Artificial intelligence

Computers are everywhere. They help us organise our lives, learn, and play. They appear to be super smart – doing complex things like searching and showing us videos and can now even make music and generate pictures and videos of their own. Technology is always becoming faster and better. But could computers ever become smarter than humans?

Brain power

Like you, computers have memory and are very good at doing calculations and recalling information. Unlike you, computers can do these calculations very quickly – up to one quintillion (1 with 18 zeros) per second. Computers have already beaten world champions at chess by practising billions of times and spotting patterns faster than any human could.

All computers are coded or programmed by people and are often designed for very specific purposes like this. Think about a calculator, an oven, or a games console. Computers are very good at doing things that they are trained to do – but a lot of research is going towards helping computers think outside-the-box.

Artificial intelligence

There are already lots of things that do this. In our Mysteries of Science podcast, anthropologist (a person who studies people) Beth Singler told us that artificial intelligence can be almost invisible in the way it is currently used. When shopping, you might be recommended products that people like you have purchased. Or your phone might remember faces in photos so it can show you more photos of the same people.

These systems are intelligent because they learn patterns and improve over time. Meteorologists (people who study the weather) use supercomputers to analyse billions of data points about temperature, wind, and pressure to predict conditions days in advance. No person could handle all that information but we all benefit from their forecasts. Doctors are using artificial intelligence to study scans helping them detect illnesses and treat patients faster.

Researchers want to go further. Developers are excited about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which would allow machines to master more than the single skill it is built for. AGI would learn, imagine, and even create new ideas on its own, solving problems independently.

Singularity

Could machines ever achieve true intelligence? AGI is so clever that people sometimes call it ‘human level intelligence’. Computer scientist Ray Kurzweil believes that one day computers will reach ‘singularity’ – a point when they become as smart as us. That could mean computers writing and running their own software, designing inventions, having friendships, and solving problems in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Not everyone is convinced. Designer Matteo Loglio says machine learning lets computers learn patterns from data but that doesn’t mean they understand the world in the same way humans do. Humans and computers both understand what an apple looks like but only one of those can know what an apple tastes like. Humans experience emotion and curiosity – things that machines cannot replicate right now.

Yes, your computer might be faster than you and it might have access to more information than you do – but that doesn’t make it smarter than you. Intelligence is about more than answers. It’s about imagination and experience. No matter how advanced they get, computers still rely on people to give them purpose. Maybe machines do out-think us but what makes humans special will always remain unique.

Also

Imagine having a computer inside your brain… A brain-computer interface (BCIs) lets people control machines using electrical signals in the brain. They skip the body entirely so instead of controlling your phone with your fingers, you instead simply think about what you want it to do.

The most well-known version of this is developed by company Neuralink. Their device has recently given a paralysed man the ability to play chess and Mario Kart. In the future, BCIs could be used to restore lost senses, treat memory loss, or allow people to communicate at the speed of thought.

These links show how close humans and machines might be to working together, blurring the line between biological and artificial intelligence.

But there are still big challenges. BCIs need complex surgery to be installed, are still very simple in what they can do, and there are big questions around privacy: could these devices read your mind?

First published in The Week Junior Science+Nature, issue 93, October 2025.