We have long been told that 'intelligent objects' are waiting in the wings; ready to radically transform the shape and meaning of our everyday lives. We are faced with the prospect of 'smart' watches, cars, phones, homes, robots, drones, autonomous vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers, and radically networked fridge-freezers. More profound, perhaps, are the promises of incorporating intelligence into bio- and nano-technologies. Here, near invisible machines and organisms are set to manage our bodies and environments in unprecedented ways.
Unclear in these visions is what, exactly, is meant by 'intelligence' – never mind what it might feel like to live in such a world. In this context, we posed the following questions.
If technologies are to be intelligent, what will their dumb counterparts look and behave like? How is it that the creators and users of these technologies will imbue them with intelligence? What can the term 'intelligence' accomplish, discursively, and what position (intellectual, political, or otherwise) does it it authorize or legitimize?
What should be clear is that the prospect of intelligence(s) leeched into our environments and bodies has the potential to profoundly reconfigure our interactions with machines and between ourselves. How are we to imagine such possibilities and, if need be, counter them?
The project 'Rethinking Machine Intelligence' aimed to take the intelligence of technical things seriously. By proposing and building a series of conceptual objects, we critically examined the terms ‘smart’, ‘intelligent’, and ‘artificial intelligence’ that are so prevalent in future technological imaginaries. At its broadest, the project brought together a range of ideas of intelligence, ranging from scientific and technical perspectives to the ordinary, everyday use of the word.
This book documents the project’s conceptual objects, which were designed to incorporate some of these ideas, revealing the assumptions and tensions bound up in their use. In order to elicit active engagement and thought from a wide-ranging audience, the objects had a strong critical or disruptive orientation, with careful attention given to their form and detailing.
You can read the book as a pdf here, or drop us a line to request a copy.
