About this talk

Wittgenstein wrote: "If a lion could talk, we would not understand it". That is, as lions and humans are not of the same material, they could not say anything meaningful to each other. AI is not like us; the only way we can have a relationship with it is for us to become like it. We will look at how digital services are already making us machine-like; and, we explore how advanced AI-human fusions may undo our essential "humanness". With AI, public fears often latch onto the image of machines outpacing and overpowering us—grandmasters beaten at ancient games, or an entity analogous to the Tiger who Came to Tea, who we invite into our lives only to see it consume everything we are and have. Yet perhaps a greater threat is not that AI becomes our overlord, but that we become more like it—more optimised, machinic, patterned, predictable. This lecture reframes the conversation: what if the real danger is our assimilation into AI's world? The lecture explores three forms of assimilation: extreme assimilation through technological modification of bodies or brains; everyday assimilation through subtle reshaping by digital systems; and hybrid assimilation through external devices functioning as proxies for internal modification. It also discusses resistance and reorientation strategies.

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