The Evolution of Intelligence and Its Research: Taming Artificial Intelligence, as seen from the Perspective of Changes in Culture and Communication
Abstract
The article aims to present the evolution of intelligence (from biological, through artificial, to augmented) and the existing interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence, including developing ways of understanding the term “intelligence” in this area. For this purpose, several basic concepts have been selected. The paper also shows various contexts of taming artificial intelligence from the perspective of changes in culture and communication. The author discusses changes in communication within interpersonal relationships, home, and public space, as well as pop culture and artistic visions of the body in the area of media art, which are significantly influenced by the concepts of transhumanism and cyborgisation. The discussion is based on discourse analysis and results of many years of participant observation conducted in media art and information technology. The evolution of the ways of understanding the term “intelligence” is accompanied by a change in artificial intelligence design and in the very imagination of its creators. The pro-technology discourse encourages technology users to interact with conversational AI agents and robots, leading to the humanisation of technology and simultaneously to the positive evaluation of the machine and the perception of cyborgisation as a natural and beneficial process. Further observation and analysis of changes in the discourse on artificial intelligence, its development, and the increasing complication of the human–technology relationship will help understand the evolution of the phenomenon in question. The presented theories, the concept of self-domestication, and the memetic interpretation of evolution provide promising theoretical tools in this field.
