Intelligence is often linked to complexity. What seems complicated is often seen as profound, and quick, efficient operations are often considered signs of intelligence. However, it’s crucial to distinguish between complexity and complication. Complexity is inherent in living systems, where multiple processes are interconnected and change dynamically. Complication, on the other hand, can be artificially created by stacking many operations, rules, and technical layers. Therefore, a system can be highly complicated without any self-awareness.

A straightforward comparison helps clarify this difference. Mayonnaise is a complex system formed by an emulsion in which individual components merge into a new, unified consistency, losing their separate identities. Small changes can significantly affect the result, emphasizing that the process is just as important as the ingredients. By contrast, a mobile phone is a complicated system made up of many parts arranged for specific functions. Although difficult to assemble or repair, each component retains its identity and can be separated. This distinction is even clearer when considering reversibility: once mixed, mayonnaise cannot easily be reverted to its original state, whereas a mobile phone can be disassembled, albeit with effort. This highlights two different organizational modes: one based on transforming relationships between elements, and the other on assembling parts with specific roles.

This distinction clarifies the current and often debated definition of artificial intelligence: it involves highly complex processes working on large data sets but does not possess the depth of lived experience. A common and enduring misconception today is equating operational complexity with inner consciousness.

António Damásio, in The Strange Order of Things (which relates to his research on natural intelligence), provides a clear reference point. He explains that consciousness arises in an organism capable of feeling, maintaining internal stability, and recognizing its own state. The mind is not merely about processing information; it is a way of life that perceives itself. In this context, intelligence is about the ability to preserve life and direct actions based on that awareness.

From this point forward, the debate on artificial intelligence becomes less vague. It’s no longer meaningful to ask if a machine has consciousness; instead, the focus should be on understanding what we do when we employ it. It’s also crucial to specify the context: this discussion relates to modern artificial intelligence, which is widespread and embedded in platforms, services, and infrastructure that actively shape daily life. This system greatly influences our decisions, affects choices, guides actions, and in some cases, can operate independently in significant processes. Therefore, it is essential to clarify how it functions—and who determines its criteria, limits, and goals.

The unavoidable question arises: who sets these criteria? Who determines what should be optimized or excluded? While artificial intelligence often appears as a tool, it functions within infrastructures that hold concentrated technical, economic, and political power.

Systems that organize information respond to requests while also shaping the conditions that make those requests possible. What is visible, recommended, or considered relevant stems from previous decisions embedded in models, data, and interests that are often implicit.

Delegation, in this context, involves a relationship with that framework. The user might acknowledge, question, or examine it, but the system’s efficiency usually diminishes the visibility of the framework, making such scrutiny more challenging.

Humans have consistently aimed to delegate functions throughout history, reflecting a fundamental pattern in technological development. The earliest hammer was not a manufactured tool but a stone chosen for its ability to focus and direct human force onto materials. Fire enables transformation of matter beyond physical limits, exemplifying force concentration that makes actions more precise and manageable. Writing captures words externally, serving as a memory extension and allowing thoughts to persist over time. All these inventions serve to transfer functions outside the human body, thereby expanding our capacity to act beyond natural limits.

In the Phaedrus, Plato noted that writing changes our relationship with memory. Instead of relying solely on remembering, we now see it as a resource to consult. Technology doesn’t erase memory but alters the way we use it.

Artificial intelligence, as it is now known, is part of this ongoing tradition. Rather than merely handling memory or exerting force, it now manages the organization of relationships between different pieces of information. Modern systems are capable of classifying, comparing, predicting, and recommending. Tasks that previously demanded significant time and human labor are now performed quickly and efficiently.

Matteo Pasquinelli, in The Eye of the Master, explains that this ability arises from formalising human activities. Machine intelligence is based on identifying patterns of behaviour and effort that have already occurred. The machine arranges what has been previously experienced by others.

The concept of delegation explains this process clearly. To delegate is to transfer a function to a system that performs it. For instance, writing involves delegating memory retention. Using artificial intelligence delegates the organization of relationships and exploring possibilities. This idea is not new; for example, medical treatments delegate diagnosis and intervention, educational systems delegate validation and guidance, financial systems delegate automated credit or risk decisions, and boarding an aircraft involves trusting highly autonomous technical systems. Delegation is a common feature across many areas of life.

Delegation is never a neutral act. When a function is delegated to a system, it also transforms the person doing the delegation: unused skills diminish and eventually fade away as active practices. Externalizing memory changes our remembering methods, automating calculations alters our decision-making processes, and mediated navigation shifts how we explore the world, as these tools start to define what is seen as possible and important.

It is therefore important to ask: what is lost when delegation is done systematically? Which abilities are no longer exercised? What types of attention become unnecessary? And, perhaps most importantly, what kind of subject develops from this ongoing interaction with systems that predict, propose, and organize even before our experiences take shape?

Delegation expands action while reducing the need for certain competencies, which, over time, cease to exist as living practices.

However, a constant limit persists: the experience of that function remains within the living body. A text holds information but lacks memory. A medical system makes decisions but does not feel illness. A financial system performs calculations but does not experience consequences. An artificial intelligence system offers suggestions but does not live through what it produces.

Evgeny Morozov, in To Save Everything, Click Here, cautions against making delegation a prevailing mindset. Today’s trend tends to view human issues as technical challenges that can be optimized through data and algorithms.

In The Net Delusion, he demonstrates that this logic does more than perform functions; it also changes the context in which those functions are interpreted. Technology reshapes the environment in which decisions are made—often in ways users are unaware of.

Artificial intelligence is a form of delegation that intervenes in thinking and decision-making. By proposing options, organizing information, and forecasting scenarios, it helps shape the environment in which consciousness operates. It doesn’t replace consciousness but influences the conditions under which it operates, often through technical and institutional infrastructures that users typically cannot access. As delegation increases, it becomes harder to distinguish where our decisions end and the system’s decisions begin.

The resemblance between machine-generated language and human language might imply interiority. However, this similarity stems from the reuse of forms originating from lived experience. The existence of these forms does not necessarily indicate real experience.

Human remains are central to the experience, as they continue to feel, evaluate, and decide. They rely on a body that sustains their existence. No technique directly influences this process.

Artificial intelligence can be seen as a tool that enhances our ability to organize information. It continues a long-standing trend: delegating functions. This boost doesn’t change the core idea — we delegate tasks, and we experience the outcomes of that delegation.

The difference between technical complications and lived complexity maintains this clarity. Machines may grow more advanced, but experience remains rooted in those who live it. Life itself has a richness that challenges the simplification strategies we constantly try to impose.

Bibliography

Damásio, A. (2024). A inteligência natural. Temas e Debates.

Morozov, E. (2011). The net delusion: The dark side of internet freedom. PublicAffairs.

Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. PublicAffairs.

Pasquinelli, M. (2023). The eye of the master: A social history of artificial intelligence. Verso.

Platão. (2000). Fedro (M. C. Andrade, Trad.). Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.