City Research Online

Abstract

Human achievement, whether in culture, science, or technology, is unparalleled in the known existence. This achievement is tied to the enormous communities of knowledge, made possible by language. We trace how the principle ‘᾿Eν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος’ (in the beginning was the word) was extended beyond its theological origins and heightened the value of written intelligence throughout Western societies. There lies the challenge regarding modern-age chatbots: they can ‘do’ language apparently as well as ourselves, and there is a natural question of whether they can be considered intelligent, in the same way as we are or otherwise. Are humans uniquely intelligent? We consider this question in terms of the psychological literature on intelligence, evidence for intelligence in non-human animals, the role of written language in science and technology, progress with artificial intelligence, the history of intelligence testing (for both humans and machines), and the role of embodiment in intelligence. We think that it is increasingly difficult to consider humans uniquely intelligent. There are current limitations in chatbots, e.g., concerning perceptual and social awareness, but much attention is currently devoted to overcoming such limitations.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
Publisher Keywords:	artificial intelligence; human intelligence; animal intelligence; chatbots; large language models; intelligence testing; Imitation Game; embodiment
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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