Will Artificial Intelligence Grow Beyond Human Intelligence?

Human intelligence is the quality of brain that learns, extracts knowledge, acquires abstract concepts from its surrounding, whereas artificial intelligence is the ability of a machine to mimic the same tasks learning from data it receives. Intelligence is a quality that belongs to humans and if machines could play the game right, our lives would become much easier.

Timo Elliott, Innovation Evangelist, SAP said, "The rise of artificial intelligence is raising the premium on tasks that only humans can do: it is freeing workers from drudgery and allowing them to spend time on more strategic and valuable business activities. Instead of forcing people to spend time and effort on tasks that we find hard but computers find easy, we will be rewarded for doing what humans do best — and artificial intelligence will help make us all more human."

However, despite significant advancements, AI still could not match up to human intelligence in most aspects. In the growing debate about AI vs. human intelligence, the given wisdom has been that artificial intelligence will augment human tasks, but not replace them, anytime soon. Andrew McAfee, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that 20 years have passed since a computer beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov yet the gap between computer ability and human ability has only gotten more significant. He said, "We still underestimate how big, how fast, technological progress is. I still keep getting it wrong."

In just the past two years, McAfee said, AI has defied expectations.

"Certainly AI is proving to be an invaluable tool, and intelligent workflow is going to be the labor-saving norm within just a few years," said Scott Robinson, a SharePoint and business intelligence expert based in Louisville, Ky. "But business processes involve intelligent thought and intelligent behavior. AI is great at replicating intelligent behavior, but intelligent thought is another matter. We don't fully understand how intelligent human thoughts develop, so we're not going to build machines that can have them anytime soon."

"[McAfee's] discussion misses the fact that human workers bring deep knowledge to business processes that AI can't capture," Robinson continued. "An office worker knows how other human beings think and behave, so she can anticipate delays or opportunities. There are implicit tasks in all areas of business that are undocumented but natural and deeply ingrained. AI can't get anywhere near those implicit tasks and passive knowledge."

Moreover, a book 'The Globotics Upheaval' by Richard Baldwin suggests that AI will disrupt lives more than globalization, industrialization, and automation did. While he believes that the changes are inevitable, there are adaptive strategies that can be used, employing the skills that no machine can copy; creativity and independent thought.

Analyzing the unbridgeable gap between human intelligence and artificial intelligence in the near future, the right perspective would be to the complementary attributes of AI with human intelligence. The scientific researches should be focused on developing artificial intelligence applications that could integrate with human intelligence in an effort to enhance productivity within the broad restrictions of privacy and sensibilities. If we will create a collaborative world for survival for both, then it would surely open up new opportunities for many in numerous different fields.