When speaking of AI, we should do well to look at what is needed to actually be smarter than a human.
With an AI, we assume it has dedicated hardware and power. Given it can operate continuously, it may not have to be smarter than a human to be smarter than a human. That is, if I’m half as smart as you per cycle, but can operate for thrice as many cycles, can I be said to be smarter?
As smart as humans are, we have memory recall problems, we have worries and stresses (that go beyond just having to eat, sleep). We have split attentions and interests. An AI can focus and not worry or get distracted. If it can be three times as consistent in its work than a human is, how dumb can an AI be and still be smarter than one of us?
We have to assume it can be duplicated. If I am half as smart as you, but can make two more copies of myself that can cooperate with me, can I be said to be smarter?
Compounding continuous operation, focus, and duplication, how much intelligence does an AI need to be smarter than a human?
I’ve read a few books. Some people have read many more than I have. At the tip of the long tail, someone has maybe read, what, 100,000 books? And let’s say, comprehended most of them. An AI can access all of that data and more. It still has to work out contradicting information, but what hurdles does it have that we lack? If it can grab information in a few ticks, when it takes one of us at least seconds, if not minutes or hours, how smart does it have to be when it can get the answer from stored knowledge?
If you had the perfect library of knowledge, if you could spend a lifetime curating it, then be reborn, to live with that perfect library, how much more productive would you be, finding each mote of knowledge at the right place? An AI could rewrite every document it scans through in a way that makes its next pass that much faster and more useful. And it doesn’t have to be too smart to do that. Probably not even as smart as one of us.
I’m starting to think that an AI doesn’t have to be very smart in the small to be smarter than a human in the large.