James Bridle – Planetary Intelligence

Our understanding of intelligence mostly refers to a human understanding of it – meaning intelligence is generally whatever humans do. This limited view has been imposed to judge if other species can be seen as intelligent, too. The problem is that this narrow and human-centred understanding of intelligence might ignore other forms of intelligence. Intelligence is about relationships and exists in interactions with others’ worlds. It is time to rethink and reintegrate our relation with the world. Our view of intelligence colours how we see the world.

Reimagining what intelligence is

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute’s Icarus project followed indigenous cultures’ traditions of trusting animals’ sensing capabilities for weather predictions. In this particular case, animals were equipped with sensors to monitor their behaviour and be able to detect early warnings for earthquakes long before any other sensing mechanics. This is an example of how technology thoughtfully and carefully applied, allows us to reintegrate with the world and other species.

But there are, of course, plenty of other examples of intelligence that are characterised by cooperation and relationships. Think of the “Wood Wide Web”, a complex underground network of fungi and bacteria that connects trees and can support the ones that are in need of nutrients. Technology helped to map out this network and make it visible. Or the fascinating example of slime mould’s efficiency capabilities. In an experiment, researchers put slime mould on a city map of Tokyo that had some oatmeal placed around the corners. Slime mould then found the most efficient way to get to all the oats with least effort. Interestingly, the slime’s paths resemble the Tokyo Metro transportation routes.

“AI is not like human intelligence at all – it thinks about the world differently”

When we turn to the discussions around Artificial Intelligence, we can find that our current understanding of AI is often marked by old hierarchical thinking. A belief that we reduce ourselves when we give recognition to others for their forms of intelligence. This is often viewed as something bad and “unheimlich” for humanity, as something that wants to take away human joy and purpose and might want to replace humans altogether. Adding to this feeling of “scariness” and eeriness, is the fact that we don’t exactly know how AI makes decisions and what the underlying thought-processes are behind those decisions. An example of this is the match of Go between the legendary Go player Lee Sedol and the computer programme AlphaGo. AlphaGo famously won, but how it came up with the surprising previously unknown move that led to it is not clear.?

Again, we cannot comprehend other forms of intelligence if we only compare it to human intelligence. We need to be open to exploring other ways of understanding, sense-making and knowledge. It is crucial to continuously test, try and observe to be able to understand intelligences (human, relational, natural, machine-based and so on) and also make use of technology to give us deeper insights.

AI as a collaborator

James Bridle has throughout his career as an artist and technologist been experimenting with technology to better understand its capabilities, and flaws.?

There are encouraging examples from other places: The Te Reo Maori project used technology to build a speech recognition engine in order to digitise Maori records. This open-source project brought together a community and technology to protect the cultural heritage. The Citizens Assemblies in Northern Ireland contributed to systematic changes. The assembly represented the country’s population and consisted of hundred randomly chosen citizens with diverse backgrounds and had the purpose to find solutions for issues that the government struggles to address - and it turned out to be a great success.?

“We need to create mini models of the world, so that we can understand it”

Big global issues like climate change can feel abstract. James Bridle conducted an experiment in his own garden in order to visualise the effects of climate change. Every day, he moved his dandelion plant with the help of a bamboo stick of 115 cm. This measurement represents average climate change velocity. This means that the dandelion has to travel 115 cm north in order to stay within the same conditions. Tangible and actionable explorations can help to relate to complex questions better.

Technology can make complex facts and issues visible and understandable by helping us to see, track and view and thus understand the world and other forms of intelligence better. Only when we have some level of technology literacy, we can form a relation to it. With technology being increasingly integrated in our everyday lives, this evolved agency can help us to better manoeuvre and navigate the complex world we inhabit.

Written by Sarah Skavron, Capturing artist and technologist James Bridle’s lecture in Malm? on 26 October 2022 on the topic of Planetary Intelligence. Organised by Media Evolution in collaboration with Sydsvenskan, Malm? Live Konserthus and Nordic Council of Ministers.