Professor Quillibrace was reading a newspaper article entitled Artificial Intelligence Will Soon Surpass Humanity.
He had reached the end of the first paragraph.
He had also reached the end of his patience.
Mr Blottisham entered carrying a torch.
Professor Quillibrace looked up.
"No."
Blottisham smiled.
"You haven't heard why."
"I believe I can make an informed prediction."
Miss Stray entered a moment later.
She noticed the torch.
"Oh."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Precisely."
Blottisham placed the torch carefully on the table.
"I've come to search for the intelligence."
Professor Quillibrace looked at the torch.
"The torch is for..."
"Looking inside."
"Inside what?"
"The artificial intelligence."
Professor Quillibrace removed his spectacles.
"I see."
"I thought it might be hidden."
"There is no intelligence hidden inside."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"But everyone says there is."
"No."
"They say the system behaves intelligently."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
Professor Quillibrace was silent.
Miss Stray quietly closed her book.
"I think..."
she said,
"...we've found today's question."
Blottisham opened his notebook.
"I've prepared several possibilities."
Professor Quillibrace looked resigned.
"I imagined you might."
Possibility One
"Intelligence is something stored inside."
"No."
"Like fuel?"
"No."
"Like water in a kettle?"
"No."
"So there isn't a quantity of intelligence?"
"Not in that sense."
Blottisham crossed it out.
Possibility Two
"It is produced while thinking."
"Closer."
"So if the machine stops..."
"Yes?"
"...where does the intelligence go?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"It goes nowhere."
"So it evaporates?"
"No."
"It was never a substance."
Miss Stray nodded.
"I wonder whether we are treating intelligence as though it were flour."
Professor Quillibrace laughed.
"An unusually useful observation."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So..."
"...we keep speaking about intelligence as though one could possess three kilograms of it."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Indeed."
"And yet nobody has ever weighed it."
The discussion drifted for a while.
The fire crackled quietly.
Eventually Blottisham spoke again.
"I've noticed something."
Professor Quillibrace waited.
"When newspapers say..."
He pointed to the article.
"...'Artificial Intelligence Will Soon Be Smarter Than Humans'..."
"Yes?"
"...they never say..."
"...smarter at what."
The room became unexpectedly quiet.
Miss Stray looked slowly towards Professor Quillibrace.
He smiled.
"I was wondering how long it would take."
"To notice?"
"Yes."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"Surely that's the important part."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"It may be the only important part."
Miss Stray leaned forward.
"Imagine I said..."
"'This person is stronger.'"
"Yes?"
"You would immediately ask..."
"'Stronger than whom?'"
"And?"
"'Stronger at what?'"
"Lifting?"
"Running?"
"Swimming?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Exactly."
Miss Stray continued.
"But somehow..."
"...when we say 'more intelligent'..."
"...we forget to ask the second question."
Blottisham frowned.
"How extraordinary."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"We quietly imagine intelligence as a single ladder."
"But perhaps..."
"...it is more like a city."
Blottisham looked delighted.
"A city?"
"Many streets."
"Many skills."
"Many destinations."
"You may travel very quickly in one neighbourhood..."
"...and become hopelessly lost in another."
Blottisham considered this.
"So someone might be extraordinarily good at mathematics..."
"...and dreadful at comforting a frightened child."
"Precisely."
"Or magnificent at composing music..."
"...and unable to assemble flat-pack furniture."
Professor Quillibrace nodded gravely.
"The evidence for that particular combination is overwhelming."
Miss Stray laughed.
Blottisham looked at the newspaper again.
"So when people promise..."
"...superintelligence..."
"...what exactly are they promising?"
Silence.
Professor Quillibrace folded the newspaper.
"An excellent question."
"Do they mean..."
"...better mathematics?"
"Perhaps."
"Better science?"
"Possibly."
"Better jokes?"
Professor Quillibrace hesitated.
"The jury remains out."
"Better gardening?"
"No idea."
"Better friendship?"
"Entirely different question."
The room fell quiet.
Miss Stray looked thoughtfully into her teacup.
"I wonder whether..."
she said,
"...our language quietly persuades us that intelligence is one thing..."
"...when perhaps it is the name we give to hundreds of different excellences."
Professor Quillibrace looked at her with evident admiration.
"I believe..."
"...that observation deserves another pot of tea."
Blottisham nodded enthusiastically.
"I've one final question."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"I rather thought you would."
"If an artificial intelligence can solve equations much faster than I can..."
"Yes?"
"...is it therefore more intelligent than I am?"
Professor Quillibrace considered the question for a very long time.
Finally he replied.
"It is more capable..."
"...at solving equations."
"And beyond that?"
"We must ask many more questions."
Blottisham looked relieved.
"So the sentence..."
"...'It is more intelligent'..."
"...is unfinished."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Exactly."
"It leaves out the most important words."
As they gathered their books, Blottisham picked up the torch.
"I didn't need this after all."
"No."
"Why not?"
Professor Quillibrace stood and put on his coat.
"Because, my dear Blottisham..."
"...the difficulty was never that the intelligence was hidden."
"It wasn't?"
"No."
"It was that the question was."
The three left the Senior Common Room together.
The newspaper remained on the table.
Its headline still proclaimed that artificial intelligence would soon surpass humanity.
It seemed rather less certain than it had an hour earlier.
Not because the machines had changed.
But because the meaning of the sentence had.
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