On intelligence: the origin and the goal

Large language models now provide instant answers to general-education questions. Starting from this observation, this article argues that the intelligent era has arrived. This era reshapes education, research, and work. Consequently, people face anxieties and crises of transitioning from being landless and propertyless to feeling useless. To address these challenges, the discussion starts with the unity of opposites between complexity and intelligence. Life can be viewed as complexified matter, and intelligence as complexified computation. The diversities and uncertainties of complexity determine the fundamental difficulties in the emergence and governance of intelligence. Following this line of thought, the article proposes a parallel path of generating substance from cyberspace. The ACP approach places oppositions within artificial societies and implements unities within actual societies. Through computational experiments and parallel executions, this framework forms closed loops that transform small knowledge into large models, and subsequently into deep intelligence. Finally, utilizing the ontological framework of three worlds, the article recounts the evolutionary trends of "old", "past", and "new" AI. It emphasizes that safety and governance must advance synchronously with development. This ensures the intelligent era remains founded on human value and powered by diverse intelligences, ultimately benefiting humanity.