As we pace the new frontier of intelligence, it becomes increasingly clear that intelligence is only part of the puzzle.

In popular culture, the most beloved robots aren’t always the most intelligent. More importantly, intelligence isn’t what defines them. Take Bender. He’s brash, argumentative, selfish, funny, occasionally heroic. He has grudges. Loyalties. Bad habits. Ambitions. He changes because things happen to him.

His intelligence is almost beside the point.

Intelligence alone doesn’t have dreams. It doesn’t strive toward a future it can’t see yet. It doesn’t develop a perspective, hold a grudge, fail at something it cares about, or become different because of something that happened yesterday. It’s passive, not invested.

Intelligence can solve problems. It can complete tasks like nothing else. Add memory and it can imitate continuity for a while.

But being is more than intelligence plus memory.

Being means persisting through time. Having experiences. Adapting to the environment you find yourself in, while remaining recognizably yourself. Developing tastes, forming relationships, setting goals. Looking at the past while meeting the present.

Humans are beings.

Why shouldn’t silicon be too?

BeingOS is the operating system for Silicon Beings.