JAMES BRIDLE on Modes of Intelligence /343

For The Wild

Philosophy, Society & Culture, For The Wild, Anthropocene, Story Telling, Religion & Spirituality, Decolonization, Progressive, Liberation, Land, Media

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is intelligence beyond, preceding, and following human intelligence? This week, Ayana is joined by guest James Bridle in a conversation that considers multiple forms of intelligence and ways of being.

Bringing a rich background of research on forms of intelligence, from artificial to mycelial, James posits that it is a critical failure to use human intelligence as the benchmark for all forms of knowing. Seeing intelligence as both relational and embodied, James points out that knowing has never been an independent or alienated act. Rather, it is our specific set of modern conditions which primes us for alienation and separation – both from ourselves and from the earth.

James encourages listeners to move from helplessness and fear to agency. In the same way that human agency created these systems and methodologies, we can also harness our agency to change the way they are used, to rethink our relationships to technology itself. How we heal our relationships is how we heal the world.

James Bridle is a writer, artist and technologist. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Their writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. They are the author of 'New Dark Age' (2018) and 'Ways of Being' (2022), and they wrote and presented "New Ways of Seeing" for BBC Radio 4 in 2019. Their work can be found at http://jamesbridle.com.

Music by Memotone. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to For the Wild Podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with James Bridal.
0:09.0	There's this incredible total communication and awareness going on all around us all the time.
0:16.0	Every single level of life, intelligence is way, way more interesting than anything we could build in a box.
0:24.0	But for some reason, we always seem to need to build the box first. We always seem to need to make these kind of toy versions of things before suddenly then we start to recognize that they're already all around us in the world.
0:36.0	James Bridal is a writer, artist and technologist.
0:39.0	There artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide.
0:44.0	They're writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, The Atlantic, The New Statesman, The Guardian and Financial Times.
0:54.0	They are the author of New Dark Age 2018 and Ways of Being 2022, and they wrote and presented new ways of seeing for BBC Radio 4 in 2019.
1:04.0	Their work can be found at www.JamesBridal.com.
1:11.0	James, thanks so much for joining us today. I've really been looking forward to this conversation.
1:17.0	Thanks very much for having me. Lovely to be here.
1:19.0	I love that we both have bird song in our background, although yours sounds like songbirds and mine is a raven who's probably wanting to get into my compost.
1:29.0	But yeah, I'm looking forward to jumping into AI and algorithms.
1:37.0	As we begin, I want to think through some of the insidious and invisible ways, algorithms and AI shape our lives.
1:47.0	To start the conversation, I'm wondering how the goals and programs of these algorithms are tailored to a specific view of the world.
1:57.0	And who and what are these algorithms serving?
2:01.0	Well, I mean, that's a pretty broad place to start, but not a bad one.
2:05.0	In the sense that I mean, you know, these are quite vague terms, AI algorithms, things like this.
2:12.0	But then they're always kind of intentionally vague, I think.
2:15.0	When you hear them being deployed, there's always something that's kind of missing in the conversation, like some kind of level of understanding or some level of specificity that really matters.
2:26.0	But you know, the place that we hear them deployed the most is in mostly these days in relationships, like the big tech company.
2:34.0	So, you know, I mean, pretty much anything you do that involves touching a computer, you know, and not just the obvious ones.
	...

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