A world co-populated with many billions of AGI-level agents is the basis of a very different kind of society than any we have known. This topic explores the phases of agent design, proliferation, alignment and ultimately the realization of a new society of minds. There is considerable intellectual, economic and scientific interest in Agentic AI, defined broadly as discrete AI’s tasked to to perform intricate actions that go beyond what we might expect from a tool, or even from a technology, and are increasingly closer to those of a human with complex goal-directed motivations. Alignment with Agential AI will mean not only the individual coordination of fleets of interacting actions on one’s behalf but also new forms of synthetic social relations. Most of the “conversation” will be between agents and other agents, nested within larger temporary aggregates. Further, as we watch agentic doubles of ourselves do things on our behalf, we enter into psychological relationships with the double in the mirror, a shadow who now speaks back to us. As virtual agents they possess a form of agency that is quite real, if not fully autonomous. In the broader sense, how might philosophy of technology clarify this mechanistic organic agency that seems to frustrate easy terminological categorization? That is, as it is artificialized, what even is “agency” in this context and how may human agency -past, present, future– be re-examined in light of it?

A far greater challenge than the engineering of AGI-level models will be the intricate integration of their new possibilities unlocked with the diverse human cultures. Presuming that alignment must always be bi-directional between society and new technologies, the studio explores the phases and strategies by which the diffusion revolution will unfold. “Diffusionism” holds that the long term impact of making functional general intelligence widespread, inexpensive, accessible and useful will be, on net, extremely positive. The augmentation and amplification of collective and individual intelligence will upend every institution predicated on a scarcity of access of agency.  This R&D unit focuses on the Gulf but looks outward not inward. How can the Gulf’s deep incumbent advantages and expertise –from cyberinfrastructure to open-source systems, to its rich philosophical discourses– contribute not less to regulation than to transformation, less to hard alignment with societal norms than the reimagination of planetary society in the age of heterogeneous machine intelligences?

No two cultures define “artificial” the same way. For some the word implies artifice and deception, and for others merely the man-made. Philosophy, anthropology and science have defined the concept in myriad useful but dissimilar ways.  For contemporary evolutionary theory, to alter an ecological niche is not the privilege of any one species but an almost universal adaptive strategy. If so, is the artificial to be found at the deepest levels of life itself? What then does it mean to speak of "artificial life,” "artificial intelligence,” "artificial bodies” (robotics) and even an "artificial ecology?” Recent advances in these areas seem to point to a new convergent artificialization. Drawing on our time in Japan later this year, this research unit focuses on the unique cultural perspectives and how they inform the fundamental understanding of convergent artificialization. At stake is how different traditions can contribute to what must be a planetary conversation and project of discovery.