While I don't think our intelligence is "supernatural", and am not aware of that being a widely held position, I do believe we found out that our understanding of the universe is not as good as we thought. A recurring pattern.
For example, the Turing test may not actually be the gold standard we thought it was for intelligence, because Turing couldn't imagine a machine model that basically had all of human knowledge in a somewhat malleable form. I think the recent New York Times suit amply demonstrates the fact that the LLMs are largely databases of existing text.
So it can perform feats that, though they obviously seem intelligent to us, are actually not. They are a sophisticated form of autocomplete backed by an incredible database of sentences. Again, we cannot imagine this, because a creature with our somewhat more limited memory and recall must use intelligence to perform these sorts of tasks. At least I doubt that I could create even one of the texts that the NYT showed verbatim.
Of course, at some point we may discover that there really isn't anything left, that everything we perceive as intelligence can be fairly simple algorithms + database access (though that may not be our mechanism)
On the other hand, the part we can't really explain is not "intelligence" but conscious experience.
and am not aware of that being a widely held position
I’m a (edit: popular) sci-fi addict. One of the prevalent tropes when the human races is battling another intelligence is that we’ll win because we have a soul/something extra/emotions/that special way of living life. When meeting a benevolent race, this is also often the reason why we’re spared … “they’re primitive but there’s something about them we haven’t encountered anywhere else”.
It may not be a widely held opinion but it sure gets suggested a lot.
Both practical/survivable faster than light travel and time travel are common tropes in sci-fi. Last I checked, it is not a widely held position that either of these is actually possible.
I'm following, but when it comes to "widely held position" I should remind you that along those lines it's a widely held position that an invisible superbeing created all this stuff. I don't enjoy discussing "what most people think", it depresses me.
I think the recent New York Times suit amply demonstrates the fact that the LLMs are largely databases of existing text.
Would you also say that about a savant who can recall entire books with two or three nines' worth of accuracy? Would you say that he or she is just a "database"?
Or that a savant who can multiply large numbers in their head is just a "calculator?"
For example, the Turing test may not actually be the gold standard we thought it was for intelligence, because Turing couldn't imagine a machine model that basically had all of human knowledge in a somewhat malleable form. I think the recent New York Times suit amply demonstrates the fact that the LLMs are largely databases of existing text.
So it can perform feats that, though they obviously seem intelligent to us, are actually not. They are a sophisticated form of autocomplete backed by an incredible database of sentences. Again, we cannot imagine this, because a creature with our somewhat more limited memory and recall must use intelligence to perform these sorts of tasks. At least I doubt that I could create even one of the texts that the NYT showed verbatim.
Of course, at some point we may discover that there really isn't anything left, that everything we perceive as intelligence can be fairly simple algorithms + database access (though that may not be our mechanism)
On the other hand, the part we can't really explain is not "intelligence" but conscious experience.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness