Professor Quillibrace was reading yet another article about superintelligence.
He had begun to notice a pattern.
Every article was perfectly certain.
None appeared especially interested in defining its principal noun.
The door opened.
Mr Blottisham entered carrying a trophy.
Professor Quillibrace looked at it.
"Oh dear."
"I've won it."
"For what?"
"I don't yet know."
Miss Stray arrived moments later.
She examined the trophy.
It bore the inscription:
WORLD CHAMPION
Nothing else.
Professor Quillibrace looked at it thoughtfully.
"Champion..."
"Yes?"
"Of what?"
Blottisham smiled.
"Exactly."
Professor Quillibrace blinked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I thought we'd reached the point where the questions should begin asking themselves."
Miss Stray laughed.
"I think Mr Blottisham has been learning."
They gathered around the table.
Blottisham placed the trophy beside the newspaper.
The headline read:
SUPERINTELLIGENCE IS COMING
Nothing else.
Professor Quillibrace looked from one to the other.
"I begin to see today's lesson."
Blottisham nodded.
"I've become suspicious of adjectives."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"A healthy development."
Blottisham opened his notebook.
"I've written down several possible meanings."
Meaning One
"Knows everything."
Professor Quillibrace shook his head.
"No."
"Impossible?"
"Probably."
Meaning Two
"Can solve every problem."
"No."
"What about problems that require being somewhere?"
"No."
"What about deciding what is worth solving?"
"No."
Miss Stray smiled.
"That is already a different kind of problem."
Meaning Three
"Better than every human."
Professor Quillibrace looked thoughtful.
"Better..."
"...at what?"
Blottisham grinned.
"I thought you'd ask."
The fire crackled quietly.
Professor Quillibrace folded the newspaper.
"Suppose..."
he began,
"...someone constructed a machine that could prove mathematical theorems a thousand times faster than any human."
Blottisham nodded.
"Remarkable."
"Indeed."
"Would it therefore compose better poetry?"
"No."
"Be kinder?"
"No."
"Raise happier children?"
"No."
"Recognise loneliness?"
"Not necessarily."
"Know when a friend requires silence rather than advice?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"I rather suspect many humans struggle with that one."
Miss Stray laughed.
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"So we keep smuggling all these abilities together."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"As though excellence in one domain naturally migrated into every other."
Miss Stray reached for the teapot.
"I wonder whether..."
she said,
"...we admire intelligence so much..."
"...that we quietly imagine it can substitute for wisdom."
The room became very still.
Professor Quillibrace looked at her over the rim of his cup.
"I believe..."
"...that distinction has been neglected for centuries."
Blottisham frowned thoughtfully.
"So wisdom isn't simply..."
"...more intelligence?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
Professor Quillibrace was silent for a long moment.
Finally he spoke.
"Wisdom is knowing..."
"...which problem matters."
Miss Stray added,
"...and which solution creates worse problems."
Blottisham wrote carefully.
Intelligence answers questions.
He paused.
Wisdom chooses them.
Professor Quillibrace looked genuinely pleased.
"I should like to borrow that."
"You may."
The afternoon sunlight shifted across the carpet.
Blottisham looked again at the newspaper.
"I've one final puzzle."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"I rather hoped you would."
"If something becomes..."
"...superintelligent..."
"...will it automatically understand people?"
"No."
"Beauty?"
"No."
"Humour?"
"No."
"The pleasure of tea?"
Professor Quillibrace looked at his cup.
"I sincerely hope so."
Miss Stray smiled.
"I think that answer was philosophical rather than scientific."
"Quite."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"So perhaps..."
"...we've allowed one remarkable achievement..."
"...to cast a shadow over many different human capacities."
Professor Quillibrace looked quietly delighted.
"Yes."
"I think we often confuse..."
"...intellectual power..."
"...with the whole of human understanding."
The college clock struck five.
Blottisham picked up the trophy.
"I've decided what it's for."
Professor Quillibrace looked curious.
"What?"
Blottisham carefully took out a small piece of paper.
He wrote upon it.
Then stuck it over the original inscription.
It now read:
WORLD CHAMPION
AT SOMETHING
Miss Stray laughed so hard she nearly dropped her teacup.
Professor Quillibrace regarded the amended trophy.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"I believe that is the most scientifically accurate trophy ever manufactured."
They gathered their coats.
The newspaper remained folded upon the table.
Its headline still announced the arrival of superintelligence.
But somehow it no longer felt quite so overwhelming.
Not because the future had become less interesting.
But because the question had become more precise.
As they reached the doorway, Blottisham stopped.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"If one day we really do build a machine wiser than ourselves..."
Professor Quillibrace looked at him thoughtfully.
"I should very much like to meet it."
"Why?"
"So that I might ask..."
"...how it learned the difference."
The three walked out into the college gardens.
For a while, nobody spoke.
The evening was too beautiful to improve upon.
Only as they disappeared around the corner could Miss Stray be heard saying quietly,
"Perhaps our greatest intelligence..."
"...lies in discovering that there are many kinds."