Lance Eliot examines whether the arrival of artificial general intelligence and artificial superintelligence would undermine humanity’s claim to being the planet’s preeminent intelligence. He argues that while AGI might merely equal human intellect, superintelligence would almost certainly surpass it, and he dismisses the counterargument that created entities can never exceed their creators. Eliot proposes ‘pluralistic exceptionalism’—valuing different forms of intelligence on their own terms rather than ranking them hierarchically—as an alternative framework, warning that humanity’s attachment to intellectual supremacy could otherwise provoke conflict with advanced AI systems.
