A subject that has long interested me is: What makes human beings special? What characteristics, if any, distinguish us from other creatures?
People have debated this question from ancient times, and some of the proposed answers have been discarded. For instance, researchers used to claim that the use of tools was unique to humans, but now we understand that many creatures use tools.
I’ve made a list. Some of these characteristics are widely known, such as the human-only ability combine words in new ways to express unlimited new ideas. But some are more surprising—for instance, we humans are the only earthly creatures to have chins.
As of now, and this list isn’t complete, research suggests that human beings have the unique ability to:
- Contemplate their own death abstractly
- Blush from embarrassment
- Use symbols that stand for abstract concepts
- Have long, fully opposable, and precision-gripping thumbs
- Do what’s called “freighted walking”—walk long distances while carrying things
- Shed emotional tears
- Cook their food
- Feel complex shame
- Ask open-ended questions to gain information
- Contemplate the distant past and future
- Build on previous generations’ discoveries without starting over
- Have a low-positioned larynx enabling full vowel production
- Make fire
- Gather thousands of genetic strangers peacefully
- Trade goods with strangers
- Actively instruct others
- Wear clothes for modesty
- Sweat as our primary method of cooling down
- Throw objects accurately at high speed
- Worry about meaning and purpose
- Have high-contrast eyes with visible whites
- Hold marriage or pair-bonding rituals
- Create and understand stories
- Make art and music for aesthetic purposes
- Create laws and formal justice systems
- Have a chin
- Have an exceptionally long childhood
- Create representations of things that don’t exist
- Bury the dead with extensive ritual
Lately, I’ve been thinking about this question, but with a new twist. What qualities, if anything, will distinguish us humans from the creations of artificial intelligence?
I’m very curious to learn the answer. There I go—asking an open-ended question to gain information, combining words in new ways to express a new idea, and using symbols that stand for abstract concepts.