Intelligence

Intelligence is one of humanity’s most powerful tools, yet it’s often misunderstood. It’s more than just book smarts or doing well on a standardized test. Intelligence is an umbrella term that includes a range of mental capabilities. It is the ability to extract general principles that apply across various situations, to reason logically and systematically, and to comprehend the deeper meaning behind information. It also includes self-awareness—the capacity to understand our own thoughts, feelings, and motives—as well as the ability to learn through experience, study, or teaching. Whether it’s planning a meal for the week or solving a high-level mathematical problem, intelligence includes thinking ahead, being creative, analyzing data, and finding solutions to complex challenges.

To visualize this, think of intelligence like a Swiss army knife—it has many tools tucked into one compact unit. Each tool represents a different function of intelligence: logic, creativity, self-awareness, problem-solving, and more. And just like a Swiss army knife, some tools are used more in specific situations than others, but each plays a role in human development.

At the heart of progress lies problem-solving. One of humanity’s greatest evolutionary advantages is our ability to share intelligence through language. Early humans, despite the biological limitations of the human brain, began to “outsource” intelligence by speaking, writing, and eventually coding language into machines. Consider this: a single brain, no matter how brilliant, has limited capacity. But when multiple humans collaborate and pool their knowledge together using language, something incredible happens—they create communities that solve massive, complex problems.

For example, ancient agricultural societies faced the problem of hunger. Individually, one person could hunt or gather food, but together, communities developed irrigation techniques, learned to rotate crops, and built granaries. In terms of safety, early villages were organized in ways that protected their inhabitants—walls, sentries, and watchtowers were all the results of collaborative problem-solving.

Human intelligence isn't a one-dimensional trait. It’s better understood as a combination of three key types of intelligence, often referred to as "coefficients": Intelligence Quotient (IQ), Emotional Quotient (EQ), and Motivational Quotient (MQ). Think of them as the three engines of a powerful ship. IQ gives humans the raw cognitive horsepower—the logical reasoning and analytical skills needed to solve intricate puzzles. EQ allows us to work together, building empathy and emotional awareness, which are essential for collaboration. MQ, on the other hand, fuels our ambition. It’s the drive that pushes us to set goals, stay focused, and achieve them despite obstacles.

Imagine a company launching a new product. IQ helps the engineers build the product, EQ helps the team work harmoniously and understand what the customer wants, and MQ ensures the project stays on course through motivation and leadership. These three intelligence coefficients don’t operate in silos—they interact constantly. A community that lacks any one of these dimensions finds itself stagnating, unable to progress or innovate effectively.

To further maximize problem-solving across societies, humanity built structures that nurtured, refined, and scaled intelligence. Universities are prime examples. These institutions are designed to identify individuals with high potential, equip them with tools, and create an environment where intelligence can flourish. Through specialization, students focus their efforts on a specific area of knowledge. Through curricula, they inherit centuries of intellectual legacy passed down by experts. Through testing and examination, universities ensure that the resources invested are not squandered but channeled toward the most capable problem-solvers.

This system of nurturing intelligence works hand-in-hand with another powerful system: capitalism. While universities identify and train intelligent individuals, capitalism validates their ideas in the real world. A startup’s success depends not on who thought of the idea first but on who executed it best. Capitalism rewards ideas that work, turning them into products and services. The result? A highly efficient, decentralized system that rapidly tests and deploys the most effective solutions to human problems.

Take the East India Company, founded in 1600. Recognized as the world’s first multinational corporation, it aggregated resources via a stock market—a radical innovation at the time—and revolutionized global trade. Goods that once took months to find locally could now be accessed across oceans. In essence, capitalism became a grand marketplace for ideas, ensuring that only the most useful and scalable ones survived.

Yet, as effective as these systems have been, they still rely on one crucial limitation: human biology. The human brain, while incredibly advanced, has size and capacity limits. Language has helped us extend our mental reach, but it, too, has boundaries. There’s only so much we can say, understand, and compute. Even linking multiple human minds together—what we call collaboration—has a ceiling. Some problems, like interstellar travel, require levels of computation and foresight that far exceed what daisy-chained human brains can achieve.

This is where artificial intelligence enters the conversation. Imagine a future where machines don’t just match our intelligence—they rapidly exceed it. This is known as the “intelligence explosion” or “technological singularity.” It’s a future where AI systems can improve themselves without human input, setting off a cascade of rapid, exponential advancement.

Picture a snowball rolling down a hill. With each turn, it gathers more snow and becomes bigger, heavier, and faster. Now imagine that snowball is artificial intelligence improving itself. Each improvement makes the next easier and faster. Eventually, this process reaches a point where it’s growing so fast that human comprehension and control can’t keep up.

Think of the contrast between the stone tools of early humans and a modern smartphone. That’s the kind of leap we're talking about—but potentially occurring within months, not millennia. The machines of tomorrow might look at our supercomputers the way we look at cave paintings—rudimentary and primitive.

This exponential growth brings forth one urgent question: who—or what—will control this new intelligence? Unlike telecommunications networks or GPS systems, which are powerful but still firmly under human control, AI—especially post-singularity AI—could make decisions independently. It could operate without human input at a massive scale.

And this marks a historical first. Never before has a human-created technology had the potential to become fully autonomous in such a powerful and unpredictable way. This makes the consequences of AI not just transformative but also deeply uncertain. When the internet emerged, its effects were vast—but gradual enough for us to identify and manage risks. With AI, the timeline may be too short for such adjustments. The pace of change could outstrip our ability to adapt.

Some people debate whether AI will ever become truly “conscious.” But whether or not it is sentient may be less important than the reality that it could outthink and outmaneuver humanity in countless domains. For the first time in our species' history, we may face the possibility of not being the most intelligent beings on the planet.

A key unknown in this future is how many of the three intelligence coefficients AI might possess. Clearly, artificial systems are advancing rapidly in IQ. They can solve mathematical problems, process language, and optimize logistics far better than most humans. But do they have EQ—the ability to understand human emotion and work in harmony with us? What about MQ—the inner drive to set and pursue goals? These are harder to define and even harder to measure in machines.

Because of this uncertainty, it’s nearly impossible to predict the long-term outcomes of an intelligence explosion. We could be on the verge of a golden age of progress—or a future fraught with new types of challenges. What’s clear, however, is that intelligence in all its forms remains at the core of our development as a species. Whether through ancient problem-solving in early villages, the structured training of universities, or the competitive pressure of capitalism, intelligence has shaped our world—and will continue to do so in ways we’re only beginning to imagine.