I am not that smart, you are not that smart … we are

Cavemen were smart in their own way, they did not have computers nor could they build one but managed to live in an environment we would be not able to survive for long. What is that has allowed today’s advanced society? For sure it is not us being smarter than them. Image credit: http://www.defenseimagery.mil

As the human species, we have achieved amazing feats: we went to the Moon, created a seamless communications network, invented cars, multiplied the yield in agriculture—and this is just a very limited subset, taken randomly, of our accomplishments.

Just look back at our ancestors: They didn’t have the Internet, died from famine, suffered from cold and heat… again, just a limited subset taken randomly.

It should therefore be a no-brainer to claim I and you are smarter than our nomadic ancestors were 10,000 years ago.

Except that it is not true.

Our ancestor was, on average, way smarter than me and you, and it even seems, from paleontology studies of skulls of our long distant great-great parents that they had bigger skulls, hence bigger brains than we have today (notice that I am talking about our species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, not Homo Ergaster or Neanderthal).

If you think about it, it makes sense. Their capability to manufacture and use tools was much more finely tuned than is ours; they would easily beat us in such a contest. Also, survival pressure was much higher: If they made a mistake, they probably had little time left to learn from it, so they had to be brighter. Their environment was harsher than ours is.

How is it then that they wandered in forests and we fly on planes?
According to Yuval Noah Harari, author of “Homo Deus a brief history of tomorrow“, the reason is that over the past 10,000 years we have learned to leverage one another, thereby creating a species that, as a whole, is far smarter than the single individual. I am not that smart, nor you—but together we are!

This is interesting because it makes us think about the smartness of a symbiotic autonomous system and the smartness of a cluster of symbiotic autonomous systems.

Although we have not reached that point and therefore there is no proof, we might assume, reasonably, that a symbiotic system can be smarter than its components and that a cluster of symbiotic systems can be smarter than a single system.

We are not there yet, but we have already moved a number of steps in that direction: Can’t we see how smarter we are when we can augment ourselves by accessing the unlimited knowledge floating in the cyberspace? Can’t we see how much better a brain surgeon has become when operating in symbioses with Leonardo, the robot-surgeon? Can’t we see how much better we are at solving problems when we set up a hackathon where bright people have access to the Internet and exchange ideas among themselves?

In a way, we have acknowledged this augmentation by expressing concern over the digital gap between those who have access to the Internet and those who don’t, among those that have been taught how to “use” the Internet and those who haven’t.

As we shift towards ever higher and more complex levels of symbioses, the issue of smartness (or  what you may want to call “intelligence”) becomes more and more important—first in the design phase. We have very little understanding today on how to design smarter systems, how to architect them, since interaction and cooperation, as we have seen, is probably the most important factor.

Secondly, in operating within a symbiotic context, how intelligence is shared, how it emerges, who takes responsibility and ownership …Whilst the former are more engineering aspects, the latter are more social aspects that obviously are bringing legal and ethical aspects to the fore. This second aspect connects to the idea of Self, how several Selves aggregate within a symbiotic autonomous system and how they can give rise to a SuperSelf.

Possibly, we need a new science, stemming from complexity theory and engaging many other disciplines, both STEM and outside of STEM, to tackle this exciting new horizon. This is what the Symbiotic Autonomous System initiative is aiming at…and just to make it clear once more, I am not smart enough to do that, nor are you—but pooling our collective minds together, with a little help from the cyberspace …we are.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.