Awareness Quotient: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Sid Sharma, Independent Scholar | ORCID: 0009-0005-7875-929X
Keywords: Awareness Quotient, AQ, IQ, EQ, AI, consciousness, artificial intelligence, human potential, intelligence quotient, emotional intelligence, neuroscience, psychometrics
Abstract:
For over a century, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) has served as the dominant metric for assessing human potential, shaping educational systems, employment practices, and societal hierarchies. Yet in 2025, Google’s Gemini 3 Pro achieved 91.9% accuracy on GPQA Diamond, a PhD-level scientific reasoning test spanning biology, physics, and chemistry, outperforming human experts, who average only 89.8%. Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored a perfect 100% on the 2025 American Invitational Mathematics Examination, a competition designed for the nation’s most talented high school mathematicians. DeepSeek-V3.2 won gold medals at both the International Mathematics Olympiad and the International Olympiad in Informatics, placing 10th globally among the world’s best young minds. Across every cognitive domain that IQ tests measure, such as pattern recognition, logical reasoning, mathematical problem-solving, and verbal comprehension, artificial intelligence now matches or exceeds human expert performance. This reality renders traditional intelligence metrics not merely inadequate but fundamentally obsolete.
This paper argues that human potential must be redefined through the Awareness Quotient (AQ), a comprehensive framework that measures the uniquely human capacities that remain irreplaceable despite technological advancement: consciousness, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, environmental consciousness, creative insight, ethical reasoning, and wisdom. Drawing on historical analysis of IQ testing’s problematic origins, contemporary AI performance benchmarks, neuroscience research on human consciousness, Vedic philosophy spanning five millennia, and interdisciplinary synthesis across cognitive science, contemplative traditions, and consciousness studies, this work demonstrates that awareness and not computational ability determines human flourishing and relevance in the AI age.
Through a rigorous critique of IQ’s obsolescence, theoretical grounding in ancient and modern conceptions of consciousness, practical applications across personal and professional domains, and a preliminary psychometric assessment framework, this paper provides both a philosophical foundation and an actionable roadmap for an awareness-based paradigm. The implications span individual development, educational reform, organizational leadership, economic transformation, and societal evolution. As machines master cognitive tasks, human value increasingly resides in the quality of our consciousness and the depth of our awareness. The question facing humanity is no longer “How smart are we?” but “How aware can we become?”
Sharma, S. (2026). Awareness Quotient: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. https://writersid.com/awareness-quotient