Revised Concept Statement

Planet Centred Machine Intelligence

Calculators, computers, and machine intelligences are built in the image of a human, in order to perform tasks far quicker than our fleshy machines ever can. But what if machine intelligences were created by the planet? What would that reality look like?

To get to that question, we need to take a step back and unpack one key word: planetary. The planet is one of the words which separates human from Earth. It demotes humans to another biotic species inhabiting Earth, and breaks the illusion of Earth belonging to humans. It’s easy to forget that Earth is a planet, and not just a collective of nations-states. The Earth consists of much more than just the human species. When we talk about climate change, it usually boils down to nations bargaining with each other, all while playing to the tune of the capitalist organisation of the economy, within which exploitation (of every kind) is the only winning strategy.

On the Voyager spacecraft, there are gold plaques, which contain signatures which are primarily human, with the intent of signalling to any alien species that Earth is under human control. It’s the same kind of arrogance with which we believe that colonising other planets is a possible solution to climate change, or an eventually inhabitable Earth. The infinitely large, complex, and nuanced support systems which make our very existence possible is easy to forget when we live in urban cities. Resources which make it possible for us to survive are highly commoditised and abstracted.

The first challenge of this project is to effectively distance humanity from the planet, and break the illusion that we have any control or say over the functioning of this planet. This mental shift is not a novel idea–indigenous civilisations and cultures have connected the dots long before, and point the way to a highly sustainable and successful future for humanity.

The advent of advanced machine intelligence poses an intriguing question for our future. It is clear that we are well on our way to building an intelligence far greater than ours, but what will we eventually use it for? Can we think of a future where the capitalist organisation of the economy is no longer the dominant one? Or a future where we recognise that the health of various assemblages (biotic, abiotic, machines) of this planet are critical to everyone’s survival? The human-dominant narratives of the planet, one of them being globalisation present the planet as a resource. Can we shift from globalisation to planetary? Will machine intelligences be critical in this process as mediators?

This project is a speculative one, with the intention of creating heterogeneous visions of the future to help us reflect on current reality and hopefully nudge us toward a more sustainable path.

Plans for User Testing

For the first session, and perhaps the second one as well, I’d like to generate ideas, directions and perhaps processes. Although I’m primarily looking to collect feedback on the concept and find new ways of creating prototypes, I might be able to create workshop activities which could be the ‘prototype’ in itself. What if a game, or a 10 minute discussion ends being far more effective than a speculative artefact?

Session length: 35 mins

Time Activity Materials
7 mins Introduce project and idea as quickly and briefly as possible Laptop, maybe large screen
10 mins Play off on Asimov’s three commandments and ask participants to create a list of ten commandments for what they feel a planet centred machine intelligence should follow. Potentially could use a list of prompts, such as nature (moody, forgiving, lazy), intent (fatalistic, save the world, survival of the fittest) of this machine intelligence Notepad sheets with empty list
10 mins (OPTION 1) The brief: colonise Mars. What would be required for human survival? Collectively draw out mindmaps which plan out what humanity would need. Design fictional cities
(OPTION 2) Role playing game: Assign each person a character card, with abilities, weaknesses and intents. A scenario is given, and each player has to fight for what they want, a la Mock United Nations style, to come to an agreement.		 Large sheets/rolls of paper, character cards
8 mins Get feedback on the session