Description
Book SynopsisArtist, technologist, and philosopher James Bridle's Ways of Being is a brilliant, searching exploration of different kinds of intelligenceplant, animal, human, artificialand how they transform our understanding of humans' place in the cosmos.
What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans or shared with other beingsbeings of flesh, wood, stone, and silicon? The last few years have seen rapid advances in artificial intelligence. But rather than a friend or companion, AI increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined, an alien invention that threatens to decenter and supplant us.
At the same time, we're only just becoming aware of the other intelligences that have been with us all along, even if we've failed to recognize or acknowledge them. These othersthe animals, plants, and natural systems that surround usare slowly revealing their complexity, agency, and knowledge, just as the technologies we've built to sus
