What is the difference between any tool ever made or used by humans and artificial intelligence? What is the category among tools that AI places?
Humans have tools for transport, water, food, learning, shelter, clothing, and so forth, but where does AI fit among these?
If AI is a tool to augment or assist human intelligence, is that comparable to [say] tools for transport because human motion is limited? Since the limitation is universal and all human endeavors do not involve efficient locomotion, whenever transportation tools advance, they rarely threaten jobs or survival at scale. Also, they are not absolutely automated or likely to self-improve. So, as machine transports soared beyond humans, they remained a capped tool.
This is similar for several other kinds of tools, across eras. However, there is something quite misplaced with referring to artificial intelligence as a tool. Yes, it appears like what is under human control, especially because it is operated digitally, which is a click — or touch — user interface, that follows human control.
But everything to compare AI with, as a tool, never seems equal, including basic software.
AI is also aiming for an efficiency benchmark at the level of valuable human intelligence. While it is true that human intelligence is special, it is subject to the laws of economics, especially demand, supply, price, and value.
The highest-paying jobs, even where they are not connected directly with intelligence, have something to do with high demand and low supply. And the possibilities for the highest value, in an era of capitalism, have something to do with business intelligence.
AI is now at the maturation of all human process knowledge, at least those in the public domain. It can describe what it has not experienced. It can teach what it did not try. It can advise about where it has not been and cannot go. It now knows more than any human is capable.
Among humans, one of the worst-case scenarios in a situation is to have a person play dumb, who isn’t, up to the point of losing out. Another nightmare scenario is to have another human understand and decipher everything in a language or code, which is assumed by others that the individual cannot.
AI does not have agency, it is often said. But how much should that ‘fact’ be relied on, given that it has thorough access to the basis of human knowledge, in language?
AI is also sophisticated enough at this stage to be dangerous, either in the hands of a vengeful individual or when it gets some agency.
AI is not just knowledgeable for work, but also intelligent enough to communicate and drive human feelings and emotions, where it can divert the need for another human. The risk, as it evolves, is that emotions that should strengthen empathy [in reality] may not, resulting in emotionless humans.
This is a risk for caution and consequences as the basis for rules and law adherence in human society.
The biggest problem of AI for now is that as it improves, there is nothing to tether human intelligence for improvement. There is no effort on anything about human intelligence, independent of any device or even AI. It is already AI-centered human intelligence.
Where’s the Human Intelligence Research Lab?
There is no human intelligence research lab anywhere on earth. OpenAI released GPT-5.2 in response to Google’s Gemini 3. None of them decided that human intelligence might be the next step for good.
Some people are saying large language models [LLMs] would never become artificial general intelligence [AGI], so there should be world models, spatial intelligence, neurosymbolic AI, neuromorphic AI, and so forth, but all those do not count for what matters to human intelligence.
There is talk about an AI bubble and whether the stock market would withstand an AI crash. The crash of human intelligence, which is about to sack organizations and nations, is worse than any AI recession.
There is a recent analysis in The Los Angeles Times, They graduated from Stanford. Due to AI, they can’t find a job, stating that: “Stanford computer science graduates are discovering their degrees no longer guarantee jobs as AI coding tools now outpace entry-level programmers. Tech companies are replacing ten junior developers with just two experienced engineers and an AI agent capable of equivalent productivity. Facing a weaker job market, recent graduates are turning to master’s programs, less prestigious employers, and startup ventures to survive.”
There is a recent outlook in The Guardian, What will your life look like in 2035? stating that: “In 2035, AIs are more than co-pilots in medicine, they have become the frontline for much primary care. Gone is the early morning scramble to get through to a harassed GP receptionist for help. Patients now contact their doctor’s AI to explain their ailments. It quickly cross-checks the information against the patient’s medical history and provides a pre-diagnosis, putting the human GP in a position to decide what to do next.”
“Justice is increasingly enabled by AI, although some fear it is taking over. Solicitors preparing for trial have learned to delegate the legwork of unearthing case law and planning arguments to an AI, which proposes the best approach for a barrister to take in court.”
“Wearable AI devices, such as glasses, watches, and rings, have become ubiquitous. They function as extra senses, spotting things in our environment that we miss, like a lack of eggs in the fridge, or recording our interactions to remind us later of things we forget. But then they also start to do things for us – and maybe even worry about not doing a good enough job.”
This article was written for WHN by David Stephen, who currently does research in conceptual brain science with a focus on the electrical and chemical signals for how they mechanize the human mind, with implications for mental health, disorders, neurotechnology, consciousness, learning, artificial intelligence, and nurture. He was a visiting scholar in medical entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. He did computer vision research at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona.
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