Comment by yogthos

Sure, intelligence is a gradient, it's not something exclusive to humans. And different biological systems need to solve problems and create models of their environment in order to respond to it intentionally. However, that's tangential to the point I was making, which was that we are able to rapidly accumulate knowledge across generations giving us mastery of our environment that's qualitatively different from any other organism on the planet. And the next logical step here is machine intelligence where human style intellect could be implemented on a non-biological substrate which would open up completely new niches for postbiological life to inhabit.