KI-LIFE²: the Knowing Intelligence - Learning Interactively For Everybody and for Enlivenment

[Soto2]

Project Name: KI-LIFE²

Name of Project:

KI-LIFE² - the Knowing Intelligence - Learning Interactively For Everybody and Enlivenment.

Proposal in one sentence:

Creation of a Learning Assistant using AI / ML / DS for enhancing personal and collective cognition toward future² “Knowing societies” and enlivening the planet.

Description of the project and what problem it is solving:

Our societies are presently facing a severe systemic metacrisis (climate change, energy peak, ecological and biological collapse, meaning crisis and attentional crash) jeopardizing the survival of all living beings on our planet, including ourselves (Schmachtenberger, Vervaeke).

The only way to move forward with enough speed and to exceed these perils is to mobilize the great power of cognitives technologies, like AI / ML / DS, to augment (Engelbart) and extend personal and collective intelligence. The aim being to help catalyzing an epistemic rational shift toward a more worthy and commons (Bauwens) future² for all livings, toward a new stage of our human civilization by enhancing our NGI (Natural General Intelligence).

I have a biology and neurosciences background and a passion for cognitive sciences (CS) & technologies for thirty years, and more particularly inside the encompassing and embodied modeling framework of CS called the enactive paradigm (Varela, Thompson & Rosch). Enaction put the emphasis on lived experience and also on body and participatory sense-making (Di Paolo & De Jaehger) in the cognitive process. I also have a deep personal experience in using scholar knowledge and cognitives technologies to design and transform my own thinking and sense-making, leading me to a meta-paradigmatic and creative conception called “Scybernethic(s)” (https://scybernethics.org). This is how I have worked on myself to enact this know-how (more than a know-what):

*** in the part 3 about computer simulations of a-cognition / AI, “PDP” stand for Parallel and Distributed Processing, the original conception behind the Back-Propagation algorithm (Rumelhart), later called “Deep Learning” by Google marketing. I have also studied and designed Swarms, networks of Finite-States Automata (Wolfram) and Multi-Agents Systems.

The current project as a logical following of my preceding work:

This project is a first PoC milestone. The objectives are:

1. To create a bootstrapping incentive toward building a core multidisciplinary team sharing our values and engaged toward our mission.
2. Generating a project dedicated DAO
3. Connecting with friendly neighbors DAOs to develop the ecosystem.
4. Learning by iteratively doing in developing a rapid prototype of a playful learning assistant using generative AI and DS while experimenting on ourselves the enhanced personal and team building processes in a phenomenological “Deep Learning” way.
5. Enacting a sharable and practical methodology for helping the community with similar projects.
6. Preparing the foundations for the second MVP milestone.
7. Engaging more deeply with the scientific cognitive and enactive community and the DeSci trend.

Grant Deliverables:

• A live public demo of the working prototype.
• A paper summarizing the methodology used with quick theoretical references, enacted results and findings, and projected future developments.
• An AMA about the project.

Spread the Love

KI-LIFE² is looking for it’s seed team members***, if possible Web3 knowledgeable, and future members of its DAO:

Mainly:

• An engineer mastering ML/DS/AI techs.
• A UX / UI designer / developer.

And also:

• A community manager.
• A game designer / storytelling specialist.
• Everybody interested in the project and its values are welcome.

*** These roles won’t be remunerated in this first milestone, but reserved NFT on the allowlist premint could be attributed for example.

Squad:

Squad Lead:

Christophe Rigon

• Twitter: @ki_cog
• Discord: soto²#0113

Thanks for your attention² & WAGMI.

[Mark]

Thank you for sharing your proposal for KI-LIFE², which aims to create a learning assistant using AI/ML/DS to enhance personal and collective cognition toward future “Knowing societies” and enlivening the planet. Your proposal addresses a significant problem facing our society, particularly the systemic metacrisis jeopardizing the survival of all living beings on our planet.

It is encouraging to see your passion for cognitive sciences and technologies, and your deep personal experience in using scholar knowledge and cognitive technologies to transform your own thinking and sense-making. Your PoC milestone and the objectives you have outlined are well thought out and provide a clear path for the project’s progression. The deliverables you have identified are also well-defined, providing a clear measure of success for the project.

However, it would be helpful if you could provide more details on the specific features and functionalities of the learning assistant you plan to create. Additionally, while your project aims to enhance personal and collective cognition, it would be good to have a clear understanding of how you plan to ensure the privacy and security of user data in the learning assistant.

Overall, I think your proposal has potential, and I encourage you to continue working on it. With careful planning and execution, your project could contribute to solving significant problems facing our society while promoting learning and collective intelligence. Best of luck with your project, and I hope to see its progress in the future.

[Soto2]

Thanks Mark for your welcome feedback.

As told, this is a only a first milestone of the project. The detail of it’s first functional implementation and the logic of it’s development will be explained more thoroughly in the live presentation.

You are also pointing toward an important subject (privacy and security) that I have not yet tackled, because this initial stage of development won’t imply users data, but that will become critical in the second phase. So good point about the future of the project . And may be see you at the live presentation

[Mark]

I had a quick look at https://scybernethics.org/ and there is quite some overlap in our perspectives (embodied practices, post-structuralism, social constructionism, complex systems,…) One direction where I might have a useful criticism is in regards to the idea of holistic approaches, I think this is where modernity tends to sneak into many conceptions and I would encourage any “revolutionary” approach to not repeat this mistake. I like the concept of epistemological alternation and a non-foundational stance, not knowing is a good assumption for maintaining humility. That said it would be interesting to hear more but I’m not sure if our paths will cross at the presentation, there are many projects presented so no much time for discussion. When are you planning on presenting?

[Soto2]

Thanks for your interest. I am booked on March 15th @ 4 PM UTC. Btw, I would be curious to know you better. Do you have an online reference that I could consult?

To be clear, as it is complex and possibilities of misunderstanding are high: scybernethics is not really a “holistic” approach. It is not primary a “thing”, a know-what, a worldview or an ideology. It is a pragmatic human experience rooted in the scientific cognitive sciences epistemology (both in the historical and theoretical sense) and linked with lived phenomenological experimentations of computer simulations of a-cognition. As the enactive paradigm, it is a non-dualist view, or to be more precise a post-dualist view, meaning that duality is the (intellectual / abstract) mean not the end. It’s also more subtle than radical constructivism or transcendental idealism because of the technological interaction. This has nothing to do with post-modernism and there is no “revolutionary” intention. I don’t project any social model or any teleological goal unless those clearly states in my introduction (to favor knowing and enlivenment). The meaning crisis is on us, I think that I can help, and I’m trying here to be practical and concrete.

[Mark]

I don’t have a useful online bio, sorry, I think we are both in France.

In the 12 part TLDR Scybernethic(s) TL-DR - Scybernethics part 12 (also part 6) states “They argue that we need to move beyond traditional dualistic thinking and embrace a more holistic approach.” so I hope appreciate why I might think it is a “holistic” approach. I agree that misunderstandings are pretty much guaranteed in this territory. I’m not sure how “ethics should be at the forefront of our thinking” and there is not “revolutionary” (I quote it because I just mean big cultural shift, not blood in the streets) intent unless you believe our current morality is not in need of a huge shift ?

I’m not implying that you should lead a revolution. I’m trying to develop a concept of AI as a technology of ethics and this implies there is a huge shift happening (with revolutionary potential). I think being practical and concrete requires embracing this dilemma.

What is the difference between non-dualism and post-dualism ? I’m assuming non-dualism also implies duality is a means not an end.

I’ll try to be at you presentation but from past experience there is not much time to explore the project in any great depth in that forum. Good luck with the proposal!

[Soto2]

May be I shouldn’t have used ChatGPT to make these TL;DR and summaries , or let say that I should have re-read more carefully. My bad. Scybernethics is one step ahead and bellow conceptual distinctions, and yes, you read me correctly when I have said “it is a non-dualist view, or to be more precise a post-dualist view, meaning that duality is the (intellectual / abstract) mean not the end.”. Scybernethics is a living process.

I do agree that we need a “big cultural shift”, and more precisely for me, an epistemic shift that I call a second-order rationality in reference to the second-order cybernetics (Von Foerster). In my scybernethics text I describe briefly what is second-order thinking. For me ethics is mainly implicit and embodied. Ethics is in the acts, not in declarations and I don’t feel concerned in this context with morality which is respectable but more culture dependant.

Also i’m completely embracing dilemmas: it’s at the core of what I develop in my scybernethics (see 3.4 “From dialectics tension to dialogics thinking: coping homeostatically and patiently with conceptual dipoles”.

The presentation won’t be the ideal place to speak about these complex subjects (in french would make it perfect ), but feel free to join me on tweeter or else, I will be happy to try to better understand your point of view and to extend this convo.

Thanks, and best wishes for your own projects.

[Mark]

Funnily enought I would have bet that it was done by chatGPT. Maybe have a discussion about the topic with chatGPT first and then get it to summarize things with that bias in the conversation history.

It might help to agree (or not and for the purposes of communicating clearly) on a couple of definitions that I’ve found useful:

Ethics: discussions about morality e.g. meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, conversations at the pub about what X (let’s say amateur ethics)

Morality: the judgement of actions (moral judgement) and the actions that people, institutions, collectives etc take in the world. Sometimes this might involve saying things so it can get confusing e.g. I say “Tom is ugly” and that might be considered immoral, I might say “ethics is a waste of time” which is both ethics (I’m discussing about morality but in a very simplistic manner) and immoral (given our social norms).

The judgement comes from some perspective so morality is often just a reflection of social norms but there are obviously groups with different norms within a given society and individuals/groups who act outside of broader moral norms.

If morality is front and center then it is less clear to me why the shift should be centered on a concept like second-order rationality (unclear to me but I’m thinking systems thinking). When you write “ethics is mainly implicit and embodied” I would translate that into morality as defined above. If there was a “big cultural shift” that follows an implicit morality then this will likely amplify existing power structures. This is why I believe projects like this are first and foremost ethical as a “front and center” question is what is the moral progress that we need and that is a question for ethics. Then concepts/technologies etc can be brought to bear on realising that shift.

[Soto2]

I think that we don’t have the same conception of ethics and you don’t seem to hear me when I say “Ethics is in the acts”, “ethics is mainly implicit and embodied” or “Ethics is in the acts, not in declarations and I don’t feel concerned in this context with morality which is respectable but more culture dependant.”. Ethics is for me a behavior, morality a conceptual norm. And I don’t say that there is no link between the two, but it’s very complex and historico-contextual, and I’m not personnaly and now interested by that.

I will do my best to be more explicit about second-order thinking: ethics, in the context of the enactive paradigm, involves an embodied and situated understanding of human experience and emphasizes the co-constitution of organisms and their environments. Second-order thinking involves also self-reflection, which lead to revealing your own biases and blind spots, and so enhance the capacity to consider the perspectives of others and more generally the interdependance of human with others or nature. So ethical behaviors (and not primary “conceptions”) can arise from the ability to engage in that kind of second-order (self)reflection. This is not a reflection about “systems” but about yourself, Mark, now: how do you deploy your own thinking while for example answering to me.

Francisco Varela, one of the main proponent of the enactive paradigm has written a book on the subject of ethics that I recommend: “Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition” - Francisco J. Varela.

You can also find more recent development on the subject here: https://www.upaya.org/2022/08/varela-faculty-enaction-ethics-varela-symposium-2022-8-8/

[Mark]

You are right that is why I tried to propose a definition. In philosophy there is no broad agreement on this and all that really matters is having clear semantics, I don’t care which word you want to use. I basically proposed “morality is in the acts” but if you want to call that ethics this is fine by me. So the definitions could be:

Morality: discussions about ethics e.g. meta-morality, normative morality, applied morality, conversations at the pub about what X (let’s say amateur morality)

Ethics: the actions that people, institutions, collectives etc take in the world. Sometimes this might involve saying things so it can get confusing e.g. I say “Tom is ugly” and that might be considered unethical, I might say “morality is a waste of time” which is both morality (I’m discussing about ethics but in a very simplistic manner) and unethical (given our social norms).

The website claims “They argue that ethics should be at the forefront of our thinking” but you replied above “I’m not personnaly and now interested by that” which seems contradictory.

You might be be aware that systems thinking nowadays typically assumes second-order cybernetics i.e., it sounds very much like what you are describing (but not identical!)

I’m mostly here to provide feedback to your project so I am not peddling another approach, just trying to point out where there might be shortcomings or contradictions.

[Soto2]

I have added a flowchart for the project, so now you may have a more precise look at the practical implementation of my proposal. This is in action what I call “ethics” .