1.1.1. What do we understand for intelligence?
“Intelligence is given when in the mind there are two contradictory thoughts. One proof of it is
that mankind knows that it is lost, and although, it does everything it can to save itself.”
—Scott Fitzgerald
We could do as Sir Isaac Newton, when he was questioned about the definition of time,
movement, and space: “I do not need to define them, for they are well known of everyone”. We
could say: “We all know what intelligence is, we use the word every day, so why should we
spend a whole section on trying to define it?”. We will not give a formal definition of
intelligence. We will give a notion of what we understand when we say “something is
intelligent”, so at least we know in what context we are talking about intelligence.
This is Dr. Mario Lagunez’s definition of intelligence: “In order for us to say that
something is intelligent (a person, a robot, a system), first, he/she/it must perform an action. Then,
a third person (an observer) should judge if the action was performed intelligently or not”. We agree
with this definition, which is similar to Turing’s (Turing, 1950). Not only it describes what we
can understand for intelligence, but also what the problem is when we try to define intelligence.
The problem is that, the judgement of intelligence depends entirely on the observer’s criteria.
For example, we believe than a creature, natural or artificial, able to survive in his or her
environment, is intelligent (of course there are different degrees of intelligence). This obviously
changes from observer to observer, so about the same action, one observer might say that the
action was intelligent, and another that it was not. So, the first definitions of intelligence sticked
to the criteria of the definer of what he judged to be intelligent. And people with different
criteria would disagree with this definition of intelligence.
Abstract concepts, as intelligence, cannot have a concise, unequivocal definition. This
is because abstract concepts are applied in many different situations. So, we take a similar
stance as Metrodorus of Chius had with his phrase “all things are what one thinks of them”. We
say: “Intelligent actions are the ones people judge to be intelligent”.
Intelligent is an adjective useful for a post hoc clarification of a behaviour. In describing
an intelligent system, it is more important the action (the what) than the functioning of the
system (the how)6. Of course, the more we understand about intelligence, the clearer the notion
we will have of it (Steels, 1996).
6Some people (Marvin Minsky and Lynn Stein, for example) do not care about the how at all.
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