For centuries, we have told ourselves a comforting story: we are superior because we are intelligent.

  • Animals obey instinct. We think.
  • Animals survive. We build civilizations.
  • Animals adapt to their environment. We transform it.

The idea is powerful. It is also incomplete.

We have grown used to defining human beings as intelligent animals. From there, we have built a mental pyramid with ourselves at the top. Animals come below us. Further down is nature, treated as a resource at our disposal. And, until recently, machines were merely obedient tools.

The trouble is that this pyramid is beginning to wobble

For a long time, we called memorization intelligence. The person who could recall the most facts seemed the most intelligent. Then came libraries, search engines, Wikipedia and Google. Memory was no longer proof enough.

Next, we called calculation intelligence. But a cheap calculator puts the average human to shame at arithmetic. A computer performs in seconds calculations that would take a person days or years, or that a person could not perform at all.

We also called chess intelligence. For decades, chess was seen as a kind of mental cathedral: strategy, memory, anticipation, calculation, intuition. Then machines began defeating the world's best players. That hurt because it was more than a game. It was a symbol.

Later we said: all right, perhaps a machine can calculate, but it cannot speak as we do. That distinction did not last long either. Today, artificial intelligence systems write, translate, summarize, argue, imitate styles, prepare speeches and answer questions with a fluency that seemed impossible not long ago.

Then we moved the boundary again: art. Music. Images. Creativity. But machines have entered those fields too. They compose melodies, generate illustrations, edit video, design logos, write poems and produce audiovisual content at breakneck speed.

Every time a machine acquires an ability we once considered exclusively human, we change the definition of intelligence.

That should make us suspicious.

Perhaps intelligence was not what we said it was

Or perhaps it was, but it was never as exclusively human as we wanted to believe.

The concept keeps slipping away because we use it too loosely. We call all kinds of things intelligent...

  • a genius,
  • a bright child,
  • an algorithm,
  • a mobile phone,
  • a recommendation system,
  • a robot vacuum cleaner,
  • a student who passes exams...

If everything is intelligent, the word begins to lose its precision.

Howard Gardner helps us frame the problem: human intelligence cannot be placed on a single scale. His idea of multiple intelligences reminds us that reasoning, communicating, creating, finding our way, understanding ourselves and reading other people are different abilities.

So it is worth taking a step back and asking again: what is intelligence?

We can define it simply: intelligence is the ability to perceive reality, understand relationships, make decisions and act effectively when faced with problems or change.

It includes several abilities:

  • Understanding: grasping what is happening.
  • Learning: gaining experience or knowledge.
  • Reasoning: connecting ideas and drawing conclusions.
  • Solving problems: finding solutions.
  • Adapting: changing strategy when circumstances change.
  • Anticipating: foreseeing possible consequences.

In human terms, intelligence is more than calculating quickly. It also includes judgment, language, memory, creativity, prudence, interpreting context and choosing suitable means to an end.

That is a useful definition.

Daniel Goleman points in the same direction through emotional intelligence: a person can reason brilliantly and get along terribly with others. Recognizing emotions, regulating impulses and understanding another person also form part of an intelligence that matters in human life.

But intelligence is not enough to define a human being

Many animals learn. Many solve problems. Many adapt. Some use tools. Others cooperate. Some show signs of grief, memory, attachment, hierarchies, hunting strategies or complex forms of communication.

And now machines, too, learn patterns, solve tasks, recognize images, process language, optimize decisions and generate new responses.

So if we define human beings solely by intelligence, we have a problem. It is not that we cease to be human. The definition was poor from the start.

The uncomfortable question is this: are all humans intelligent?

The easy answer is yes. An honest answer calls for nuance.

Under ordinary circumstances, human beings have some form of practical intelligence. We learn, recognize dangers, interpret signals, use language, imitate behavior, correct mistakes and make plans.

But we are not all intelligent in the same way. Or to the same degree. Above all, we are not all creators of radically new ideas.

If we look at history with some detachment, the great intellectual leaps seem to have come from a very small number of people: Newton, Einstein, Leonardo, Marie Curie, Maxwell, Copernicus, Darwin, Mozart, Aristotle. We can add names. Many names. But there would still be few compared with the billions of human beings who have lived.

This should not be read as contempt for ordinary people. Quite the opposite. It helps us understand where our real power lies.

Humanity and civilization move forward

Civilization does not advance because every person invents a theory of relativity over breakfast.

It advances because each generation receives something from the one before it, preserves it, corrects it, combines it and passes it on. Most of our ideas do not come out of nowhere. They are mixtures. Rearrangements. Extrapolations. New applications of old knowledge.

An isolated human being is not as impressive as we like to think. Humanity's accumulated knowledge is.

That gives us a crucial clue: perhaps our great advantage is not simply thinking, but passing thought on.

Language matters more than it seems

It is more than a tool for asking for bread, telling stories or arguing over dinner. Language structures the mind. It lets us name what is not in front of us. It lets us speak of the past, imagine the future, warn of danger, teach a technique, formulate a rule, make a promise, tell a lie, create a law or found a religion.

Without complex language, intelligence remains locked inside the individual. With language, intelligence travels.

Michael Tomasello helps make this idea more precise: what matters is not just learning, but learning with and from others. Harari would add that humans cooperate on a large scale because we share stories, institutions and meanings that do not exist in biology alone.

  • One person learns that fire burns.
  • Another learns how to keep it going.
  • Another learns to cook.
  • Another learns that cooking makes certain foods easier to digest.
  • Another learns to gather a group around the fire.
  • Another turns that fire into a symbol, a ritual, a home, a defense, a technique and a culture.

That is humanity: accumulated knowledge.

  • We are not remarkable just because we think.
  • We are remarkable because we can pass our thoughts on.
  • Because we copy. Because we imitate. Because we correct.
  • Because we teach. Because we write. Because we preserve. Because we argue.
  • Because an idea can outlive the body that produced it.

An animal can learn from experience. A human being can learn from the experience of someone who died. That is an enormous difference.

So humanity advanced through more than individual intelligence. It advanced through language, cooperation, cultural memory, specialization and tools. It advanced because one person discovered something and another improved it. Because one person made a tool and another refined it. Because one person observed a phenomenon and another turned it into a theory. Because one person invented a method and another applied it on a larger scale.

Human intelligence is, to a large extent, distributed intelligence

We think with our brains, yes. But we also think with books, schools, conversations, laboratories, businesses, universities, archives, machines, traditions, families and cities. We think with others. We think after others. We think against others.

This does not diminish the individual. It puts the individual in context.

A human being is not a cognitive island. Each of us stands at a crossroads, receiving language, memory, affection, prejudices, techniques, tools, values, stories and errors. We try to live with all of that. Sometimes we repeat it. Sometimes we improve it. Once in a while, we create something new.

That is why reducing a human being to intelligence misses almost everything

Intelligence alone does not guarantee humanity. We are intelligent beings, but we are also...

  • Social beings: We are born helpless. We depend on others for years. We need care, family, a group, language, protection and learning. No human being makes themselves alone. Even the most individualistic rebel has received words they did not invent, tools they did not make, knowledge they did not discover and a culture they did not create from scratch.
  • Conscious beings: We do more than think. We know that we think. Or we believe we do. We observe ourselves from within. We doubt. We wonder what we are doing here. Death troubles us. Injustice offends us. We long for recognition. We care how others see us.
  • Moral beings: We do more than choose effective means. We also debate ends. We ask what is right and wrong. We create rules, codes, religions, rights, courts, punishments and forgiveness. We can use intelligence to heal or to manipulate. To liberate or to dominate. To build a home or design a prison.

A brilliant con artist can be highly intelligent and profoundly inhumane. An efficient bureaucrat can destroy lives through flawless procedures. A society can be technically sophisticated and morally wretched.

Aristotle and Hannah Arendt belong in this discussion. Aristotle saw the human being as a political animal, in need of community and practical wisdom. Arendt would remind us that thinking is not the accumulation of facts, but the exercise of judgment. Intelligence without judgment can be highly effective and still be morally dangerous.

  • Empathetic beings: Not always, not all of us, and not perfectly. But we can feel another person's pain. We can care for someone who produces nothing. We can protect people who are ill, children, older people, people with disabilities and those who have been defeated. And that matters deeply.

We are more than intelligence

If we define a human being by intelligence, we put people with lower intellectual performance in a precarious position: babies, people with cognitive decline, people with mental illness, older people and people with severe disabilities. Are they less human? No. Absolutely not.

Here the fundamental error becomes clear.

Human dignity cannot depend on IQ, productivity, calculating ability or social usefulness. A person does not have value because they are brilliant. They have value because they are a person. Their life deserves respect before they produce, innovate, reason or compete.

Intelligence can increase our power. It is not the foundation of our dignity.

Kant sums up this point with a crucial warning: treat humanity “always as an end, never merely as a means.” Nussbaum would take the argument into the realm of flourishing: a life of dignity is measured by more than intellectual performance; it also involves capabilities, relationships, vulnerability and a real opportunity to develop.

And now artificial intelligence arrives

AI arrives and forces us to face all of this head-on.

AI does not destroy what makes us human. It destroys a lazy definition of it. If we thought being human meant memorizing, calculating, translating, writing competent prose, playing chess or producing images, then AI has come to unsettle us. And rightly so.

It forces us to ask the question more carefully.

  • What remains when a machine calculates better than we do?
  • What remains when it writes acceptably?
  • What remains when it translates, summarizes, codes, draws, composes and analyzes?
  • What remains when tasks we called “intellectual” are automated?

What remains is the hardest part: purpose, judgment and responsibility.

  • A machine can answer. But someone has to decide which question is worth asking.
  • A machine can optimize. But someone has to decide what for.
  • A machine can produce. But someone has to judge whether the thing should be produced.
  • A machine can simulate empathy. But someone has to actually care.
  • A machine can use language. But someone has to take moral responsibility for what that language causes.

Perhaps that is where a more mature definition of humanity lies

We are not human because we calculate. We are not human because we memorize. We are not human because we win at chess. We are not human because we write beautiful sentences. All of that matters, but it is not enough.

We are human because...

  • we turn intelligence into a shared life.
  • We give things meaning.
  • We inherit memory.
  • We pass on knowledge.
  • We care.
  • We argue.
  • We make mistakes and can correct them.
  • We know we will die, and still we build.
  • We can look at another vulnerable being and recognize something of ourselves.

Intelligence is a magnificent tool. But it is not everything.

AI can force us to be more precise. It can strip away our vanities. It can expose the fact that many human tasks were less sublime than we imagined. It can replace routines, expand our capabilities and bring down privileges.

But AI should not take the central question away from us

The question is not whether a machine can be intelligent. The question is whether we will know how to remain human when intelligence is no longer our monopoly.

That is the challenge.

And that is why intelligence is not enough to be human. Being human is more than solving problems. It means deciding which problems are worth solving, with whom, at what cost and for what kind of life.