What Is Distinctive About Human Intelligence in the Context of Artificial Intelligence?
A Philosophical Approach With Reference to Robert B. Brandom’s Semantic Inferentialism
Abstract
Since antiquity, humans have traditionally been characterised as animal rationale or homo sapiens. Such a definition takes into account, on the one hand, the physical aspect, referring to the human body, but also, on the other hand, the mental aspect. With this in mind, the present article seeks to develop a philosophical approach to the problem posed in its title.
Various aspects of human language use and cognition are, in the era of the information revolution, being increasingly taken over by AI. So what still remains specific to humans—or, more precisely, to human, natural intelligence, given this dynamically developing context?
The article addresses this question in a series of steps. Initially, it considers whether rationality is a good candidate for a uniquely human trait. In defence of the distinctiveness of human intelligence, and using Robert B. Brandom’s semantic inferentialism, it then points to our ability and skill in understanding, as well as the normativity of language use and cognition. The ensuing discussion focuses on the normative categories of deontic status and deontic attitude, and related notions of commitment and entitlement that these in turn imply.
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