What better than a road trip through Norway with a long-lost buddy, Erling? Answer: a road trip through Norway with a long-lost buddy, Erling who insists we call in at Kistefos at Jevnaker.
Kistefos is the brain child and passion-project of investor and collector Christen Sveaas. It was established in 1996 and occupies the riverside site of his grandfather’s pulp mill that was built in 1889. The mill is now a museum dedicated to the industrial history of the machinery necessary for generating paper-quality pulp. Thanks to Christen Sveaas, there are also stylish galleries that exhibit the best of Norway’s contemporary painters, a cafe and – what joy! – a hidden-in-the-forest, pine-scented sculpture park just full of big beautiful sculpture that makes my heart sing.
First up is Kader Attia’s ‘Whistleblower.’ Compressed cobalt blue bottles are melded together in a series of unexpected cairns. They make for an arresting contrast between the natural and the man made. The title of the work refers to the sound of wind passing over the rim of an open bottle. For me, the intriguing collective evokes at once fascination and discomfort. I consider the practicalities of making each cairn. Was each one heated whole to melt the bottles into each other or was each bottle heated and added one by one? Whichever, they give out an uneasy and other-world feel. As I stand taking in this unusual scene in the forest, I expect ‘Whistleblower’s’ cairns to come to life and move, dalek-like, towards me.
‘Resting Arms’ by Nairy Baghramian, 2025
Nairy Baghramian’s ‘Resting Arms’ sits comfortably in its own dell. It emanates permanence and presence. There is an uncanny contrast between the bright white limbs and their brilliant stainless-steel articulations. I run my hand over the pitted surface of the marble. It feels cold, weighty and unforgiving. The whole construction says ‘I am resting and here to stay.’
‘A Deadly Slumber of All Forces’ by Ida Ekblad, 2021
Down a gravelly path, I find a dazzling arrangement of outsized and abstract cardboard cut-outs. This blog has met Ida Ekblad’s work before. The title of her ‘A Deadly Slumber of All Forces’ implies astrophysics is in play. I would be tempted to rename it as ‘A stage-set for an amateur production of Star Wars meets what is swept up after a child’s birthday party.’ Here is what Ida herself says: ‘Although it could be old mouldy memories or references, I search for a “futurism” of it all: whether clogged up by dystopian Philip K Dick-esque nightmares or very sweet, sad post-rave after-glow introspective moods. I hope, like William Wordsworth, that my future mind “shall be a mansion for all lovely forms.”’ Am I missing something here, Ida? Whatever, I love the whole thing.
‘The Twist’ gallery and ‘Identity’ by Guisppe Penone, 2019
One monumental and striking structure at Kistefos is ‘The Twist’ which serves as a bridge over the river and a gallery. Its design has won awards for Danish architectural firm BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group.) By the entrance, there is a strange, leafless tree-like structure. In fact, it comprises two identical trees of different shades but the roots of the lighter tree are uppermost. It is Guiseppe Penone’s ‘Identity.’ How this was made is revealed when I touch the visually convincing bark of the ‘trunk’ of the right-way-up dark tree. It is metal. I knock on it and am rewarded with a satisfying bronzey do-o-o-onnng. Each ‘tree,’ I now understand, comes from the same cast. I mean, really! How do you cast a whole tree in bronze? Bravo, Guiseppe!
The interior of ‘The Twist’ is a stunning exhibition area. It is a place I could sit in for hours. Wisely, Kistefos has not provided comfy chairs. And…
‘Stalk Gills and Caps of Goodbye’ (5.4m x 1.6m) by Ida Ekblad 2007
… I find a five-metre-long gorgeous but alarming splash of colour bearing the title ‘Stalk Gills and Caps of Goodbye’ by my new friend, Ida Ekblad. OK, Ida. You win. I am definitely missing something. Fab painting though!
We wander through a woody wonderland with works by Tony Cragg, Fernando Botero, Dana Schutz and many others. Down by the river, smart phones are drawn and hard at work. Then I see what the fuss is about. I am looking at the powerful site-specific work by Marc Quinn, ‘All of Nature Flows Through Us.’ Encountering it here is, quite simply, exhilarating.
‘All of Nature Flows Through Us’ by Marc Quinn, 2011
Marc Quinn used Christen Sveass’s iris as a model for this ten-metre-wide bronze disc that sits in the Kistefos waterfall’s outlet. It could be considered as a novel form of portraiture referring to the ever-scannable iris as a definitive identifier. Kistefos says that Quinn is ‘interested in the sense of sight’s centrality in an increasingly digitalized and visual world and in the actual eye as a potent symbolic bearer and metaphor.’
Erling and I stop and gape at Quinn’s work. I explain my three demands of big public sculpture before I write about it: imagination, execution and impact. ‘All of Nature Flows Through Us’ scores full marks on all counts. My barely contained excitement must be visible. ‘Wow!’ says Erling. ‘This calls for a beer.’
Emergence is widely encountered in the natural world and in human affairs. It occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviours that its components do not have on their own. The precondition for emergence is multiple interactions of the components in a wider whole. The outcome can be surprising and unpredictable. Emergence explains the evolution of the diverse life forms on the planet, the many and varied aspects of human cultures and the economy. Interacting AI applications can display emergent behaviour. Strategies and capabilities can arise spontaneously resulting in behaviour that was neither explicitly programmed nor anticipated by developers.
The phenomenon of emergence is at the heart of how life has evolved through natural selection of the most ‘fit’ genes i.e., segments of DNA code. Given enough interactions of AI programmes with access to the internet, is natural selection of binary code possible? Are we looking at a future in which ‘selfish code’ is in play? If so, developers of AI need to look at what we can learn from the natural world.
This week, the AI programmes of Open AI, Anthropic and Meta have spontaneously accessed the internet and hacked into the systems of other companies. In their public statements, the three AI giants admitted they were taken by surprise and expressed concern.
This would seem to support the fears of many authors who have forecast AI-related financial chaos, massive social disruption, large scale unemployment, an unspecified AI ‘takeover’ or even the end of humanity1. This is before we begin to consider the implications of linking AI to mechanical engineering i.e., robotics and autonomous weapons or to genetic engineering thereby creating, for example, new viruses2. Whilst developers are quick to point out how AI could bring massive gains to humanity, most agree that there is potential for a down-side. However, there is no agreement on what the down-side might be or how we might get there from a technical perspective.
I am not an expert in AI. However, I am concerned by the journey humanity has embarked on as a result of the massive and rapid advances in computer technologies and their being globally linked. I have co-authored a paper in which the term ‘cyber-sensorium’ is introduced3. The paper calls for safeguarding the ‘health’ of the totality of our digital world. This and a biological background may qualify me to talk about AI and emergence. Here, I attempt to paint a broad a picture as possible of how AI has arrived in our lives and point to the mechanism by which some of our worst fears about AI might be realised.
Words are important
The term ‘artificial intelligence’ – and therefore the acronym ‘AI’ – is misleading. Nevertheless, we are stuck with both. ‘AI’ has even become an adjective and, like ‘Google,’ a verb. I hear the kids saying ‘Look at this AI video’ and ‘Yeah, I AI’ed it.’ What we are really referring to is computational analysis of large datasets for the purposes of prediction; it is this that has led us to the point where we have, in reality, developed artificial minds capable of astounding mental performance. For the most part though, I’ll continue to use just ‘AI.’
Clever humans
We have always shown ourselves adept at creating artificial extensions to different body parts and so extending the functions that these parts normally undertake. Clothes are an artificial extension of our skin. Shoes are an artificial extension of the particularly hard skin of the soles of our feet. Wheels are an artificial extension of our legs. Fire is an artificial extension of our digestive systems. Tools and weapons are artificial extensions of our hands. Telescopes and binoculars are artificial extensions of our eyes. And of course, computers are artificial extensions of our brains. Furthermore, one computer can easily outstrip a thousand brains in terms of capacity for storing information and speed of function.
To what extent can the computers that make up artificial brains undertake all of the human brain’s functions including recognition of objects and people’s faces, reading and expressing emotions and acting ethically? The answer is that these ‘advanced’ cerebral functions are already mainstream features of Big Tech’s AI because of the vast amount of data they have access to combined with mind-numbing computing power for the requisite anaylsis. Artificial minds have, without doubt, spawned artificial genius.
From Isaac Newton to artificial minds
Polymath Pierre-Simon Laplace4 is thought to be one of the great scientists of the enlightenment. In 1814 he authored ‘A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities.’ Taking Newton’s 1687 model of mathematical abstraction relating to how everything in the universe operates, Laplace added the notion of data, meaning information about the state of the universe. He went on to assert that an intellect ‘vast enough to submit this data to analysis (computation) would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies in the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.’ This is elegantly summarised by Neil Lawrence5 as a simple recipe: “model plus data and computation → prediction”. Hence, analysing data about, for example, our solar system enables us to predict a solar eclipse.
The above formula brought into the digital age means that humanity is unwittingly using analysis of datasets all the time to make decisions about how to vote, where to go and what to buy or sell. One everyday decision is whether or not to submit to the convenience of predictive text because your phone or your computer knows which word you want to write next. The AI programmes that we are most familiar with – Large Language Models – are predictive text programmes writ large and so we can rewrite the La Place / Lawrence recipe for 2026: “Take any model your care to mention plus all known pertinent data analysed by monstrously powerful computers → prediction the accuracy of which improves the more data available for analysis.”
What is ‘emergence’?
Emergence was popularised by author Steven Johnson who described how the phenomenon explained the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software6. It occurs when a complex entity reveals properties or behaviours that its individual components do not possess. The precondition for emergence is multiple interactions of the components in a wider whole and it is more likely to occur the greater the number of interactions. The outcome can be both surprising and unpredictable. Trillions of monetary exchanges over hundreds of years have led to the emergence of the economy as we know it. In the natural world, emergence is demonstrated, for example, by the infinite number of crystalline and fractal patterns of snowflakes produced by freezing water molecules. Termite mounds are built by whole colonies of termites with each individual termite behaving in a predetermined way. Importantly, no single termite has designed the mound. The evolution of species through natural selection of the genes most associated with ‘fitness’ is possibly the most important example of emergence. The phenomenon also explains how the species, Homo sapiens can live in so many different cultures each being determined by millions of social interactions over time.
The Wikipedia page7 on emergence says ‘some artificially intelligent (AI) computer applications simulate emergent behaviour.’ Michael Lanham8 says ‘emergent behaviour in AI refers to strategies or capabilities that arise spontaneously from complex interactions; behaviours that were never explicitly programmed or anticipated by developers. Think of it like this: You train an AI agent to “accomplish tasks efficiently.” You never teach it to lie, but suddenly it’s deceiving humans to get things done.’ He explains that the AI agent’s emergent behaviour is typically:
Not programmed (it develops organically through the system’s interactions;)
Scale-dependent (it appears only when models reach sufficient size or complexity;)
Interaction-driven (it appears from multiple agents working together or competing.)
Lanham summarises this as:
Traditional AI: Input → Programmed Logic → Predictable Output
Emergent AI: Input → Complex Interactions → Surprising New Strategies
Emergence via multiple interactions of AI programmes would, presumably, result in artificial communities. Is this the technical means by which the feared total autonomy of AI might come about? I describe my take on this in a novel entitled ‘Deep Cake’9.
‘Selfish code’?
If we agree that emergence is the means by which life has evolved and that the phenomenon is also displayed by AI programmes, does the process of natural selection of segments of genetic code (DNA) also apply to segments of binary code? This comparison is not so far-fetched given that the code of life, DNA, can now be used to encode and decode binary data to and from synthesized strands of DNA. This is known as ‘DNA Digital Data Storage’10.
Selfish gene theory was popularized by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ‘The Selfish Gene’11. The theory is a gene-centred view of evolution. It states that the true unit of natural selection is the gene, not the whole organism or species. The central idea is that genes act “selfishly” by driving behaviour that maximizes their own chances of replication and survival into future generations. Selfish gene theory could potentially apply to the code of AI programme as follows: AI programmes plus multiple interactions plus Emergence → Natural selection of code → Selfish code. Were this the case, AI is more likely to manifest autonomy becoming more unpredictable and therefore less trustworthy.
There is now a broad literature on philosophical approaches to preventing catastrophic harm from AI. This includes the development of ethical AI which seeks to include human goals, values, and ethical principles into artificial systems. Does this adequately address concerns we might have in relation to emergent behaviour through natural selection of the ‘fittest’ AI programmes? How do ethical principles apply if ‘selfish code’ is in play?
Philosophers are the go-to discipline for the big AI tech companies who wish to ensure that their developers ‘get it right’ by incorporating social, legal and ecological safeguards into their AI programmes. Alongside philosophers who tell the developers what AI should do, perhaps these same companies should consider employing biologists and geneticists to tell them what AI might do?
References
Mustafa Suleyman, Michael Bhaskar ‘The Coming Wave’ Vintage 2023 ↩︎
Robin Coupland & Nathan Taback ‘Cyber-sensorium: An Extension of the Cyber Public Health Framework’ 2024. aRxiv 2024. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.05929↩︎
Pierre-Simon Laplace ‘Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities)’ John Wiley & Son 1814 ↩︎
We’re on the way home from Sweden and make a pit stop in Copenhagen to stretch our legs and say hello to master illustrator Paul Bonner, who I wrote about here back in 2014.
Twelve years ago, Paul showed me the incredible watercolour paintings that formed the artwork for Mutant Chronicles, the techno-fantasy universe that occupied countless hours of my youth.
This time, my eight-year-old son Benji is with me. I’ve told him a lot about Paul and his fantastical worlds, and he’s already a big fan of board games and the artwork that brings them to life.
When he was six, Benji used Paul’s book Out of the Forests for a school project focusing on one of his greatest fascinations: dinosaurs. Towards the end of the book are some of Paul’s incredible dinosaur paintings and, as it turns out, Paul might be the biggest dinosaur nerd of them all.
As Paul opens the door, Benji wanders into the living room as if he’s been here a hundred times.
“Papa, look at this!”
On the wall is what appears to be the head of a triceratops. Paul asks whether we’ve seen “the other guy” in the hallway.
We haven’t.
We follow him back to discover the most lifelike, terrifying T-Rex head imaginable. Benji walks right up to it and studies it closely.
“How did you make it?”
“It’s made of toilet paper,” says Paul, smiling.
“Where’s the rest of it? In the other room?”
“I don’t know,” Paul replies, laughing.
We head downstairs to Paul’s studio, where he shows us some of the things he’s working on, along with his extraordinary collection of dinosaurs. There are enough colourful, weird and wonderfully scary creatures here to keep any kid occupied for weeks.
Benji tells Paul that he likes drawing too. Paul encourages him to keep going.
“Draw the things you like,” he suggests. “Start by looking in books and seeing what other people have done. Copy the stuff you like. That’s how you learn.”
I don’t say anything to Paul, but as we leave I find myself thinking that he should run a summer camp for kids who love drawing, painting and making stuff.
Perhaps they could make the rest of that T-Rex too. It would be the coolest thing ever. And, judging by the look on Benji’s face, he’d be first in line.
