Brian Skelly Challenges AI super intelligence at University of Hartford

On October 28, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club convened to challenge the prevailing narrative of the “Artificial Intelligence movement,” arguing that the current trajectory toward “super intelligence” is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of what intelligence actually is. Led by Brian Skelly, the session focused on the distinction between organismic awareness—which exists across species—and rational awareness, a trait the group identified as uniquely human and incapable of being reverse-engineered through big data centers.

The discussion, hosted both virtually and in-person at Auerbach 320, arrives at a moment when the public is increasingly treating AI as a linear progression toward a superior mind. According to the University of Hartford, the club’s weekly tradition since 2001 serves as a peer-based forum where students, professors, and people from the community at large dismantle these misconceptions to prevent future societal errors in how we develop and deploy technology.

The Illusion of the Intelligence Spectrum

The core of the critique presented by Brian Skelly is the rejection of the “single comparable spectrum” of intelligence. The common modern assumption is that intelligence is a neurological trait that can be measured in degrees—where humans are smarter than dogs, and dogs are smarter than lizards. This framework suggests that if we can simply increase the scale of data and processing power, we can create a system that sits higher on that spectrum than any human.

Skelly argues this is a categorical error. In this view, awareness is not a matter of degree but an “either-or trait.” A dog possesses canine organismic awareness, and humans possess human organismic awareness; neither is more or less intelligent in this regard, as each is unrivaled in its own specific possession. The danger, the club suggests, is that by viewing intelligence as a quantity, we attempt to build a “super-intelligent agency” based on a flawed map of the human mind.

“We mistake in seeing things this way, a way which permits us also to say that we are smarter than dogs, but dogs are smarter than lizards, as if all intelligence were on a single comparable spectrum.”

Rational Awareness vs. Big Data

The distinction that matters for the future of AI is the gap between survival-oriented organismic awareness and truth-oriented rational awareness. While search engines have become remarkably democratic—offering cleaner, less commercialized answers across diverse languages and cultures—these improvements are seen as refinements in search technology rather than the emergence of a rational mind.

Rational awareness, according to the session’s framework, cannot be made more or less through hardware or data accumulation. Instead, it is a trait that can only be developed, primarily through social interaction and time. This implies that the current race to build massive data centers to achieve super intelligence is essentially barking up the wrong tree, as it attempts to simulate a social, developed human trait using raw computational power.

This perspective places the current AI boom in a precarious position. If intelligence is not a neurological trait that can be reverse-engineered, then the economic and civic investments currently flowing into “super intelligence” may be chasing a ghost.

A Legacy of Philosophical Inquiry

The depth of this critique is anchored in Brian Skelly’s more than 30-year career teaching philosophy locally. With a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Skelly has spent years examining the intersection of logic, ethics, and culture. His recent work, including the 2026 publication Logic Between the Lines – Making Philosophical Sense of Logic and Logical Sense of Philosophy, informs the club’s approach to these technical delusions.

The University of Hartford Philosophy Club operates as an open ecosystem. The club allows anyone—from community members to students and professors—to present topics or take over the club. This democratic structure mirrors the very “democratic” nature of current search technology that Skelly acknowledges, even as he warns against the “illusory depictions” of the intelligence driving those tools.

As the university continues its weekly tradition, the focus remains on clearing up these misconceptions before the paths taken into the future become irreversible.

Keep reading