AI Just Killed Our Definition of Smart

For centuries, we’ve treated mathematics, logic, and analytical reasoning as some of the highest expressions of human intelligence.

Then AI came along, and started automating them first.

In this episode, I argue that this isn’t a coincidence. Mathematics and computer programming are unusually closed, symbolic, rules-based forms of thought. They can be extraordinarily powerful, but the very properties that make them precise also make them particularly amenable to machines.

Meanwhile, many of the things we traditionally dismiss as “soft” such as intuition, abstraction, analogy, deciding what matters, navigating complexity, and connecting ideas across domains, must represent a deeper kind of intelligence. And AI proves it. 

In this episode:
• Why math and coding are being automated so quickly
• Why symbolic reasoning is fundamentally different from navigating complexity
• What AI reveals about IQ and analytical intelligence
• Why the mathematician and programmer of the future may need a completely different skill set
• What humans should be doing when machines can manipulate the symbols for us

AI didn’t just automate some of our smartest work. It forces us to reconsider what “smart” meant in the first place.

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