Artificial Intelligence and Second-Order Cybernetics in the Posthumanist World

 

Many posthumanist ideas revolve around biohacking human brains and bodies with various mechanical, chemical, or digital enhancements. If we go beyond relatively simple user interface technologies, i.e., reading text messages through an implanted device, we will be running into second-order cybernetic problems. Systems that will enhance humanity by amplifying intelligence or delivering knowledge will be on a different level. They will require the development of brain theory. To develop a complete brain theory, or preferably a working model, we will have to account for the primary tool used to create such an approach, i.e., the human brain. This recursive activity leads us to the field of the second-order cybernetics. Recursive circularity, a critical concept in second-order cybernetics, requires us to grasp such phenomena as attractor states, autopoiesis, or closure.

I feel that AI research is currently neglecting problems raised in the field of cybernetic. Distributed cognition by biohacked brains might still be a couple of decades away. However, controlling relationships between human and nonhuman cognitive processes will undoubtedly be a more challenging task than today's significant research challenges in AI or machine learning.

Posthumanism. A guide for the Perplexed by Peter Mahon is an excellent read. I placed this book on my shelf between William Gibson's Neuromancer and Robert Charles Wilson's Vortex.

It is not surprising that many sci-fi authors explore cybernetics and AI topics. Many writers and scientists seem to agree that "cortical democracies," i.e., societies interconnected by direct transmission of neural signals, are in our future.