Are we intelligent or are we educable?

A brief Q&A on emerging theories as to what makes human thinking unique

Because, you know, gadgets. I watched this show a lot in the 80s.

Is the human capacity for being educable a cognitive gadget?

Wait, don’t click over TikTok! That might be the most wonky question I’ve ever typed, but it may also be important to understanding what makes human thinking unique and special, especially as compared to artificial intelligence. And I’m going to try to explain why via FAQ format, let’s see how this goes.

What’s a cognitive gadget?

Cognitive gadget is the term coined by Dr. Cecilia Heyes of Oxford to describe mechanisms of the human mind that arise primarily from cultural evolution, rather than through biological inheritance. Under this view, our cognitive architecture – the methods we use to think about the world – arise from specific cultural practices that evolve over time and are passed on from generation to generation.

Can you give me some examples?

Yes I can. One example is something cognitive scientists call “mindreading” or “theory of mind,” our ability to ascribe mental states to ourselves and others. This ability, Heyes argues, is taught to us by members of our social groups, and varies across cultures. Another example is learning by imitation. It was long thought that babies imitate behavior as a result of genetic programming, but there’s mounting evidence that it’s specific cultural experiences – such as playing with mirrors – that fosters this capability. And then there’s language itself, a cultural development that allows us to communicate abstract ideas and complex ideas to one another. (For more on cognitive gadgets, you can read my review of Heyes’s book here.)

Why should I care about cognitive gadgets?

The theory that we humans use cognitive gadgets to think is an attempt to explain what makes us unique as a species. And if the theory is correct –  if it’s true that our minds are primarily shaped by our socio-cultural environment (rather than our genes) –  it suggests our minds are quite pliable, and that we can improve our cognitive capabilities through specific practices, including education.

So what does “educable” mean?

Until about two weeks ago, I’d never heard this term myself. But it’s the word used by Dr. Leslie Valiant in his new book The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness. Valient, a computer scientist at Harvard (and Turing Award winner), argues that it is our capacity for being “educable” that makes humans special, and that we should replace the notion of human “intelligence” and use “educability” instead.

Right but what does educable mean specifically?

Valiant defines educability as “the combination of (a) learning from experience, (b) being teachable by instruction, and (c) combining and applying theories in both modes.”  We explicitly pass along knowledge that has accumulated over many generations through education, and this knowledge gives us the unique ability to deal with novel, unforeseen situations -- in this sense, “education is different from training, which imparts the skill to perform a task that is foreseen at the time of training.”

That’s the quick summary anyway – at some point soon I plan to write a full book review, but if you want to go deeper now, this interview of Valiant is a good place to start.

Boy, educability sounds similar to “general intelligence” as defined by François Chollet that you wrote about recently, would you agree?

I sure would, and thanks for noticing the parallels. In particular, Chollet views our capacity to learn how to “extremely generalize” – that is, to handle “entirely new tasks that only share abstract commonalities with previously encountered situations, applicable to any task and domain within a wide scope” – as what makes humans unique. In contrast, artificial intelligence is mostly limited to task-specific skills – they are systems that have been trained rather than educated.

Or as Chollet recently tweeted, “General intelligence is *precisely* learning -- the ability to efficiently learn new things, beyond what your genes and past experiences prepared you for.” Sounds very educable. And cognitive gadgety.

Ok, so back the first question – is being educable a cognitive gadget? And does it matter?

Yes and yes, I think, though not everyone agrees on the first point. Valiant, for example, argues that educability is our “civilization enabler,” meaning, that our educable capacities have driven the development of our cultural institutions. When I interviewed him recently, I asked whether the causation might flow the other way – perhaps, per cognitive gadget theory, it’s our cultural practices that drive our educability? He seemed pretty skeptical, but I also was introducing him to the idea of cognitive gadgets for the first time, and in the context of a short phone call.

In any event, and however we might point the causal arrows, I think there is something harmonious happening across these insightful thinkers about how we think. Heyes, Valiant and Chollet are all pointing to our mental flexibility, our ability to learn and generalize, as what makes us unique and special. Educability is our superpower, and I’m prepared to argue it’s our most important cognitive gadget. Broadening understanding of this might help move us away from obsessing over “artificial intelligence” as something we train, and point us instead to developing “artificial educability,” as something that learns.

Easier said than done, of course.