There are plenty of studies of gossip as a social phenomenon, and there are computer science models of gossiping that allow for information distribution in system. There are even gossip learning systems that compete with or constitute alternatives to federated learning models. But here is a question I have not found any serious discussion about in the literature: what would it mean to gossip about an artificial intelligence? I tend to think that this would constitute a really interesting social turing test – and we could state it thus: ¨
(i) A system is only socially intelligent and relevant if it is the object of gossip or can be come the object of gossip.
This would mean that it is first when we confide in each-other what we heard about an AI that it has some kind of social existence. Intelligence, by the way, is probably the wrong word here — but the point remains. To be gossiped about is to be social in a very human way. We do not gossip about dogs or birds, we do not gossip about buildings or machines. We gossip about other subjects.
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This connects with a wider discussion about the social nature of intelligence, and how the model of intelligence we have is somewhat simplified. We tend to talk about intelligence as individual, but the reality is that it is a network concept, your intelligence is a function of the networks you exist in and are a part of. Not only, but partly.
I feel strongly, for example, that I am more intelligent in some sense because I have the privilege to work with outstanding individuals, but I also know that they in turn get to shine even more because they work with other outstanding individuals. The group augments the individual’s talents and shapes them.
That would be another factor to take into account if we are designing social intelligence Turing tests: does the subject of the test become more or less intelligent with others? Kasparov has suggested that man and a machine always beats machine – but that is largely because of the ability of man to adapt and integrate into a system. Would machine and machine beat machine? Probably not — in fact, you could even imagine the overall result there as negative! This quality – additive intelligence – is interesting.
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I have written elsewhere that we get stuck in language when we speak of artificial intelligence. That it would be better to speak of sophisticity or something like that – a new word that describes certain cognitive skills bundled in different ways. I do believe that would allow us a debate that is not so hopelessly antropocentric. We are collectively sometimes egomaniacs, occupied only with the question of how something relates to us.
Thinking about what bundles of cognitive skills I would include, then, I think the social additive quality is important, and maybe it is a cognitive skill to be able to be gossiped about, in some sense. Not a skill, perhaps, but a quality. There is something there, I think. More to explore, later.