Chat GPT lacks the body to be true intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is finally back on everyone's lips. Thanks Chat GPT. The AI ​​system is pretty good at telling jokes, talking to us, and even programming computers.

It can even write halfway useful essays — so that some admonishers are already announcing the end of homework and expecting a revolution in the examination system at universities.

Chat-GPT also does quite well in the “Bar Exam”, the exam that prospective lawyers have to pass in order to be admitted to the US and which is comparable to our second state legal exam. But does this prove that machines are intelligent?

No, not yet. AI-based assistants such as chat GPT and recommendation algorithms interact with hundreds of millions of people every day and influence our everyday life in many ways, and yet they still have little understanding of us and our world.

Self-driving vehicles are becoming more proficient in their interactions with the world, but are still beginners when it comes to communicating with pedestrians and other cars, or collaborating with their human drivers.

Systems like Chat-GPT are hugely entertaining and surprisingly human-like, but they're still unreliable and don't "embody" true intelligence. Evolution has produced a variety of impressively beautiful body forms - from worms to fish to the human body. But why so many forms?

Because every shape, every body brings with it a special ability to act intelligently. The abilities of each body correspond to the environmental conditions of its habitat - north pole, deep sea, mountains, plains.

So the body is not just a shell or the executive medium of a behavior that would be devised and directed by the brain. In turn, it controls a significant part of behavior because it enables the brain to perceive the world and make meaningful decisions.

The core of current AI research has focused on disembodied perception and recognition. Chat GPT is no exception. And that's a problem: Because what you don't have in your head, you literally have to have in your legs. Unfortunately, chat GPT has neither legs nor body.

It may come as a surprise to many that the body actively contributes to biological intelligence. But we experience it ourselves every day: when we reach for the bowl of muesli for breakfast, of course we don't calculate in our heads with millimeter precision where our hand should touch the bowl.

Our hand-eye coordination and also the hand itself do a large part of the calculations. The hand is a flexible, soft sensor that, as if by magic (no pun intended), precisely positions the human hand and its fingers to grasp the bowl.

Fortunately, our brain does not have to worry about the details, it would be overwhelmed by it. People “calculate” not only with their brains, but also with their hands and their bodies. Having a body is a huge advantage even for a machine if you want to be intelligent!

Cognitive science, which studies perception and thought processes, shows that children's brains do not fully develop without social interaction. So one can expect that the progress towards a truly competent, socially and economically valuable AI without a body will be slowed down.

A body makes it easier for AI systems to "grasp" our physical world. It can give them a sense of space and maybe one day a sense of themselves. Having a body makes it easier to understand and respond to people's needs and intentions.

A body facilitates social interactions. With a body, the AI ​​system can actively collect its own experiences and thus data, instead of relying on already collected data and pre-programmed knowledge.

We should finally give AI systems not only a spirit but also a body so that they can build up a social understanding and (conscientious) knowledge of our world. The body is the logical next step in reinventing our industry and manufacturing and securing our prosperity. What are we waiting for, let's do it!

Kristian Kersting is a professor for AI and machine learning at the TU Darmstadt, co-director of the Hessian Center for AI (hessian.ai), author of the book (“How machines learn”) and winner of the “German AI Prize 2019”.

Oliver Brock is the Alexander von Humboldt Professor for AI and Robotics at the TU Berlin and spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence "Science of Intelligence". Both of them co-founded the AI ​​Club.

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