Several days ago George Por appeared in my email. George is an expert in many things but he has long impressed me as a world expert on collective consciousness and a true shaman of human development (and an original action researcher into Integral City 2.0). George asked, “Did you give some thought to how artificial intelligence could enhance the intelligences of the integral city? I’m curious about your take on it.”

I have been curious for a while , so thanks to George here is a blog with a few of my thoughts on how AI could enhance the intelligences of the Integral City.

Artificial or Natural?

First off I reflect on the implication of “artificial” in the usual sense of AI. I wonder why these intelligences are considered artificial? I would consider intelligence to be evolutionary however it manifests.

It seems to me that when we use “artificial” as a descriptor of intelligence we are viewing it outside ourselves – taking an objective stance. Which from an integral perspective would be true but only partial (Wilber).

Surely the qualities of the intelligence we see emerging are tetra+-arising with impacts in all the AQAL quadrants regardless of how you parse them – integral mindsets: subjective, intersubjective, objective, interobjective;  or Gaia’s reflective organs: person, people, place, planet; or City Voices: Citizen, Civil Society/3^rd Sector, Civic Managers, Business/Innovators.

These intelligence capacities may be manifesting the qualities of the Kosmic Mind – and call us to not only consider the trajectory of capacity development from ego to ethno to regional to planet, but to consider the quantum leap from Patrick Geddes’ Think Local/Act Global to Currivan’s proposition Think Cosmic, Feel Global, Act Local – a more wholistic evolutionary reframing.

From the very beginning of my inquiry into learning and leadership in self-organizing online communities (where I first met Georg Por), it was obvious to me that recursive, iterative, reflection would amplify the emerging intelligence. Isn’t this what a living system does? It resonates with self and other. It coheres with self and other. And it emerges capacities for self and other. This is how it survives, adapts and regenerates.

As the VUCA world has demanded that we gain capacities that enable cities (and all their sub-wholes of individuals, families, neighbourhoods, workplaces, communities (Map 2)) as complex adaptive living systems to expand their intelligences, it is natural – not artificial – that the GPS of city intelligences evolutionarily matures.

This seems fundamental to what Clare Graves proposed as a Never Ending Quest. Perhaps most people have considered that quest would be a simple (or merely complicated) linear unfolding, because when we look back at evolution it looks like we move in a fairly straightforward way from one level of complexity to another – until the quantum leap into Tier 2.

But anyone who studies complexity seriously, knows there are non-linear bifurcations and jumps in the capacity of evolving systems that are exponential in effect. So when we seek to connect the system to more of itself, “simply” to enable greater wellbeing, a natural effect is bound to be an exponential emergence of capacity aka intelligence.

So I think that this path of “artificial” outcomes is actually quite natural. Nevertheless, it is categorically on a different level of complexity and therefore merits a new descriptor. I might suggest Amplified intelligence? Quantum intelligence?

Whatever name we give it, this intelligence is ALIVE and it calls us to be more of who we have been in an AQAL way. Clare Graves would point to our life conditions and the dissonance they are causing in our lives – necessitating learning on a scale and at a speed that has never been necessary or possible before.

I am grateful to Evolutionary Leader Deepak Chopra for publishing this article on Artificial Intelligence that enumerates in considerable detail recent manifestations of intelligence (related to healing and wellbeing) at a new order of magnitude. The examples he points to include:

1. AI Imitates Science
2. Microbiome
3. CRSPR Gene Editing
4. Messenger RNA
5. Psychedelics
6. Epigenetics
7. Neuroplasticity
8. Vagal Activation
9. Creative Intelligence

Let me use Chopra’s exploration to examine the 12 Intelligences that I first wrote about for cities in Book 1: Integral City, Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive (described on the website here ) . They are embedded in the Integral City Global Positioning System (GPS) – clustered into 5 Sets of intelligences that are pictured as bezels on the GPS Finder: Contexting, Strategic, Individual, Collective, Evolutionary.   

Figure 1: Integral City GPS

How Are 12 Integral City Intelligences Amplified?

Let us consider how these 12 Intelligences are impacted by the technologies that Chopra points to. Then we might have a chance to consider the implications for Cities of amplified intelligence. (See Table 1).

Table 1: Integral City Intelligences & Chopra Artificial Intelligences

(Note for detailed descriptions of the Integral City intelligences connect to the website here (https://integralcity.com/voices-intelligences/).)

Integral City: 12 Amplified Intelligences

When we look at the city’s Intelligences and consider how AI as explored by Chopra (Medium x) let us consider how just 2 to 3 impacts (indicated by Cn for Chopra n in the table above)  will recalibrate the intelligence certainly to a digital capacity (If not a quantum capacity).

Contexting (Bezel 5)

Contexting Intelligences include Ecosphere, Emergent, Integral, Living.

Ecosphere

Ecosphere intelligence is an awareness and capacity to respond to the realities of a city’s climate and eco-region environment. More… We can amplify Ecosphere intelligence when AI looks like it is imitating sentience (C1) . This might get translated into digital and quantum dashboards that enable all City Voices to know what is happening everywhere all at once. Likewise the impact of the microbiome (c2) in individual awakening can be translated through the collectives to influence the type of food and health resourcing that will flow through the city’s intelligent distribution system. In a supportive way, becoming aware through mapping of the effect of epigenetics (C6) in individuals and collectives can help a city to heal from traumatic impacts and create life conditions that enable all life to thrive.

Emergent

Emergent intelligence looks at the city as a whole, through the lenses of, aliveness, survival, adaptiveness, regeneration, sustainability and emergence. More… Using the supercomputing power of AI to use CRISPR gene (C3) editing means that a city can create life conditions for improving the immunity of individuals and the collective. This could translate across the many cultures in our large cities to enable all human life to have improved (if not equal) access to optimal gene performance.  In a similar fashion the success of mRNA Vaccines (C4) could lead to an era where diseases are both prevented and cured with the benefit of supercomputing health systems accessible by all. And the amazing power of neuroplasticity (C7) can not only repair the damage on brain cells of individuals, but reframe the city’s capacity to see itself as having high flexibility and responsiveness to its overall intelligence (aka hive mind?).

Integral

Integral intelligence uses four essential maps of city life to see the whole city. More…The power and attractiveness of psychedelics (c5) to reveal and restore the wholistic fractal nature of humans as individuals, collectives, cities and a whole planet opens up the viability of living Gaia’s Code of Care – embracing care for self, others and cities/places – because we gain deep experience of beings evolved by Gaia to be her reflective organs (Lovelock). This in turn is supported by the deep insights of neuroplasticity (C7) to enable the tetra-arising of all AQAL capacities in the Integral City.

Living

Living intelligence relates to the aliveness of each citizen through each of its lifecycle stages and the aliveness of the city through its lifecycle stages. More…With our cities now containing 7 generations – every decision we make impacts an ancestry and a succession of interrelationships. As explored above every version of Chopra’s AI from C1 to C7 will amplify the intelligences of the Integral City. Looking at C7 Vagal Activation we can see that this Living Intelligence will be enhanced by patterns that flow through individual nervous systems so that we influence the energetic fields of all our collectives and the city as a whole. Both the design of the city (through Structural Intelligence – see below) and behaviours that we share at all interactions/interrelationships/interbeingness of the city will open up doors to calm stressed states and enable Peace as an Intelligence that is an outcome of optimizing all the intelligences. Likewise Creativity (C9) will be naturally nourished and amplified by the enactment of the AI’s through yogic practices and creative expressions.

Strategic (Bezel 4)

Strategic Intelligences include Inquiry, Meshworking, Navigating.

Inquiry

Inquiry intelligence asks key questions that reveal the meta-wisdom of the city. More…Strategic Intelligences are headlined by the Inquiry Intelligence because a city that inquires about its state of being/becoming through asking good questions from all Integral Quadrants (see IC Book 2) positions itself to use science (C1), reveal more of the whole through natural psychedelics (C5) and repair and respond to life conditions through applying the principles of neuroplasticity (C7) to the whole city. This will enable wellbeing and resilience.

Meshworking

Meshworking intelligence attracts the best of two operating systems- one that self-organizes, and the other that replicates hierarchal structures – to align systems that flex and flow. More…As Meshworking arises from the brain sciences, perhaps this is the most natural IC Intelligence to reflect the value of AI?( C1), Imitating science will transmute into science that explains structures plus (C9) Creativity that enables self-organizing – and Meshworking will become a pervasive, natural dance that amplifies city capacity to serve Gaia as her Reflective Organ(s) and together an Organ System that is naturally and continuously amplifying itself.

Navigating

Navigating intelligence monitors and discloses the wellbeing or general condition of the city. More…This intelligence is naturally aligned to the Emergent Intelligence (discussed above) aligning (C1, C3, C4, C5, C7) for intelligences that flex and flow because of their interconnectivity and inter-impact on one another. This will enable quantum navigation that is as intuitively creative as it is patterned and systematized.

Individual (Bezel 3)

Individual Intelligences include Inner, Outer.

Inner

Inner intelligence is ‘I’ space of the citizen – the seat of intentional consciousness, attention, interior experience and lines of development. More…Inner Intelligence can be impacted by all the Outer AI but will particularly reflect the effect of neuroplastic flexibility, Vagal calming and Creative insights. (C7, C8, C9) The application of AI to individuals is resulting in a Renaissance of quantum intelligence that differentiates those who engage/are exposed to AI from those who are separated from it. But demonstrating its rapid uptake where conditions allow it, means AI can provide the bridge to accelerate the reduction of individual differences (instead of the alternative which focuses on the widening gap.) Such application of equal justice will become a practise in Integral Cities and will differentiate their performance – and also model the possibilities.

Outer

Outer intelligence is the biological ‘it’ space of the citizen- the space where the body acts and behaves. More…Much of the AI noted by Chopra applies directly to the human body. (C1,2,3,4,6,7,8). If all of the recalibration that these AI’s permitted were enabled and invested in, the health and wellbeing of the human species would take a quantum leap through healing, repair, recovery and recalibration. These behaviours would underlie a new era of Peace and Unity in cities because so much of the cause of stress can be addressed by these AI practices.

Collective (Bezel 2)

Collective Intelligences include Cultural, Social.

Cultural

Cultural intelligence represents the ‘we’ life of the city-the relationships in the city which transcend boundaries that both contain and separate. More…Collective intelligences of the inner lives of people, reflect the cumulative practices of the inner lives of individuals. Where these groups become cohesive (developing affiliations with former tribes, work places, nomadic links, work places) then the spread of AI to individuals will be accelerated while the resonance, coherence and emergence amongst affiliated groups will co-arise. (C5, 7, 9) offer great possibilities through deep dives through psychedelics, demystifying neuroplasticity and investment in creativity that is shared city-wide. The application of the Chopra AI’s within a city can mature an Integral City into Tier 2 capacities that model for whole eco-regions the improvement of life conditions across the city – and not just reserved for elites or ethnic enclaves.

Social

Social intelligence is the ‘its’ space of the city that gives us the capacity, to structure and systemize our environment. More…Like the Outer Intelligence of Individuals the Structural Intelligences is perhaps optimally positioned to benefit from the AI accelerations from (C1,2,3,4,6,7,9) – partly because we tend in cities to focus on the structural Lower Right quadrants of systems and structures. But AI shows us how these need to be designed and implemented with the deep intelligence that AI can offer so that we can actually test out our new patterns and structures to see how they optimize all the other intelligences in the city. The Structural Intelligence supported by Chopra’s AI’s can create the vessel that optimizes the conditions for Humaning Well in the City not because it dominates all other AI’s or Intelligences – but because it is responsive to them and co-creates the conditions for optimal Aliveness for all life in the Integral City.

Evolutionary: Bezel 1

Evolutionary Intelligence is the core evolutionary impulse empowering all intelligences.

Evolutionary intelligence is the capacity to transcend and include the intelligences, we currently demonstrate, in order to allow new intelligences to emerge. More…This cardinal intelligence is the one that embraces all the AI’s (C1-9) precisely because it represents both the Evolutionary Impulse that lies underneath every other Integral City Intelligence and every manner of manifesting Amplified Intelligence. It is both summative and transcendent; complex and emergent; nascent and future oriented. Effectively it represents the Cosmic conditions that enable the arising of intelligence in the first place and the expansion of intelligence as the Universe unfolds for every living system.

Conclusion

By examining the Integral City Intelligences in syntony with the Chopra Artificial Intelligence Set we create a scaffold for applauding, nourishing and encouraging the amplification of all Intelligences. We also open an inquiry into how Integral City Intelligences will be amplified by many other expansive living intelligences that are arriving from the discoveries of the Intergalactic Telescopes, Hadron Collider and Deep Evolutionary Cosmologies (like Jude Currivan’s The Story of Gaia).

As we use the GPS tool/metaphor in this expanded way, we are essentially recalibrating it from an analogue through a digital to a quantum GPS.

And this gives us Power way beyond domination of self/other/places/planet or even expressed as co-creating with self/other/places/planet. It gives us Power to co-exist AS self/other/places/planet. We learn deeply we are part of Nature. And  Life asks us to continue to Evolve and Amplify so that Aliveness is a benefit for all Life, seen and unseen.

References

Chopra https://deepakchopra.medium.com/nine-ways-that-ai-is-going-to-triumph-daae8d62c5f

Graves, Clare

Integral City: https://integralcity.com/voices-intelligences/

Hamilton Book 1

Hamilton Book 2

Hamilton M, Sanders B (2013a) Integral City 2.0 – Online Conference 2012. In: M. Hamilton (ed.), Proceedings: A Radically Optimistic Inquiry Into Operating System 2.0 http://www.scribd.com/doc/120713339/Integral-City-2-0-Online-Conference-2012-A-Radically-Optimistic-Inquiry-into-Operating-System-2-0. Accessed Sept. 5, 2023

Hamilton M. et al (2013b) Integral City 2.0 – Online Conference 2012. In: M. Hamilton (ed.), Appendices: A Radically Optimistic Inquiry Into Operating System 2.0—36 Interviews http://www.scribd.com/doc/123005653/Integral-City-2-0-Online-Conference-2012-Appendices-A-Radically-Optimistic-Inquiry-into-Operating-System-2-0-36-Interviews. Accessed Sept.5, 2023

Por, George https://technoshaman.medium.com/from-eies-to-ais-in-the-city-f392b0213905

Wilber, Ken