Seminar: An ecological and evolutionary view of how 21st Century technologies might influence human lives and evolution
- Date: Apr 29, 2025
- Time: 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Robert Brooks
- Location: Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin
- Room: Large Conference Room
- Host: Center for Humans and Machines
- Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures
In a recent paper I asked “How Might Artificial Intelligence Influence Human Evolution?” It became clear to me that I needed to understand the evolutionary question I needed to engage more deeply with the underlying ecological interactions between humans and other technologies, and this talk is part of me trying to give shape to that ambition. I take the approach that many humans today live in a machine-rich ecosystem, and a fast-growing portion of those machines include artificial intelligence. To thrive, our ancestors sought to understand the diverse and interacting animal and plant species they encountered. These ecological interactions with other organisms, including other humans, shaped humanity’s biological and cultural evolution. I argue that by adopting the open curiosity of naturalists, and the scientific tools of ecologists and evolutionary biologists, we can gain an understanding AI diversity in form and in function, and find useful new ways to think about technology‘s effects on human lives and ongoing biological and cultural evolution. The examples I discuss will draw on ecological understandings of within- and between-species competition, predation, mutualism, parasitism, and friendship/alliance formation.
Rob Brooks is a behavioural ecologist and evolutionary biologist by background, who spent the first part of his career studying the evolution of lifespan and ageing, and the tensions between cooperation and conflict that make sex, reproduction and family life so complex. Having discovered that these ideas have much to offer in understanding the interpersonal and societal complexities of human behaviour, he gradually moved toward studying humans. In his popular writing, and leading the UNSW “Grand Challenges” interdisciplinary program, he found the most exciting thing happening in human behaviour was the fast moving changes in technology. Which is how he came to be where he is, a stranger in a largely unfamiliar discipline.
His first book, Sex, Genes & Rock ’n’ Roll: How Evolution has Shaped the Modern World (2011, NewSouth), won the 2012 Queensland Literary Award for Science Writing. His second, Artificial Intimacy: Visual Friends, Digital Lovers and Algorithmic Matchmakers considered the impact of new developments in robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence on human social and sexual behaviour. Recently, he has turned much of his energy to writing a Substack called Natural History of the Future.
Rob Brooks is a behavioural ecologist and evolutionary biologist by background, who spent the first part of his career studying the evolution of lifespan and ageing, and the tensions between cooperation and conflict that make sex, reproduction and family life so complex. Having discovered that these ideas have much to offer in understanding the interpersonal and societal complexities of human behaviour, he gradually moved toward studying humans. In his popular writing, and leading the UNSW “Grand Challenges” interdisciplinary program, he found the most exciting thing happening in human behaviour was the fast moving changes in technology. Which is how he came to be where he is, a stranger in a largely unfamiliar discipline.
His first book, Sex, Genes & Rock ’n’ Roll: How Evolution has Shaped the Modern World (2011, NewSouth), won the 2012 Queensland Literary Award for Science Writing. His second, Artificial Intimacy: Visual Friends, Digital Lovers and Algorithmic Matchmakers considered the impact of new developments in robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence on human social and sexual behaviour. Recently, he has turned much of his energy to writing a Substack called Natural History of the Future.
Alternatively, join online:
Meeting ID: 316 424 190 165
Passcode: ME2d6Bb9