Non-Human Intelligence Quotes

Since the universe must contain millions of appropriate planets, consciousness in some form - but not with the paired eyes and limbs, and the brain built of neurons in the only example we know - may evolve frequently. But if only one origin of life in a million ever leads to consciousness, then Martian bacteria most emphatically do not imply Little Green Men.

Look, when AIs come up, they're not going to be like us. A self-aware, sentient AI is not going to be like a human.

When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.

I don't even think of chimps as animals. I think of them as beings.

I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity-beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee.

Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.

You can't measure a dog's intelligence by giving him a verbal test 'cause it's not on their scale, but that doesn't mean they're not intelligent creatures.

If you spend enough time around something like baboons, you start to look at humans differently.

Up to this day, there has been no proof of the existence of any intelligence other than the human.

An intelligence that is not humane is the most dangerous thing in the world .

Perhaps measuring animal intelligence by comparing it to human intelligence isn't the best litmus test.

To tell you the truth, I believe everything - tigers, trees, stones - are sentient in one way or another. You'd never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example.

We have intelligent species on our planet that we are not even trying to communicate with.

If something is as smart as you, do you treat it differently if it isn't a human?

I have thought for a long time that one day, if I finally got to deserve it, I would love to write about the minds of invertebrates.

A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.

There's animals like us existing and thinking and giving interviews on Australian television.

There are a lot of smart creatures out there. Dolphins, elephants, and whales are smart. And there are some really smart birds. I know some really intelligent fish. But they cannot know what humans know and are incapable of inflicting as much damage.