AI & MI: Artificial Intelligence and Multiple Intelligences

By Tom Hoerr

“What are multiple intelligences?” I asked ChatGPT, the new artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Within a few seconds it said:

“Multiple intelligences are a theory of intelligence developed by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner in 1983. It suggests that there are eight different types of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Each type of intelligence is associated with a different way of processing information and solving problems.”

Wow, yes, within a few seconds.

And why is this relevant to MI?

MI is all about problem-solving. Howard Gardner defined intelligence as the ability to solve a problem or create a product that is valued in a culture, and each of the multiple eight intelligences encompasses a different set of skills and talents.

 ChatGPT, a technology that can follow instructions in a conversational prompt and provide a detailed response (as it did to my question), is also about solving problems. The concept of MI was revolutionary when Frames Of Mind was published in 1983. Today, the potential of AI captures our mind and activates our imagination. Typing ChatGPT in Google yields 855,000,000 links in .065 seconds.

How do MI and AI interact? Or do they?

First, let’s be clear, we already routinely deal with some AI-MI which we likely take for granted. Some salient MI-AI examples:

• Linguistic: AI automated answering services. “Is that a real person?”

• Logical-mathematical: AI chess or other game software. “I was check-mated again!”

• Musical: AI playlists which emanate from our previous choices. “I don’t need to seek the songs I enjoy.”

• Spatial: AI GPS directions. “Remember the AAA Triptik?!??

• Bodily-kinesthetic: AI autopilot is coming. Check out “Robotic Limbs Moved By the Mind” in this 60 Minutes feature (click here for link).

Of course, just as performing a complex task requires using many intelligences, sophisticated AI acts require an amalgam of MI. For example, when buying something online (something I do far more than I should), the website features linguistic and spatial information about the products. Then, after I have purchased, I get a message that says, "Since you purchased X, you might be interested in Y and Z." The employees used their interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences to conceptualize what a buyer of X might now want. Then they used their logical-mathematical intelligences to program the site.

But this is old news. As noted above, I did a small trial and asked ChatGPT “What are multiple intelligences?” The accurate response was based on readily accessible information and was generated within a few seconds. Then I posed a bit more complex question, “How can multiple intelligences be used?” Again, the lightning-fast response was accurate, although a bit superficial:

“1. Use visual aids such as diagrams, charts, and pictures to help students understand concepts. 2. Incorporate music and rhythm into lessons to help students remember information. 3. Use role-playing and simulations to help students understand abstract concepts. 4. Incorporate movement into lessons to help students stay engaged and learn.” And so on for each MI.

 I decided to be a bit contrarian and asked, “What about the opposition to MI?” ChatGPT said:

“The opposition to multiple intelligences theory is largely due to the fact that it challenges the traditional view of intelligence as a single, unitary construct. Critics argue that the theory is too vague and lacks empirical evidence to support its claims. Additionally, some argue that the theory is too broad and that it fails to account for individual differences in intelligence. Finally, some argue that the theory is too focused on the individual and fails to consider the social and cultural contexts in which intelligence is developed."

That response shows a bit more sophistication – particularly the last sentence – but simply regurgitates criticisms that have already been stated. The speed of the response, again within a few seconds, is very impressive.

To elicit a response that isn’t already lodged in libraries, I asked, “Can happiness be smelled?” The ChatGPT response:

“No, happiness is not something that can be smelled.” That’s true but I would expect a human with a bit of sophistication to continue, perhaps with, “No, happiness is not something that can be smelled but we surely associate some scents with happy feelings – freshly baked bread comes to mind as do popcorn and cookies.”

Of course, there’s an entire perfume industry.

The ChatGPT technology possesses some intrapersonal intelligence. When asked about its limitations, it responded:

“ChatGPT is not capable of solving problems that require complex reasoning or understanding of abstract concepts. It is also not capable of providing advice or making decisions for users. Additionally, ChatGPT cannot provide accurate answers to questions that require a deep understanding of a particular subject or domain.”

 Relatedly, very relatedly, I asked if ChatGPT could ascertain emotion. It replied that it cannot and said,

“ChatGPT is a natural language processing (NLP) system that is designed to generate responses to user input. It does not have the capability to detect or interpret emotion.”

Technology continues to advance at an astonishing rate (remember floppy computer disks?), so presumably the superficial response capacity of AI will increase so that answers will become more intricate. Imagine 100 Jeopardy champions crammed in a brain, spouting out facts. That’s impressive!

A Jeopardy game, however, is not the real world. The mastery of information and facts that it values ignores the nuances of life and complexity of human relationships. Nowhere are the categories of interpersonal or intrapersonal intelligences found on a Jeopardy board and ChatGPT shares that limitation.

Artificial intelligences using multiple intelligences (AI-MI) to solve problems will continue and, indeed, exacerbate. But I’m dubious about the ability of AI to read and understand people’s emotions; I’m doubtful that AI will be able to feel and generate empathy. I cannot imagine AI effectively serving as the personal intelligences.

At the New City School, we believed that each of the intelligences is important because they tapped into different human capacities. We infused MI throughout our curriculum and pedagogy to give students more pathways to learn. But we also said that we believed that the interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences are the most important. Today I capture this by saying

“Who you are is more important than what you know.”

That is not to denigrate scholastics; kids need to learn to read, write, and calculate. It is to say that the personal intelligences – the ability to work with others and to know yourself – are the strongest contributors to success and happiness. I saw this in the progress of our students.

When we think about how our students must be prepared to succeed in the future – recognizing that we must prepare them for success in life, not to just do well in school –the importance of the personal intelligences, SEL in today’s nomenclature, is very clear. ChatGPT and its successors will dominate the routine. Our students still need to learn the 3 R’s, but we cannot stop there. We must teach them how to solve complex problems, including working with, learning from, and appreciating others.

What’s your take on AI-MI? Does the increasing pervasiveness of worry you? I would love to hear from you.

Tom (a real person)

Republished with permission from the newsletter: Intelligences Connections Volume 32, Number 5 (click here to subscribe).

Artistic Genius in Performers and Dyslexia?

Howard Gardner received some questions from an Italian PhD student/stage director on the nature of artistic genius in performers and a possible link to dyslexia. The responses from Howard Gardner and also Ellen Winner, a psychologist with an expertise in this area, respond below.

From Fiorenza Ippolito

I am an opera stage director and a doctoral student in Spain. I am working on a research project involving your studies to define talent and what we might call the "artistic mind" in artists and performers. 

We investigated the need to have an audience and asked ourselves the below questions.

• Why do some people feel more comfortable with the following:

1. Using an avatar or persona

2. Individuating different perspectives at the same time (a character, stage director, composer, audience member, oneself)

3. Building coherent units between different sectors to communicate an idea

4. Understanding and expressing sensations, emotions, or feelings on stage using these methods: 

   a) emotional memory - experienced or known situation (application of emotion) 

   b) impulsive reactions (application of de-control) 

   c) images for each word (application of mental images visualized without control)

• Might dyslexia or other learning differences make a difference? Is an artistic genius usually dyslexic, and if so, could the genius be to see things that others do not see? 

• If we identify a series of talents necessary for actors, is there an area of the brain that is related to the need to communicate to an audience? 

• Is there a mind or similar for overcoming the difficulties of a disability that we can apply to non-disabled people and operate exchanges in intuitively understandable languages without the need for adaptations? 

Thank you very much for being the person who has been able to see beyond the normal. I am dyslexic and I belong to the generation of those who have been considered scholastically unintelligent and evaluated as "mentally retarded" experiencing school failures. Thank you for giving me the possibility to be an intelligent person.

Howard Gardner’s Response

Thank you for your very thoughtful letter. You are raising very good questions, and have some promising “hunches.”

I am no longer working in the area of the arts. Your thoughts are plausible BUT it is too easy to claim that artists/actors are better or worse in some areas than non-artists and non-actors. For one thing, many kinds of people become actors, for many reasons. And one can succeed or fail as an actor in many different ways. Nor do we necessarily have good tests for the various kinds of abilities/disabilities that actors/non-actors have or lack. So, in many ways, it is still the “Land of Anecdotes.”

If you were my student, I would encourage you to focus on one kind of artist or actor, and see whether in individuals with that profile, there are consistent strengths or weaknesses in 1-2 other cognitive areas.

As an example from another domain, I happen to be quite musical. I am also good in languages but terrible in visual-spatial thinking and in bodily-kinesthetic expression (except for playing the piano or typing this note). But are these regular correlations? I very much doubt it—and you could only answer that question by looking at a few dozen musically-gifted persons and a few dozen individuals who are quite non-musical, and see whether there are convincing correlations.

If you were successful in answering this question (let's say that musicians happen to be good at learning languages but poor at solving mazes), you would then have a model for how to study this kind of question. In any event, I wish you good luck with your studies...and your artistry!

I have passed on your letter to my wife, Ellen Winner, who is an excellent researcher in this area, and her thoughts are below.

FROM ELLEN WINNER

There’s some evidence that actors have (and also develop) more perspective-taking and empathy (on paper and pencil tests) than non-actors. Actors suppress their own identities when taking on characters. Please refer to the articles here and here.

Thus far, there is no evidence that people with dyslexia are superior in any domain compared to those without dyslexia. However, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of people with dyslexia showing high talent in visual-spatial areas. Therefore, we can at least say that dyslexia does not work against talent in visual-spatial areas; one can have both talent in visual-spatial areas and dyslexia.

This case study does show that actors dissociate (click here.) My former doctoral student, Maria Eugenia Panero, also has some evidence that actors are more hypnotizable, have more dissociative traits, and experience flow and empathy during performances.

Are Some Intelligences Superior to Others?

By Howard Gardner

I recently received an inquiry from an undergraduate student, Cuinn Lopes, who wanted to know whether some intelligences could be considered better than others.

He asked as follows:

“Based on what scientific evidence shows, should we believe that there are superior forms and inferior forms of intelligence; for example, should we believe that mathematical intelligence is superior to linguistic or kinesthetic intelligence? … Are there forms of intelligence that are more or less intelligent than other forms of intelligence?”

MY RESPONSE

This is a good question. My short answer is NO—there are no forms of intelligence that are crucially or essentially, more intelligent than others. Like beauty, intelligences are in the eye of the beholder.

Example: To gain admission to Harvard and other prestigious colleges in the 19th century, one had to demonstrate mastery of ancient languages—Latin, Greek, and sometimes Hebrew.

Nowadays, we smile at that because it is clear that mathematical-computation abilities are more valorized at the start of the 21st century.

But if in your lifetime, common algorithms such as ChatGPT (or its descendants) prove to be much better than we humans are at logical-mathematical operations, we may instead valorize bodily-kinesthetic intelligence or intrapersonal intelligence—no one cares about how computational systems would do on those dimensions.

Also, while we do not have validated tests for all of the intelligences, any teacher knows that excellence in one intelligence does not predict excellence (or disability) in another intelligence.

There may be some general capacities— like attention, or reflectiveness—that cut across the intelligences, but this possibility is essentially independent of the question that you raise.

I would also refer you to my previous blog post, “Are All Intelligences Equal: An Issue Raised by Cormac McCarthy’s Recent Novels” (link here). In this

What Happens to Human Intelligence If AI Surpasses Us?

Howard Gardner was recently interviewed by Athanasios Katsikidis of The New York Times and the Greek daily newspaper, Kathimerini, on the subject of multiple intelligences and AI. Read the interview in Greek (link here) or English (link here) to find out his views on the end of the Anthropocene era or dominance of human beings on the planet, and what will happen to human intelligence and creativity when AI surpasses us in many areas.

For the Greek version: click here.

English version: click here.

Chat GPT: An MI Perspective

By Howard Gardner

I was not around when the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, or the radio were launched—I do remember the early days of television, computers, and the internet. In each case, many observers felt that these inventions would be disruptive—they would change the global landscape, in some ways for the better, but in other ways, seemingly more problematic or even harmful.

ChatGPT falls squarely into that pattern—solving some problems, creating others. The difference is that its power and its possible effects—positive, negative, indeterminate—can be seen almost instantly. Indeed, anyone with access to the internet (and, more recently, a tiny amount of money) can see its power and its consequences directly, powerfully.

I have no special knowledge or expertise. Indeed, as I type these words at an ancient desktop computer, I have yet to play with ChatGPT myself. But no need—everyone around me has experimented, and many have shared their experiences with me.*

That said, I do have some initial thoughts. They draw on three areas where I claim modest expertise: education, cognitive psychology, and the study of intelligence.

Education

Without doubt, students (and not just students) will draw on ChatGPT frequently and for many purposes. That’s fine—no point in outlawing it. The problem arises when work ostensibly done by the student (or even by a group of students) has actually been accomplished simply by giving directions to ChatGPT.

We know that in the United States cheating by students is rampant and, as documented by Wendy Fischman and me (link), most individuals at the college level don’t even see cheating as a significant problem—at least compared to other challenges on campus, such as mental health or interpersonal conflict. But unless we drop any notion of accountability from our educational system, we need to define situations and assessments where students need to submit their own work and not work simply executed by ChatGPT.

The obvious solutions: test students in environments where they are not allowed to use any electronics (or where electronics are disempowered); have only oral, face-to-face testing; or make students sign sworn pledges/statements, with automatic severe consequences if they do not honor that commitment. Educators could also acknowledge that students will be tempted to use ChatGPT and include its use as part of curated assignments.

The better solution: Create environments where cheating is seen as wrong and not tolerated and where assignments or projects are carried out in co-constructive ways. Two helpful examples:

• US colleges like Haverford which have a long and storied history of student honesty;

• US colleges like Olin College of Engineering where much of the work is group cooperative work, and any effort to undermine that joint work is identified and ostracized.

Wendy Fischman and colleagues on our research team are currently investigating how colleges and universities can prioritize ethics.

There has also been handwringing over whether students will lose the ability to compose their own writing, similar to the fears that students would lose the ability to do math when hand-held calculators became available. Educators will have to decide which competences truly matter and which ones can be allowed to disappear. With respect to cursive handwriting, there are clearly alternative perspectives; on the other hand, I doubt that any responsible educator would endorse illiteracy, ill-numeracy, or agraphia.

Cognitive Psychology/Cognitive Science

I refer here to the amalgam of scholarly disciplines (launched in the middle of the 20th century) that seek to understand cognition, particularly those forms of cognition exhibited by adults or children in the course of development. Initially focused on the developing individual (e.g., Jean Piaget) or the functioning adult (e.g., Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman), the field also explores animal cognition, and/or human-computer interface.

For hundreds of years, novelists, science fiction authors, and creators in other media, have sought to clarify the nature of cognition that is not exclusive to humans—and particular creatures from outer space or ones created by engineers (e.g., the machines or organisms envisioned by René Descartes, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Lady Lovelace, or Goethe’s Faust).

B.F. Skinner (Source: Wikipedia Creative Commons)

This discussion quickened in the middle of the 20th century. There arose epistemological tensions between the behaviorists (think B F Skinner, as well as his predecessors in Russian and American psychology) and the cognitivists (think Noam Chomsky, but also Herbert Simon and Jerome Bruner).

If one takes a strong behaviorist position, there is no interesting difference between human beings and ChatGPT. So long as these “entities” produce the same responses when given a certain stimulus, to all extent they are equivalent. And indeed, in his experimental novel Walden II, Skinner describes a world that is completely governed by certain stimuli and an appropriate schedule of reinforcement. All done and explained!

Noam Chomsky (Source: Wikipedia Creative Commons)

In sharp contrast, Chomsky (as well as his predecessors, notably René Descartes and Wilhelm von Humboldt), claims that human cognition is unique—and differs qualitatively and inevitably from cognition in other species, as well as in artifacts, like computers and computational systems. Among the differentiating factors are human evolutionary history, the organization of the nervous system, the way that it develops in various human cultures, and certain human features (like purpose, curiosity, creativity, complex feelings, and emotions) which may be simulated, but are not genuine unless displayed by homo sapiens.

A rough analogy: Plant-based hamburgers may be indistinguishable in taste from those made from animal meat—but that does not mean that the two burgers are identical or can be thought of as identical. (Or consider The Mona Lisa by Leonardo vs. a simulation from a computer system—a non-fungible Leonardo token, as it were.)

Intelligence(s)

If you think that “cognition” is a disputed term, try “intelligence”!

First defined and operationalized in psychology by test maker Alfred Binet in the early 20th century, “intelligence” is now seen as the province of psychometricians—IQ test makers can identify, test for, and decide how intelligent each individual is (and I am confident ChatGPT would do very well on most conventional IQ tests—perhaps performing at genius level!).

Without intending to be disruptive, forty years ago, I challenged this hegemony: I put forth a Theory of Multiple Intelligences. (If I had called my study “An Examination of Human Talents,” no one would have objected and the theory would not have gotten much publicity; using the term intelligences made people either love it or hate it.) But in any case, much of the world now accepts the claim that intellect is not singular. Indeed, a human being may be high in linguistic or mathematical intelligence, or both (the key to scoring well on a conventional intelligence test); but that person can be unpredictably skilled or unskilled with reference to other intelligences (e.g., spatial, musical, bodily, naturalistic, interpersonal, or intrapersonal).

So what of the multiple intelligences of ChatGPT? Although it has been suggested that MI theory could be used as a framework to evaluate AI capabilities (link), one could say that some forms of intelligence are inaccessible to a computational system.

I would nominate bodily-kinesthetic intelligence as a prime example (what would it mean for a computational system to dance, weave, or play hockey?). A few intelligences are tailor-made for ChatGPT. Certainly, however achieved, such systems can score at the top in any assessment of linguistic or logical-mathematical intelligences.

Other mappings are more controversial. ChatGPT may well exhibit musical intelligence, but presumably by paths quite different than those used by human beings (e.g., playing string instruments well, but not through the use of fingers and ears), or interpersonal intelligence by making deductions from previous statements, but not observing the person “live”—see Shinri Furuzawa and my posts on the intelligences of diplomacy (here and here).

And suppose there is such a thing as existential intelligence (I have called this “the intelligence of big questions”). The affects associated with such a use of mind would make no sense to a cognitive or personality psychologist—(what does it mean for a computational system to feel “awe” and to ponder big questions periodically or perennially?). But it would be completely accepted in a behavioristic Skinnerian sense. And so, if you ask, “What is love?” and then, a few minutes later, ask “What’s the relationship between love and passion?” that’s enough to qualify behaviorally for exhibiting existential intelligence.

Moral of the Story 

ChatGPT is not the first invention to raise these existential(!) questions: and it won’t be the last. But at long last, these questions will not be ones just for scientists, psychologists, ministers, and members of the chattering classes. They will involve all of us on the planet, and may cause us to rethink who we are, who we have been, as a species. 

A Final thought 

One of the most formative experiences of my career was the opportunity to work under the direction of cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner, on a social studies curriculum for fifth graders called “Man: A Course of Study.” The curriculum was organized around three questions: 

·       What makes human beings human? 

·       How did they get to be that way? 

·       How can they be made more so? 

If we were updating this curriculum of the 1960s, I might add a fourth question: 

What does it mean to be a human being at the end of an Anthropocene era?  

And a fifth question: 

What comes next? 

NOTE:

*(For example, Shinri Furuzawa has asked ChatGPT to explain MI theory in the style of Shakespeare, and Jonathan Frost thought of asking ChatGPT to come up with an MI Assessment.) 

APPRECIATION:

For very useful comments and suggestions on this essay, I thank Shinri Furuzawa, my valued colleague, and my wife, Ellen Winner.