Human intelligence and that of today’s AI’s are just two points within a huge space of possible diverse intelligences. It is critical, for the development of both engineering advances and essential ethical frameworks, to improve our innately limited ability to recognize minds in unconventional embodiments. I will describe our work using the collective intelligence of body cells solving problems in anatomical and physiological spaces, to map out a framework for communicating with and understanding beings across the spectrum of cognition. By addressing fundamental philosophical questions through the lens of developmental biology and synthetic bioengineering, today’s AI debate can be greatly enriched.

 

References

Rouleau, N., and Levin, M. (2023). The Multiple Realizability of Sentience in Living Systems and Beyond. eNeuro, 10(11), doi:10.1523/eneuro.0375-23.2023

Clawson, W. P., and Levin, M. (2023). Endless forms most beautiful 2.0: teleonomy and the bioengineering of chimaeric and synthetic organisms. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 139(4): 457-486

Bongard, J., and Levin, M. (2023). There’s Plenty of Room Right Here: Biological Systems as Evolved, Overloaded, Multi-Scale Machines. Biomimetics, 8(1): 110

Fields, C., and Levin, M. (2022). Competency in Navigating Arbitrary Spaces as an Invariant for Analyzing Cognition in Diverse Embodiments. Entropy, 24(6): 819

Levin, M. (2022). Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: an experimentally-grounded framework for understanding diverse bodies and minds. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16: 768201