The Case for Alternative Intelligence
I caught myself one morning. Without thinking I had instinctively reached for ChatGPT to outline a session design, just to get ideas flowing, but somewhere in that seamless transaction of question-in-immediate-answer-out, I realised I'd bypassed the messy, uncertain, embodied process where my actual thinking happens. Which got me wondering: if I'm struggling with this, what's happening across entire organisations as AI becomes woven into how we work?
As AI becomes more capable of handling cognitive work, are we sleepwalking into letting other forms of intelligence atrophy at the exact moment our teams and organisations need them most? Just as ecological systems can collapse when dominated by a single invasive species, even the most resilient and competitive organisations could become fragile and fail when dominated by one form of intelligence. The more we privilege cognitive outputs, the more we ignore and erode the subtle, relational and embodied intelligences that make us beautifully human. Isn't the real promise of AI that it could be a catalyst for regeneration, freeing time and imagination to be wholly human, deepening our relationships with each other and the living world?
This essay explores three other forms of intelligence which, when resourced properly, could work alongside AI to create something wiser and more regenerative than either they or it could produce alone: divergent (the intelligence that thinks differently), relational (the intelligence that emerges between people) and ecological (the wisdom of living systems).
Divergent: the intelligence that thinks differently
AI is supercharging speed and efficiency, bringing undeniable benefits. The faster we move, however, the less patience we have for anything that can't immediately prove its value. When AI is trained on AI outputs without significant fresh human data, the outputs degrade over successive generations. Is this the AI version of human groupthink, a system feeding on its own outputs until diversity and freshness collapse? Could we be at an evolutionary crossroads in which organisations either overwrite diversity with AI-accelerated homogeneity, or else build an inclusive approach to multiple intelligences? More than ever, we need brains that are wired differently: for non-linear thinking, seemingly random creative leaps, unconventional perspectives and deep compassion.
Relational: the intelligence that emerges between humans
Building trust takes deliberate effort and time, relying on small relational moments that strengthen connection and belonging. It's often the embodied exchanges that happen in the margins that make the difference – the way we read a room before we speak, the gut sense that tells us something isn’t being voiced, our willingness and ability to sit with discomfort and tension. A recent study across Taiwan, Indonesia, the US and Malaysia found that as employees spend more time interacting with AI systems than with colleagues, workplaces become more "asocial". People feel lonelier even as their appetite for human connection increases. We seem to be finding more efficient ways to work together, but fewer ways to actually be together. As AI takes on more of the cognitive load, we risk neglecting the relational and collaborative muscles that allow groups to think and feel together.
Ecological: the intelligence from living systems
If we're looking for a world that is more sustainable, just, joyful and liberating for humans, then training artificial intelligence on human intelligence alone will not get us where we want to go. The more-than-human world would be a great place to start: inherently regenerative natural systems where principles of reciprocity, resilience, and sufficiency are core to flourishing and thriving ecosystems – qualities our societies are struggling to recover. This means asking different questions. Instead of "how do we optimise this process?" organisations might choose to ask "how do we build systems that regenerate rather than extract?" Instead of "how do we maximise short-term output?" we might ask "what does resilience look like for the whole system of which we are a part?"