About
There is an intrinsic connection between the narratives we craft about AI and the trajectory of its development. Stories inspire technical breakthroughs, and technological advancements, in turn, generate new stories. The rapid emergence of machine learning (ML) has regenerated discussions about the nature of intelligence. Mainstream big-tech AI corporations, such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind, have revived the eugenics-associated concept of Charles Spearman’s g-factor through their drive towards AGI. A dominant 'us v them' survival of the fittest paradigm has emerged within AI discourse, warning that AI development could outcompete humanity. These narratives centre on competition and evolutionary dominance in AI development and pose significant risks by perpetuating a dangerously narrow and competitive perspective on intelligence, reducing it to a metric of superiority and survival. It has become urgent and critical to shift the narrative away from binary divisions toward collective imagination, ecosystems, and agency.
Symbiotic Intelligence is an art-led research collective, developed by Dr John Wild and Dr Shira Wachsmann, that works with mycelium as both a conceptual and material collaborator, offering a new lens through which to rethink dominant AI imaginaries and notions of intelligence. We work with mycelium as a living sensor of environmental change, creating new poetic logics, AI narratives, and technical interventions. Using immersive installations as rapid-prototyping tools, we connect to, read, and seek to understand subtle changes in the electrical signals that mycelium uses to communicate through its hyphal network. Building on research in evolutionary algorithms, the project is developing a symbiotic algorithm—both an algorithm and a theoretical framework—that enables our installations to emerge, learn from, and interact dynamically with both the mycelium and its environment.