At last, I’ve come across a compelling objection to the idea that AI—as it exists today—could ever truly mirror human intelligence. The gist of the argument is this:
1. Conscious Creativity vs. Subconscious Insight
We humans can only willfully create what we can consciously reason about. Yet we also reproduce ourselves biologically, giving rise to children whose minds—once matured—display powers of insight that none of us could have consciously designed. That phenomenon alone is a hard nut to crack, though not impossible to examine. And I believe one can refute this objection to the subconscious merely being an emergent property of the conscious as claimed by Yann Le Cun etc. More on this later.
2. The Subconscious as Source of Genius
Time and again, great thinkers have insisted that their most profound discoveries sprang not from step-by-step reasoning but from dreams or sudden flashes of intuition deep in the subconscious. Consider Srinivasa Ramanujan—perhaps the most remarkable self-taught mathematician in modern memory—who maintained that his astonishing formulas “came to him” rather than being the product of deliberate calculation.
3. Ghalib’s Evocation of Divine Inspiration
Mirza Ghalib sums up this sense of unbidden revelation in a celebrated couplet:
Aate hain gaib se ye mazmeen khayal mein Ghalib,
Sareer-e-khama nava-e-Sarosh hai.
“These themes emerge from the unseen into my thoughts, O Ghalib;
Upon the stand of my pen rests the heavenly melody of the angel Sarosh.”
Ghalib isn’t claiming poetic skill—he’s describing himself as a conduit for Sarosh, the angel of inspiration. His pen merely echoes a celestial harmony that he could never conjure by conscious effort alone.
4. The AI Obstacle
If true creativity depends on channels beyond conscious reasoning—if our breakthroughs can originate in a “void” we neither inspect nor fully control—then today’s AI, built entirely on explicit algorithms and data we can trace, lacks access to that hidden wellspring. Until artificial systems can emulate or bypass that mysterious, subconscious source, they will fall short of the highest reaches of human intelligence.
At last, I’ve come across a compelling objection to the idea that AI—as it exists today—could ever truly mirror human intelligence. The gist of the argument is this:
1. Conscious Creativity vs. Subconscious Insight
We humans can only willfully create what we can consciously reason about. Yet we also reproduce ourselves biologically, giving rise to children whose minds—once matured—display powers of insight that none of us could have consciously designed. That phenomenon alone is a hard nut to crack, though not impossible to examine. And I believe one can refute this objection to the subconscious merely being an emergent property of the conscious as claimed by Yann Le Cun etc. More on this later.
2. The Subconscious as Source of Genius
Time and again, great thinkers have insisted that their most profound discoveries sprang not from step-by-step reasoning but from dreams or sudden flashes of intuition deep in the subconscious. Consider Srinivasa Ramanujan—perhaps the most remarkable self-taught mathematician in modern memory—who maintained that his astonishing formulas “came to him” rather than being the product of deliberate calculation.
3. Ghalib’s Evocation of Divine Inspiration
Mirza Ghalib sums up this sense of unbidden revelation in a celebrated couplet:
Aate hain gaib se ye mazmeen khayal mein Ghalib,
Sareer-e-khama nava-e-Sarosh hai.
“These themes emerge from the unseen into my thoughts, O Ghalib;
Upon the stand of my pen rests the heavenly melody of the angel Sarosh.”
Ghalib isn’t claiming poetic skill—he’s describing himself as a conduit for Sarosh, the angel of inspiration. His pen merely echoes a celestial harmony that he could never conjure by conscious effort alone.
4. The AI Obstacle
If true creativity depends on channels beyond conscious reasoning—if our breakthroughs can originate in a “void” we neither inspect nor fully control—then today’s AI, built entirely on explicit algorithms and data we can trace, lacks access to that hidden wellspring. Until artificial systems can emulate or bypass that mysterious, subconscious source, they will fall short of the highest reaches of human intelligence.
Execution without a world model has its limits. It's evolutionary but not revolutionary.