AI Unplugged: Understanding the Three Pillars of Artificial Intelligence and the Question of Consciousness

Someone recently asked me something that really made me pause:

“If AI is built on neural networks modeled after human neurons, does that mean it could eventually experience something like our senses?”

It’s a fascinating question and one that shows how curiosity often crosses fields. Even though I come from a background in finance, I’ve always been drawn to life sciences and neuroscience. Something is intriguing about how our understanding of the brain connects to how we design machines to “think.”

But here’s the reality: humans and machines are never going to have the same kind of experience. Humans are going to be humans. Machines are going to be machines.

When I first started thinking seriously about AI, I realized that it really stands on three main pillars, what I call the Three Pillars of AI:

1. Machine Intelligence – the ability for systems to learn, reason, and make decisions.

2. Data Science – the process of extracting meaning and patterns from data.

3. Automation – the ability to take those insights and perform tasks that make life easier for humans.

   
   

Together, these three areas make up the foundation of what we call artificial intelligence.

In many ways, the structure of AI mirrors how our brains work. Neural networks are modeled after the way our neurons are layered and how they fire to process information. But even with that similarity, there’s one key difference the degree of consciousness.

To put it another way, both a hummingbird and an airplane can fly, but how they do it and what that experience means are completely different.

AI may exhibit a kind of “artificial consciousness,” but it’s not the same as human consciousness. It’s something new, a different category of awareness entirely.

That’s what makes this space so interesting. We’re not just trying to replicate the human mind. We’re expanding the definition of intelligence itself, building systems that can complement us, not replace us.

AI doesn’t need to be human to change humanity. It just needs to challenge how we think, work, and understand the world around us.