AI & SOCIETY (2023) 38:1809–1811

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01759-1

EDITORIAL

AI & society, knowledge, culture and communication

Satinder P. Gill1

Accepted: 15 August 2023 / Published online: 19 September 2023

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

Volume 38.5 Kinds?’, reflecting that the deepest form of tacit is wisdom.
Part I: Special Issue—Tacit Knowledge-Shaping AI This echoes Mike Cooley’s idea in Architect or Bee? The
Futures Human Price of Technology (1987), where wisdom is a pre-
Editorial Part 1—Tacit Knowledge-Shaping AI Futures requisite for positive action: 'Data suitably organised and
In 2019, The conference on Tacit Engagement in the Dig- acted upon may become information, and information that
ital Age (Re-Network CRASSH and Music Faculty, Cam- is absorbed, understood and applied by people may become
bridge) challenged a supposed neutrality associated with knowledge. Knowledge frequently applied in a domain may
technology, evidenced in the idea that human ‘intelligence’ become wisdom, and wisdom the basis for [normative] posi-
can, in the absence of ‘person’, be artificially re-presented, tive action.'1
re-constructed and re-produced through computation (AI). The poster for the conference ‘Tacit Engagement in the
The conference explored different ways in which the inter- Digital Age’ (Fig. 1) based on designer Michael Byrne’s
play of the arts and sciences is questioning what an ‘intelli- research on ageing dancers reminds us that a key way knowl-
gence’ that is ‘artificial’ might be resituating the purpose and edge is mediated is via the body. When an elderly prima bal-
possibilities of the technologies we are creating as above all, lerina demonstrates a step to a younger prima ballerina, the
human phenomena. Some of the questions posed included: older woman’s movements appear more subtly communica-
tive and graceful than the younger dancer’s, which, although
• How can we reconceive the self as interaction in a digital as skillful in technique, are not as personally inhabited.
age? The conference brought together people from the arts,
• Can performance be a paradigm of knowledge? performance arts, humanities, as well as sciences and AI,
• How can we reconsider the relation between a person and and we will discuss some of the ideas from the conference
a collective intelligence? and papers resulting from it in this special issues. From
• How is it possible to trust in the shadows of machine dance, Ghislaine Boddington (this volume), in her paper
thinking? on The Internet of Bodies, explores how to bring the body
• What alternative models might allow humans to better into digitally disembodied interaction addressing concerns
engage with technology? with how the body is being mined as a source of data, e.g.,
via apps and implants. The difference between our physical
These are issues that come up more and more with the and data selves is ‘liveness’: as live beings we are always
growing virtual worlds we inhabit with others, with con- “on”, yet technology has an “off” button. However, as we
stant movement between physical and online presence, connect, comment, click ‘like’, request, and receive in vir-
particularly the limits of AI, and the design of ‘collective tual networks, we become addicted to our ‘hyper-sensory
intelligence’. NESTA’s CEO at the time, Geoff Mulgan (see selves’ and ‘forget’ that we can turn the digital off. Could
recording at https://​www.​crassh.​cam.​ac.​uk/​events/​28385/), blending virtual and physical presence as collective action
opened the conference discussion asking ‘How can Collec- help us manage ourselves and avoid this addiction? This
tive Intelligence Orchestrate Tacit Knowledge of Different is explored in a discussion on participatory installations
which only come alive with the physical togetherness of
* Satinder P. Gill participants. Artists are challenging the mining of our body
spg12@cam.ac.uk as data, re-appropriating our relationship to our personal
body data, questioning who owns it, has rights to use it, and
1
Managing Editor, AI & Society, Centre for Music
1
and Science, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, Cooley, M. (1987a), Architect or Bee. Hogarth Press [new edition],
Cambridge, UK p11. cf. cybernetics, see Wiener (1949).

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1810 AI & SOCIETY (2023) 38:1809–1811

between human and machine allows for emergence of forms

of tacit engagement between participants.
Another approach from the arts is the Internet of Living
Things. In their paper on Art, Technology and Living Things,
Vibeke Sorensen and Stephen Lansing (this volume) discuss
how we are now transitioning from the Internet of Things
to the Internet of Living Things where ethics and aesthetics
and empathy are deeply entwined. This is enacted through
their installations that investigate and engage us using tech-
nology in the arts to reflect on our shifting cultures and our
impacts on the natural world. For example, an Internet of
living things garment, the Tree Dress, consists of digital
panoramic photographs of a living tropical tree in Singapore
which are printed onto sustainable silk, wearable technol-
ogy, and embedded systems. LEDs and circuits are inserted
into the dress, displaying the continuous measurement of the
O2/CO2, temperature, humidity, and light conditions of the
tree in real time. An app allows the wearer and networked
participants to track the data, and be constantly aware of
the tree’s condition. This work communicates real-time
scientific data and translates it into a poetic representation
Fig. 1  Poster design by Michael Byrne, whilst he was a Performance through wrapping onto the human body. It was intended
and Technology Research Fellow, Cornell University to catalyse empathy with human beings and the trees they
depend upon, and to help bring attention to this delicate and
who controls that usage; issues now at the forefront of the crucial relationship.
data ethics debate. In the UK, our experience of COVID- These are some of the examples of works presented at the
19 contact-tracing apps raised public awareness of how our conference that brought the arts, science, and technologies
personal body data are attached to our identity, raising non- together as ensembles of humans, the digital, and our envi-
transparency issues on its usage. ronment, reframing what technology means and its purpose
Such virtual physical blended presence with others may for a more humane, sustainable, and empathic co-existence
be considered a form of relational interaction. In his paper on that affords a tacit engagement that is ethic and aesthetic,
Writing on Water, Sha Xin-Wei (this volume) discusses how and dynamic.
much of contemporary AI systems are based on an abstract The arts themselves, e.g., Music, may be considered as
information-theoretic view of communication as transmis- forms of intuitive technology, where imagination is crucial,
sion and the universal machine of discrete states and discrete and may themselves be reconsidered as essential laborato-
rules. Human experience is reduced to fit this view, with ries for exploring and understanding our own present and
consciousness reduced to cognition and cognition reduced to future relationships with technology (See Jonathan Impett’s
problem solving; in sum, man’s behaviour becomes a physi- article on Music, Discourse and Intuitive Technology—this
cal symbol system. This leads to interfaces needing to define volume). For example, in networked music making, most
a-priori (that which pre-exists the event) schemas, e.g., cate- notably during the pandemic lockdowns, musicians have
gories of gestures according to which some gesture or move- had to handle and harness digitally mediated networks even
ment is acceptable for the interface (e.g., gesture interface) when they are out of sync due to latency and the uncertainty
to function. What might ‘relation’ and ‘interaction’ mean if that comes with this, and performing in multi-located spaces
instead of defining schemas of objects in the world (includ- with multiple authors performing together. Rebecca Wilson
ing gestures, vocal sounds, speech patterns, etc.), one thinks (this volume) discusses this in her paper, Becoming Latency
of the world as consisting in ‘dense responsive media’, e.g., Native: Strategies for Networked Music Performance, and
a field of sound—sound permeates all space, and can be how this has lead her to formulate a new aesthetics to sup-
treated as extended. A responsive field of time-based media port networked music making. Such discussion from the arts
can vary according to the activity of entities (people, plants, can inform all spheres of networked communication.
objects, etc.) immersed in or engaged with the field. As Sha A common theme emerging from the performing arts
says (in this volume), the water in a pool (field of sound) is that their creative process is a social endeavour and this
does its thing no matter how you wriggle your fingers, or participatory quality is a challenge to their datafication and
what you use to stir it. This ensemble approach to relation commodification. Stamatia Portanova (this volume) in her

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paper on Wonderland discusses examples of Artists who are how with the digital, the force of measurement, commodifi-
also challenging the self-automation that is occurring when cation, datafication and increasing individuation is fractur-
we have to use automated systems, e.g., New Aestheticists ing the social fabric of life and impacting our experience of
who seek to blur the human and machine and expropriate time. Time is becoming more dense, with lean production,
the control of data. and value for money, to the point where even walking back
As for designing automated systems, the assumption of and forth to pick up parts to be assembled in a work place is
perfect information when discussing moral dilemmas is ‘wasted’ time to be eliminated. Such transformation of time
not achievable, e.g., take the case of the automated car. In reduces the subjectively useful time needed for imagination
Towards and Epistemics of Autonomous Systems, Mihaly and creativity. This in its turn creates a form of psychosis.
Heder (this volume) argues that this problem arises, because Yet, humans have deeply rooted mechanisms of resistance
automated technology itself becomes opaque to any one and rebellion by virtue of the process of growing up and
designer in a design team due to great complexity and it becoming independent. This requires growth of awareness,
is not possible to design decisions to respond to all pos- so his challenge is how can society pursue the goal of mak-
sible human behaviour, e.g., in response to a moving car. Is ing us aware and foster these deep-rooted mechanisms.
it possible to have epistemic transparency of autonomous From a human centred perspective, Ignacio Nieto and
systems? Heder (this volume) proposes that rather than Marcelo Velasco’s paper (this volume) on Tacit Engagement,
providing ever more details of the design, we may just test Using Tablet-Mediated Learning For Social Good, power-
systems with human participation to see which systems the fully shows how mediated communication can bring together
users feel they can predict. This shifts the problem to an people with mental health conditions, who are otherwise
entirely new level that takes into account the tacit knowledge socially isolated, with geographically distributed family and
of the humans involved. The idea resonates with Sha’s idea those in the environment around them, to form a community.
of responsive media, mentioned earlier. Mental health issues they propose are a community issue.
Autonomy also assumes that causal reasoning can be This project blended online interaction with physically pre-
automated, and this was addressed with scepticism by phi- sent communication, working with women with psychiatric
losopher Melvin Chen (this volume), at the conference and conditions in a psychiatric institution and students at the
in his paper on Causal Reasoning and Meno’s Paradox. local school next to the institution. Collectiveness, external
We rely on tacit knowledge, as might be constituted by or environments and responsibility are separated from the pos-
derived from the epistemic faculty virtues and abilities of sible social fabric of people with mental health problems. It
the causal reasoner, the value systems and character traits is only by creating community that is inclusive can this gap
of the causal reasoner, the implicit knowledge base avail- be overcome and mental health alleviated. Could machine
able to the causal reasoner, and the habits that sustain our learning devices replace or be used in the place of a ‘person’
causal reasoning practises. In the event of confusion and to perform this? They are sceptical about this as evolving
uncertainty (e.g., when dealing with complex cases), any a community is a collective, co-adaptive process, and it is
final appeal should be made to our traditional storehouses of risky for the vulnerable person who is expecting support or
tacit knowledge: the domain experts themselves. attachment.
An outcome of reasoning is the judgement or decision. Being in community is also vital for us as social beings
In everyday life, we make judgments in which we trust our and it allows us to be both interconnected and to be in disa-
instinct, and instinct is developed through experience. Bo greement. There is a growing movement of artists and sci-
Goranzon (this volume), in Dialogue and Certainty, asks if entists creating labs, with the example of Marleen Wynants
we are still able to do so when we engage with the ‘certainty’ (this volume) Swamplab that brings together people from
of the machine? It was proposed that it is only our experi- across the artistic practises and disciplines to wonder
ence of the world that allows us to perceive the objects in it, together and be open to listen and reflect, play around, tinker,
but if we are always measuring the world, our senses would and be messy. All this is key to cracking resistance to hear
rely on this and never develop the skill of making judge- other view points and engage with different behaviours and
ments with certainty. Wittgenstein said of certainty of action re-appropriate our futures.
in a practise, ‘when I know how to act in every particular Satinder P Gill.
case, this means that I can act without hesitation, it is self-
Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
evident to me….. I can give no reason.’
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
But making judgements requires reflection and imagina-
tion. Garibaldo (this volume), in If I Cannot Move Heaven,
I Will Move Hell (from Virgil’s Aeneid, VII, 312), addresses

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