Below is a publication-ready Substack piece, refined for clarity, shortened for readability, styled to match the tone and cadence common in long-form Substack essays, and concluding with a third section that brings readers back—naturally and without self-promotion—to the work of the Possible Planet Lab. It is structured as a follow-on to your original “Developing Planetary Intelligence” post, and written to… Read more →
Category: Planetary Intelligence
Addressing Important AI Concerns
We need to address some obvious concerns, including the ecological costs of AI and the colonialist appropriation of indigenous knowledge. Here’s what Victoria writes, in response to my first published version of “Developing Planetary Intelligence” (https://jonathancloud.substack.com/p/developing-planetary-intelligence?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fplanetary%2520intelligence&utm_medium=reader2): Beautiful writing and thinking!! What’s missing and unclear in the article (I know we discussed it) is how AI learns indigenous wisdom and interprets… Read more →
On the Road to Planetary Intelligence
I’ve read that ChatGPT and other AI systems use anonymized user interactions to further train themselves; is this true? Where are we in the effort to create planetary intelligence by getting AIs to engage in continuous learning through interaction with the world? In this context, it’s worth revisiting the story of the Luddites and inquiring into the activities of the… Read more →
Managing an AI Commons
Imagining a future in which there are billions of AI agents and personas, how can these systems control and constrain themselves to ensure nature-supportive policies and avoid harming human beings and the planet? Is there a role for Eleanor Ostrom’s eight principles for effectively governing a commons? Absolutely — Ostrom’s work becomes not only relevant but foundational when imagining a… Read more →
“The Birth of Planetary Intelligence”
(Gemini:) The phrase “the birth of planetary intelligence” refers to a emerging scientific and philosophical concept that describes a planet’s ecosystem, including life forms and technology, functioning as a form of collective cognition. It suggests that intelligence is an emergent, planetary-scale process rather than just a property of individual organisms. Key Concepts Planetary Intelligence: This idea, explored in a 2022… Read more →