“AI unintentionally made me consider within the idea of a human soul by displaying me what artwork seems 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 dropping 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 the way to hear. He is aware of the way to clarify one thing sophisticated with out making you’re feeling small. That, to me, is actual intelligence.
And but… I’ve began to note one thing unusual.
Synthetic Intelligence is starting to resemble individuals like him. It may write fluent sentences. It may summarize books I haven’t learn. Typically, 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 tough—generally unimaginable. Instruments like this aren’t a luxurious for me. They’re a present. A lifeline. With out them, I wouldn’t be capable to maintain writing. For that, I’m grateful.
However there’s a type of intelligence that AI won’t ever know.
It received’t really feel the panic of forgetting your strains onstage, or the frenzy 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 liked.
It may assist categorical a sense, but it surely can not 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 may 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 the hours of darkness or instructing a scholar who doesn’t consider in themselves—till sooner or later, they do. It doesn’t develop from expertise.
It doesn’t grieve. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t change.
So when individuals say, “AI goes to switch us,” I at all times surprise—which a part of us? The half that fills out types and writes studies or does different rutinary duties? Possibly. However the half that authentically and truthfully tells a narrative nobody else can inform? By no means.
Educating College students to Present Up
In each class I’ve taught, I’ve stated some model of this:
“Don’t cease on the analysis. Don’t cease at what AI offers you. Study to indicate up in your work.”
Some college students conceal behind data. It’s safer. However I inform them: you are the that means. You’re the perception. You’re the threat.
I as soon as had a scholar who wrote a technically flawless paper. But it surely had no voice. After I requested her what it meant to her, she hesitated. Then she instructed me about her father, who had lived by the battle the paper was about. Her whole relationship to the subject shifted in that second. That was the actual intelligence. Not the citations. Not the syntax. The braveness to talk from the center.
When Sight Fades, One thing Else Comes into View
Dropping your imaginative and prescient isn’t just about studying much less. It’s about seeing in a different way. It’s about slowing down. Listening extra. Studying to belief what you may’t confirm together with your eyes.
It has additionally deepened my appreciation for instruments like AI. I depend on them on daily basis. However I additionally discover their limits. They assist with type, however not with essence. They clear the window, however they’ll’t present you what’s exterior. That also requires you.
Intelligence Is Not the Similar as Knowledge
My good cosmologist good friend as soon as instructed 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, will not be about management or solutions. It’s about how we stock ourselves in uncertainty. It’s about grace beneath stress. Presence in ache. Humor in despair. Kindness with out reward. None of that reveals up in a immediate.
The Last Lesson: Instruments Don’t Substitute Soul
If there’s one factor I’ve realized—by instructing, by imaginative and prescient loss, by utilizing AI—it’s this:
A instrument will help you construct one thing. However it may possibly’t let you know why it issues.
So sure, use the instruments. Use AI. Let it assist you. I do.
However always remember: you might be greater than the instrument. 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 progress. He’s the writer of: Home windows to the Sea—a transferring assortment of essays on love, loss, and presence. Inventive Scholarship—a information for educators and artists rethinking how artistic work is valued. Tony writes to replicate on what issues—and to assist others really feel much less alone.
