does different rutinary duties? Possibly. However the half that authentically and truthfully tells a narrative nobody else can inform? By no means.
Instructing College students to Present Up
In each class I’ve taught, I’ve mentioned some model of this:
“Don’t cease on the analysis. Don’t cease at what AI offers you. Be taught to indicate up in your work.”
Some college students disguise behind data. It’s safer. However I inform them: you are the which means. You’re the perception. You’re the danger.
I as soon as had a scholar who wrote a technically flawless paper. But it surely had no voice. Once I requested her what it meant to her, she hesitated. Then she advised me about her father, who had lived via the conflict the paper was about. Her total relationship to the subject shifted in that second. That was the true intelligence. Not the citations. Not the syntax. The braveness to talk from the center.
When Sight Fades, One thing Else Comes into View
Shedding your imaginative and prescient isn’t just about studying much less. It’s about seeing in another way. It’s about slowing down. Listening extra. Studying to belief what you may’t confirm along with your eyes.
It has additionally deepened my appreciation for instruments like AI. I depend on them day by day. However I additionally discover their limits. They assist with kind, however not with essence. They clear the window, however they will’t present you what’s exterior. That also requires you.
Intelligence Is Not the Similar as Knowledge
My sensible cosmologist good friend as soon as advised me, “The extra I be taught, the extra I understand how little I perceive.”
AI doesn’t say issues like that.
It doesn’t know humility. Or thriller. Or awe.
Intelligence, within the deepest sense, shouldn’t be about management or solutions. It’s about how we stock ourselves in uncertainty. It’s about grace underneath stress. Presence in ache. Humor in despair. Kindness with out reward. None of that reveals up in a immediate.
The Remaining Lesson: Instruments Don’t Change Soul
If there’s one factor I’ve discovered—via educating, via imaginative and prescient loss, via utilizing AI—it’s this:
A device may help you construct one thing. However it may’t let you know why it issues.
So sure, use the instruments. Use AI. Let it assist you. I do.
However always remember: you’re greater than the device. You’re the story behind the sentence. The silence between the notes. The explanation the work issues in any respect.
That’s not synthetic. That’s actual.
And it’s irreplaceable.
About Tony Collins
Tony Collins is a documentary filmmaker, educator, and author whose work explores creativity, caregiving, and private development. He’s the writer of: Home windows to the Sea—a shifting assortment of essays on love, loss, and presence. Inventive Scholarship—a information for educators and artists rethinking how inventive work is valued. Tony writes to replicate on what issues—and to assist others really feel much less alone.