Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts

A new theory of mind that includes nonhuman and artificial intelligences.

The much-lauded superiority of human intelligence has not prevented us from driving the planet into ecological disaster. For N. Katherine Hayles, the climate crisis demands that we rethink basic assumptions about human and nonhuman intelligences. In Bacteria to AI, Hayles develops a new theory of mind--what she calls an integrated cognitive framework (ICF)--that includes the meaning-making practices of lifeforms from bacteria to plants, animals, humans, and some forms of artificial intelligence. Through a sweeping survey of evolutionary biology, computer science, and contemporary literature, Hayles insists that another way of life, with ICF at its core, is not only possible but necessary to safeguard our planet’s future

N. Katherine Hayles is distinguished research professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles and James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of literature at Duke University. She is the author of many books, most recently Postprint: Books and Becoming Computational.