Intelligence vs. Agency in the Era of AI | Analysis

The article analyzes the necessity of separating the concepts of intelligence, consciousness, and agency, which occur together in humans but are decoupled in AI systems. The author argues that high cognitive proficiency and functional metacognition are not identical to phenomenal consciousness ("what it is like to be"). Citing theories such as Global Neuronal Workspace or Integrated Information Theory and research results from 2025, the text points to the lack of a unified model of consciousness. A key argument for the uniqueness of human agency is embodiment—the fact that a human is a homeostatic and interoceptive organism whose cognition is inextricably linked to monitoring signals from the body, which distinguishes it from generative language models.