Morphing Intelligence
From IQ Measurement to Artificial Brains
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- US$24.99
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- US$24.99
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What is intelligence? The concept crosses and blurs the boundaries between natural and artificial, bridging the human brain and the cybernetic world of AI. In this book, the acclaimed philosopher Catherine Malabou ventures a new approach that emphasizes the intertwined, networked relationships among the biological, the technological, and the symbolic.
Malabou traces the modern metamorphoses of intelligence, seeking to understand how neurobiological and neurotechnological advances have transformed our view. She considers three crucial developments: the notion of intelligence as an empirical, genetically based quality measurable by standardized tests; the shift to the epigenetic paradigm, with its emphasis on neural plasticity; and the dawn of artificial intelligence, with its potential to simulate, replicate, and ultimately surpass the workings of the brain. Malabou concludes that a dialogue between human and cybernetic intelligence offers the best if not the only means to build a democratic future. A strikingly original exploration of our changing notions of intelligence and the human and their far-reaching philosophical and political implications, Morphing Intelligence is an essential analysis of the porous border between symbolic and biological life at a time when once-clear distinctions between mind and machine have become uncertain.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
French philosopher Malabou (Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality) continues to ponder the ever-evolving definition of intelligence at the dawn of AI in a directionless and unprovocative analysis. This slender volume centers on what Malabou dubs the three "metamorphoses" of intelligence throughout recent history, from the innatist view, which prevailed for much of the 20th century, through the era of epigenetics in the 1980s, which demonstrated the role and importance of neuroplasticity, to the present moment, which finds humanity on the cusp of artificial intelligence. Quoting heavily from such thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jean Piaget, she argues that at this moment it must be conceded that human intelligence is no different from artificial intelligence, as "a set of dispositions that are exposed, fragile, open, and contingent in their topological organization and that do not reflect any predestination or plan." As such, Malabou wonders why serious thinkers do not "give up intelligence as an independent philosophical question." She hastily outlines some vague ideas for educational reform, such as the "neurohumanities" a fusion of the humanities and neuroscience to accommodate this paradigm shift. But Malabou underdelivers as a philosopher and neuroscientist, providing very little new insight to the topics addressed.
