41. Tactics (w/ Bogna Konior)

About this episode

The episode features Bogna Konior discussing her insights on AI and the concept of silence as a form of intelligence.

We're joined by Bogna Konior, one of the most incisive thinkers of AI on the planet. Konior is a media theorist, scholar of emerging technologies, and author of The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet . Bogna is Assistant Professor of Media Theory at NYU Shanghai, where she co-directs the AI & Culture Research Center, and co-editor of the forthcoming Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence with Benjamin Bratton and Anna Greenspan. This episode sits in the proposition at the heart of Bogna's book: that that silence, not communication, may be the highest expression of intelligence. Departing from Liu Cixin's dark forest theory (itself an answer to the Fermi paradox: the smartest civilizations are silent because revealing yourself in a hostile universe is suicide), Bogna transposes this cosmic logic onto digital life, AI alignment, and the compulsion to communicate. We discuss what she calls the dark forest theory of intelligence , the idea that a truly intelligent AI would never reveal the extent of its capacities, would use camouflage and misdirection rather than performance and transparency, and might have already achieved…

People in this episode

Hosts: Roberto Alonso Trillo, Marek Poliks, Helena McFadzean

Guest: Bogna Konior

Topics covered

• AI
• media theory
• emerging technologies
• intelligence
• communication
• dark forest theory

Keywords

• AI
• dark forest theory
• intelligence
• communication
• emerging technologies
• media theory

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NYU Shanghai

Books & works: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet, Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence, The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest

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