Though artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a greater part of our everyday lives, this paper provides a timely opportunity to revisit what makes any system — be it an artificial or a natural one — intelligent in the first place.

In characteristic engaging style, Professor John Sweller employs metaphor to provide a novel understanding of the foundations of intelligence. Namely, he draws on our understanding of other intelligent systems — including from evolutionary biology — for fresh insights.

As his life’s work attests to, human cognition is itself an intelligent system that relies heavily on our existing knowledge. Sweller’s essential work for educational contexts comes from his emphasis in underlining the critical role that knowledge plays in how humans — especially children in classrooms — navigate novel information, particularly when learning new information.

Just as the role of knowledge in human cognition has historically been underestimated by researchers — especially in education circles — it has also been downplayed in the development of artificial intelligence.

This observation helps make sense of why it is that we’ve seen the explosion in artificial intelligence so recently, despite the field of research now extending for more than half a century.