Resist Artificial Intellect
That Time I Hijacked the Wizard of Oz
It's 1995. I'm in the fourth grade at Parkway Elementary school on Long Island, New York. And somehow, I've convinced myself that landing the role of the Scarecrow in our school's production of The Wizard of Oz is my ticket to Broadway. In fact, I've turned this humble cafa-gym-atorium production into my personal directing debut.
I'm giving stage notes to classmates, advising the Tin Man on his "emotional tone," and suggesting set design tweaks to Ms. Fontaine, the underpaid, overworked music teacher.
At one point, I notice she's omitted the Scarecrow's famous recitation of the Pythagorean theorem. Naturally, I feel obligated to correct this grave oversight and politely "suggest" we reinsert it.
To this day, I'm still not sure if Ms. Fontaine found me adorable or quietly prayed my dad would get a mid-year job transfer to Albuquerque.
But hey…I had the same thing the Scarecrow had: an intellect—the innate capacity for curiosity, discernment, and nuanced judgment.
EVERY kid has this (Some, unlike me, even have enough to know when to keep their mouth shut).
The thing that’s getting increasingly challenging as we age, however, is figuring out how to scale that intellect, especially now that AI’s here to stay.
Artificial Intelligence vs. Artificial Intellect
Look, I get it. Artificial intelligence is the buzzword du jour. It’s everywhere. Your grandma’s mentioned it. Your uncle didn’t shut up about it at Thanksgiving. Heck, even the Secretary of Education has an opinion on it…Nope…sorry, that was A1. Would’ve pegged her for a Worcestershire girl…but I digress.
Here's the thing: I'm all for artificial intelligence. It's transformative, fascinating, and yes, inevitable. It can streamline tedious tasks, unleash creativity, and yes, even write a decent email or two.
What we should truly fear (and fiercely resist) is artificial intellect. That’s when we willingly outsource our critical thinking and discernment, our uniquely human knack for nuance and judgment, to the algorithmic gods. You know, those moments when we try to make AI contemplate for us vs simply compute…when we start trusting Silicon Valley’s supercomputers more than our own cerebral cortex. Dangerous? Yeah, you bet.
It’s the difference between using Chat GPT to research and organize a unique point of view for a term paper and telling it to phone in its own. Or writing an article for a major newspaper about the best books you’ve read and outsourcing it to AI.
Intelligence is data processing. Intellect is discernment. One crunches numbers; the other makes meaning. Artificial intelligence is a sophisticated tool. Artificial intellect, if we’re not careful, can become a lazy crutch.
So what can we do practically to embrace the first without succumbing to the second? Glad you asked.
Three Strategies for Scaling Intellect
1. Business: Pick one number from your analytics dashboard and ask your team: "What story does this not tell?" Pair a real human touchpoint (an email, a complaint, a compliment) with the metric. Make this a ritual. It trains your team to think not just about trends, but about deeper truths they represent.
2. Family: Introduce "The One Question Walk." No screens, just you and your kid (or partner or friend), walking around the block asking and answering one thoughtful question. For example, "What was something you believed last year that you no longer believe now?" The goal isn’t to agree. It’s to practice curiosity, the anti-algorithmic muscle. Try it once a week. Turns out discernment walks better than it scrolls.
3. Education: Ah, education. This is where Finland enters stage left. (I know, I know, another guy referencing liberal ideals in a Nordic country...how original.) But seriously, Finland's approach to misinformation is brilliant. Schools there teach kids true media literacy—how to question, critique, and cross-reference information rather than passively consuming it. It’s not about avoiding misinformation altogether, it’s about discerning it effectively. We need that kind of Finnish influence (minus the pickled herring) in our schools too.
Here's the kicker: Artificial intelligence isn’t the enemy. But if we’re not careful, artificial intellect can rob us of the exact things that make us fundamentally, beautifully human. Embrace the former. Fight the knee jerk to outsource the latter.
After all, intelligence can be simulated, but intellect? That's an original, folks. Protect it fiercely…like a 10-year-old protecting the artistic integrity of a g**damn cinema classic!