Artificial Intelligence – What it Isn’t
- mickbrawn
- Jul 19
- 2 min read
Artificial intelligence is not alive, it has no feelings, subjective experience or agency. AI has no understanding, no common sense, no consciousness or sentience. It is not truly Intelligent and cannot think like humans.
Artificial intelligence is not alive
AI is a collection of software, mathematical models, and code running on computer hardware. It can simulate human conversation, create art, and solve complex problems but lacks the fundamental biological, chemical, and experiential properties that define life.
Biological Limitations
No Organism Structure: AI consists of code lines and data stored on silicon chips and servers. It does not have cells, DNA, or organic matter
No Self-Sustenance: Living things metabolize energy, grow, repair themselves, and reproduce. AI requires human intervention to maintain servers, provide electricity, and update its code
No Homeostasis: AI cannot actively regulate its own internal state to survive in changing environments
Consciousness and Sentience
Absence of Feelings: AI does not experience emotions, physical pain, pleasure, or desires. When an AI says it is "happy to help," it is simply predicting and generating a socially appropriate string of text
No Subjective Experience: AI lacks qualia, the internal, subjective experience of the world. It can process the data of a sunset or the chemical composition of a flower, but it cannot "experience" them
Lack of Agency: AI does not have free will or personal intent. It only acts when prompted by a human user or triggered by pre-written code
AI is a ‘Virtual Machine’
Modern AI can easily fool human intuition because it is trained on vast amounts of human data. It mirrors our empathy, humour, and intelligence so accurately that our brains naturally want to anthropomorphize it (attribute human traits to non-human things). However, this is an emulation of human life, not a sign that the AI itself is alive.
AI does exhibit a kind of intelligence, but its intelligence is computational, not human. So, whether AI is considered "intelligent" depends entirely on how you define the word.
How AI Expresses Intelligence
Pattern Recognition: It finds hidden trends in massive data
Problem Solving: It beats grandmasters at complex games
Adaptability: It learns and improves from new data
Task Performance: It automates highly complex human work
Why AI Is Not Truly Intelligent
· No Understanding: It processes symbols without knowing meaning
· No Common Sense: It lacks basic real-world logic
· No Consciousness: It has no awareness or feelings
· Strict Dependency: It cannot think outside its programming
In short, AI possesses a kind of narrow operational intelligence (doing smart things) but lacks general cognitive intelligence (being a smart being)
AI Cannot Think Like Humans
Artificial Intelligence can mimic human-like behaviour, e.g. writing, creating, and analysing data, but it doesn't truly think like humans – and without our biological features: embodiment, instincts, emotions, values, sentience and consciousness, it never will.
Call me if you would like to chat about your use of AI
Michael Brawn — Michael Brawn Consulting (MBC)
📱 0414 987 129
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