2017

Fox, Stephen

Historically, research and development work concerned with intelligence has had anthropocentric perspectives. These have been of limited usefulness as they overlooked the capacity of many different lifeforms to handle complex challenges through intelligent behaviours such as self-awareness and problem solving. Furthermore, anthropocentric perspectives have been of limited usefulness in development as attempts to mimic human general intelligence led to little progress in artificial intelligence for decades. By contrast, research and development that has sought to go beyond anthropocentric perspectives has been much more fruitful. In particular, intelligence research with postanthropocentric perspectives has revealed formidable capabilities of microbial intelligence and plant intelligence, as well as the intelligence of many animals. At the same time, the development of AI has advanced rapidly through harnessing insights from post-anthropocentric research, while seeking to introduce many AI applications that have their own specific narrow focus - rather than general intelligence. As the range of natural intelligences becomes apparent and the range of artificial intelligences increases, it is appropriate to consider how the many different natural and artificial intelligences can be combined effectively in hybrid systems and hybrid beings. Accordingly, multi-intelligence hybrid systems and hybrid beings is the topic of this report. Various examples are provided of historical, present, and potential multi-intelligence hybrid systems and hybrid beings are provided. Subsequently, initial principles are set-out for research, development, and innovation work focused on multiintelligence. Then, directions are proposed for future research, development, and innovation.