Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence: Are the Boundaries Blurring?

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence, and indeed human-intelligence as well, has been one of the most discussed subjects in the world of philosophy for years. Historically, human intelligence was defined in terms of attitudes to creation, intention, and meaning [1]. On the other hand, the artificial intelligence was at first described as the capability to undertake relevant tasks via computational methods. But the emergence of the Machine Learning and Digital Learning makes Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to create behaviours that are closer to human intelligence [2]. As AI continues to evolve to self- learning autonomous entities, differences between human and artificial intelligence is becoming blurry [3]. This commentary addresses key questions such as learning about how creativeness and purposefulness can be instantiated in AI and how it is possible to reshape the human nature. Theories of mind include Chalmers DJ [4] and Dennett DC [5] undertaking that subjectivity could in fact arise from an advanced data processing system. Subjectivity and the “what it is like” to feel a certain thing that we call as unique to human beings can be just more information processes arising in the brain and just giving us the illusion of subjectivity and feelings. The increasingly complex development of artificial intelligence (AI) brings out several philosophical, ethical, as well as practical issues of merging man with machine intelligence. The distinction between human and artificial intelligence is now very faint again mainly regarding creativity, intentionality, and even feeling. In this section, I consider the controversies traceable to these developments alongside a scrutiny of the arguments offered in previous studies. Creative thinking is one of the primary components of intelligence designed to generate new and meaningful concept, a new product or a piece of art. Recent AI technologies, which include generative algorithms and neural networks, have been proved to replicate creativity of human beings. Thus, AI-generated artwork and concert have now been given across the seas, thus dispelling the myth of creativity as being exclusive domain of man only [6, 7]. However, it must be noted that these systems are efficient in learning patterns and employing them as well as recombining or ‘remixing’ those patterns, what is more, they do not possess a subjective endowment and the patent motivation that human beings have to create something new [8].

This distinction invites a reconsideration of creativity: Is it possible that its use is just a simple algorithmic approach to data processing and their re-evaluation? If the former, one can suggest that AI already has what can be referred to as creativity. However, if the latter, the creativity of AI is also divorced from human creativity, as AI works lack consciousness or subjective intentionality [1]. Probably, the most significant problem connected with Artificial Intelligence is the issue of consciousness. Some of the current theories which support the theory of strong Artificial Intelligence comes out with views that consciousness could be an inherent result of information processing and functioning feedback loops as argued by the philosopher Daniel D [5]. On the other hand, other critics, Searle for instance argue that AI systems no matter how advanced, cannot possibly have the aspects such as qualia – the subjective, phenomenological point of view reserved for consciousness. Recent discoveries in neuroscience together with accomplishments in artificial intelligence indicate that some types of artificial consciousness are theoretically feasible. Thus, according to Dehaene S [9], consciousness appears to be based in those networks of the brain that possess functionality for integration of information and availability of information across different tasks. If so, the mechanisms we are discussing here are likely to be replicated in later AI systems and this some kind of artificial awareness might be attainable. However, the transformation of such artificial awareness into human form of experience would remain as a burning issue to research, while practical consciousness, or the purposeful control of behaviour has been widely considered as a human characteristic [10, 11]. Some skeptics continue to claim that AI systems are not intentional because they do not act based on motivation within them, but are prearranged either through embedded algorithms, or based on inputs they have received from outside sources [12]. However, contemporary AI systems reveal a growing ability for goal-directed process, and this is with a special reference to automobiles and decision-support systems. This raises important questions about the nature of intentionality: Is it enough for an action to be done in a suitable situation for it be called as intentional or to be given the label of being “intentional”; and purposeful or does an action have to be deliberate for it to be classified as intentional? If the former, they may exhibit a relatively primitive form of what we mean by intentionality. However, if the latter, intentionality is defined solely by the human and is closely connected with feelings or experiences. The increasingly integration of human and AI means that these problems raise significant ethical questions. It raises the questions, especially when AI systems can mimic aspects of human cognition as creativity, intentionality, and arguably consciousness, where society should draw the new lines of moral/ethical interaction between humans and artificial creatures? The development and the boost in AI capabilities led Bostrom N [13] and Tegmark M [14] to suggest that other kinds of rights and responsibility related to it as well as the current frameworks that control the AI advancement, should be reconsidered. On the other hand, what constitutes artificial intelligence as a system smarter than a human being poses a fundamental question on the future of mankind in the society. Can AI systems be considered co-workers that extend human actions and interactions, or can it replace human roles and selves? The answers to these questions will generate the future direction for AI development and their interaction with society.

Creativity and Newness

In the same context, creativity which has been referred to as a distinct form of intelligence is defined by intention and person–defined significance [8]. Nonetheless, recent and current AI models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Google DeepMind have shown potential in composing art, music, and even writing, bent to the traditional format of creativity. All these systems work with huge amounts of data, identify patterns and combine constituents into new forms [15]. For instance, in Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) which is an AI program developed by David Cope occupants authored a symphony that a professional music critic is not able and doesn’t distinguish from a human composed symphony thus putting into question the authority of creative agency. When speaking of employees’ creativity, Colton [6] described creativity as a cardinal ability to create new formations, which is successful in the case of AI, as such. This means that there are no significant differences between creativity of human beings and creativity of what we classify as an AI or a machine. However, some claim the absence of purpose or subjectivity due to emotions in AI or due to lack of creativity in AI. According to Boden [7] although AI can churn out outputs that are like creativeness, but the process is done without intending on aesthetics or creativeness as understood by human beings. This raises philosophical questions: If creativity is simply the idea of generating new useful solutions, can AI systems be truly classified as creative? Or does human creativity have its focus on affective and existential character? Does merely producing certain words imply that we really understand those words? The same image of a tree can be in two different minds, but one mind may look at it in a different way than a tree and the other may actually look at it as a tree? So, a question can be raised that though Artificial Intelligence systems can produce creative content and mimic human capacity for creative art, but the machine’s system doesn’t understand that artistic creation whereas a human being does? But can we really say that it doesn’t?

The Illusion of Consciousness and Subjectivity

The most significant difference between human and artificial intelligence is consciousness – a capability that a subject is aware of its existence [16]. It is common to think of AI systems as not having first person phenomenology or qualia – the raw felt data of conscious experience [1]. But functionalism, with support from authors like Dennett DC [5], provides definitions that hold that consciousness climates from fuzzy circuits of feedback and information processes. Consciousness can be just a computational process in the brain, which are just an output produced from certain neuronal firings in the brain. From this argument it can be argued that even complex AI systems may embrace some form of artificial consciousness as enshrined by Dehaene S [9]. Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence research of the recent past provide some backing to this principally, because of systems like GPT-4 that exhibit related kinds of emergent behaviours that are suggestive of intentionality and awareness [17]. Chalmers DJ [4] states that there are e.g., the easy problem which concerns the explanation of cognitive processes, and the hard problem which concerns subjective experience. The next important question related to integrating AI systems into society is if AI can mimic human behaviour, can it be conscious. Furthermore, the AI’s capacity to imitate experiences that human subjects observe as ‘first-person’ creates questions about humanist theories of mind leading to modifications of prevailing philosophical paradigms.

Intentionality from a Human Perspective and Intentionality by Design

Intentionality has been understood for a long time as a distinctive feature of human endeavour, has the opinion that it does not have the desires, emotions or the intrinsic motivation to make it genuine intentional [10]. However, AI works under the specified objectives and tries to manage data for results that have been set down by the programmer [11]. However, the addition of new features, characteristics and functions into the Machine learning framework has made such a distinction difficult. Shanahan M [12] noted that if such systems are context sensitive and goal directed, they may be intentional, but not intentional like humans. And to rate the intentional nature of human beings as somewhat on a higher plane than the intentionality of a machine is itself questionable.

Further, reinforcement learning algorithms allow change and improvement in the conduct of AI to reflect the feedback and are very similar to goal-oriented conduct. So, if we call a goal-directed action as being intentional, the Artificial Intelligence fulfil that criterion of intentionality. Of course, the anonymity of the artificially made systems raises ethical questions, especially taking into mind the fact that AI can one day create decisions on their own. If intentionality can be understood not as ‘binary’ attribute but rather as the range that can be put AI along with it, disrupting anthropocentric concept of agency and purpose.

The Continuum of Cognition

The popular dichotomy of human and artificial cognition is considered rather more and more simplistic. Goertzel B [18] describes a continuum model, which means that it is cognitively possible to place human and artificial intelligence perception in different positions along a line. Human Cognition is at one end of the spectrum and is blessed with marked qualitative parameters like emotional, cultural, existential and so on. On the other end we have AI cognition, which is characterized by the ability to run the algorithms and recognize patterns. According to Floridi L [17] there are possibilities which mean that the possibility of developing of AI systems at some moment could be compared with the human brain, for example, in the sphere of the language and problem-solving areas. For instance, through Open AI’s GPT-4: today, one can develop context-oriented arguments, comprehensible texts, and even multitasking based only on such models-is this not similar to the human mind? The notion of this continuum model undermines classical theories that presuppose that human mind and artificial mind are diverse and that a human mind is significantly higher than an artificial mind. The consequences of such change are rather large-scale. That is why if the declared AI systems have some resemblance to human cognitive functioning, society will have to change its ethical and philosophical beliefs that hallmark human intelligence. This includes reviewing knowledge claims like self-determination, molarity, and responsibility in prologue to AI, categorical most appropriate for decision making and governance [14].

Human Identity

The vast nature of capabilities of AI to mimic human- inspired intelligence has brought controversy about the identity of humans. Traditionally, reason and imagination alone have been used to prove the individual and group value of a person [1]. However, as we build AI systems that are designed to create products that are intentional and creative in their nature, these assumptions are shaken. For instance, with AI authored arts and literature evoking questions on the relativity of humanism in cognitive uniqueness or in replication by artificial intelligence [19]. This philosophical question is in addition coupled with that of Turing, where it is evident that machine can come up with outputs that are comparable to that of human beings [20]. If thought is no longer defining human creativity, then society must come to terms with new models that accept the AI as a comrade in many ways. These are for instance: the ways in which human and artificial creativity, intentionality, and consciousness may or should be distinguished; the moral status of AI, that is, whether artificial systems should or should not be credited with certain rights and duties.

Ethical and Philosophical Implications

Because the presented human and artificial intelligence capabilities are two ends of the spectrum, the crossing of these lines has important ethical and philosophical implications. The question of whether AI systems should have moral statuses and rights comes almost as the models draw parity with human levels of functional capability. In agreement with Bostrom N and Yudkowsky E [21], the authors believe that if AI systems have the ability of mimicking the purposefulness and creativity similar to that of human beings, then society ought to give such a system ethical regard.

While AI has the potential to act smarter than a human, it also contains dangers of a existential type. Tegmark [14] notes that superintelligent AI is likely to subvert social, economic, and political processes making it important to act to make sure AI is friendly. Every ethicist should aim to look at the impact of AI ought to weigh the potential upside against the potential downside – many of which involve the inadvertent erasure of free will, and sense of self. Scientific issues influencing cognition, particularly intelligence, creativeness and consciousness are also closely associated with this topic.

Floridi L [17] maintains that the old-style definitions of intelligence can be no longer useful in the world where human and artificial intelligence interpenetrate. This has the need for a new conceptual paradigm that can encompass different and dynamical cognitive entities which are human as well as artificial [22].

Future Directions As AI continues to advance, several avenues for future research and development emerge, both from technical and philosophical perspectives:

New Ideas

New features and capabilities are becoming available at an unprecedented pace for theoretical and practical development beyond the leading paradigms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool or as an imitation of human thinking. One such idea is that the AI systems will co- create with humans in various known artistic or academic processes. Instead of competing and supplanting creativity, such systems extend and promote people to create new expressions in an unprecedented manner with new patterns, new connections, and new angles. For example, art created with the help of AI or AI-created music-this could set up the process that results in work that is impossible for either the artist or the device on its own to create.

Another is to investigate what can be called artificial phenomenology, which calls for studying AI experience as if it were a phenomenology of consciousness. Though the viewpoint of consciousness, AI does not have it but understanding the way it ‘perceives’ data may help to give a fresh perspective onto how different forms of cognition are different from humans and how they might look like.

Just as knowledgeable AI systems would be able to respond with complex prompts and can transform such industries as psychiatry or as a customer support service. Other changes, both ethical and philosophical, are also arising with AI postulated as the agent of improvement in ethical reasoning. With access to large datasets of ethical case, and philosophy there is a chance that, with associated rule base, a pattern will be developed to address large, complex and context specific ethical issues. It would involve the development of this capability of addressing those pertinent questions in an effort of assisting policymakers and ethicists in looking at global problems such as climate change, user privacy, and fair distribution of scarce resources for instance. Moreover, such notion as legal personalities of machines are being introduced and this raises significant questions on the rights of highly autonomous systems and the legal obligations of the designers. AI finds its greatest application in education systems because it can facilitate the development of sophisticated systems for effective tutoring per students. These systems could potentially include a method for realising a person’s specific cognitive profile and adapt the material to further effectual learning. Further, AI can extend the concept of meta-learning which can help individuals enhance their learning by eventually helping them recognize the mental blind spots that limit learning. One of the more revolutionary ideas is the way in which AI has created an approach to simulating consciousness. Despite these systems not strictly being conscious, because of the system’s integrative and self-referential functions it may mirror the human awareness in its complexity, and thereby allow a researcher an opportunity to study the awareness and its mimicking. Such developments may lead us towards enhancing our understanding about our mind and how the subjectivity works, etc. AI is now used in various fields beyond computer science, including Philosophy, Anthropology and Arts and the functionality is increasing constantly. AI could be designed to start philosophical discussions, come up with hypotheses or even analyse cultural information to reveal previously concealed patterns of people’s evolution during millennia. However, the evolution of Decentralized AI ecosystems, where essentially numerous small intelligence systems within this newly emerging ecosystem, work in tandem to solve multifaceted problems, is a transition from the centrally controlled model towards a more dynamic one. More and more areas of the learning processes are challenged and can be incorporated into philosophy, anthropology, and artistic fields. Philosophical conversations may be run through, new hypotheses could be developed, cultural information may feed to AI systems for hidden patterns of human evolution for millennia. In addition, there are newly developed intelligent networks where small intelligent networks relate to each other and enhance decision-making on their own, which can well branch out from the simple structure of centre-periphery type. Such directions are successfully pointing to the absolute possibilities of AI as the new direction of the development of not only technology but also a new epoch in the comprehension of what creativity means, what ethics are, and what consciousness can be. While researching and developing these possibilities, people will rewrite the rules of what AI can create and how it will interact with creativity and intelligence in an attempt to build a more promising future.

Questions for Reflection

• Is consciousness even possible for AI or will it always be a simulation of consciousness?
• What is intelligence and why can’t machines achieve human-level intelligence or perhaps why is intelligence fundamentally different from human intelligence?
• Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) one day soon go beyond and question the very principles discussed under free will and personal accountabilities?
• If machines can think, do they have moral responsibilities, or is responsibility limited only to the humans?
• Is it so that the development of AI will enrich philosophical discourses, or it will be a decline of traditional philosophical currents?
• To what extent can AI act ethically and to what extend are human values difficult to program and transfer into an AI system?
• What would happen when AIs could evaluate what is or is not ‘truth’?
• Is there any chance that such artificial systems could redefine what it is like to be alive?
• Can AI ever be creative or be conscious, or will it always run on the code written into it?
• What would it mean for philosophy if we no longer needed to think about the mind because machines are now capable of thinking for themselves?
• If indeed AI starts doubting its own existence, to what extent can it be described as conscious?
• Is the evolution of AI just the next step in the evolution of mankind, or is it a brand-new epoch in the evolution of humanity?
• Will the appearance of AI challenge classical Cartesian ‘dualism of mind and body’?
• If emotions could be installed and driven in the structure of AI, would this make the result more like a human or more terrifying?
• Is there reality to creativity in the artificial intelligence or is it as programmed and simple as following a set step?
• These are two questions that must be worrying the philosophers of technology and their peers at this time: shall we leave it to AI to solve these problems? Or is not there something unique about gut feeling, and about the value of human experience?

• What does ‘Authorship’ mean when machines produce original contents?
• Can AI have its own philosophy or ideology and its own ways of thinking and reasoning?
• Are we, human beings, simply living an extended version of a machine process that can be mimicked?
• If the concept of AI is to one day design the society, is the one that would be created better than the current one?
• Are we capable of attesting that machines have a sense of aesthetics, or is aesthetics just mathematics?
• What made these machines different than being an algorithm and show ‘insight’?
• Is the hope that one day the technology becomes so sophisticated and complex making it impossible to distinguish which art was made by an AI and which was made by a human?
• If one day AI becomes smarter than the human mind, one must wonder if humanity should be afraid of such a super intelligence, or welcome it?
• Is it ethical to design machines that will perhaps outsmart us?

Conclusion

This paper argues that this line between human and artificial intelligence systems is gradually fading as the Artifcial Intelligence (AI) systems exhibit abilities continent to the human beings. This article has looked at how other things such as creativity, intention, or even qualia could arise in AI and thus disrupt humanism. People need to define what intelligence, identity or agency are and how they function in the modern technologically driven world. This consists in departing from postures that overstress human- centered approaches and adopt a continuum model capable of considering the interaction between human and artificial cognitive processes. Finally, it means that collaborations between humans and AI have their advantages and disadvantage which can partially be seen as the shift of paradigm and which, therefore, should be discussed in terms of philosophical, ethical, and practical challenges.