Co-Humanism in the Bio-intelligent Age
Designing For Asymmetry in a Poly-intelligent World
Author’s Note
This reflection builds on my earlier exploration of nature’s intelligence as a stabilizing architecture under civilizational compression. While this piece engages directly with Michael Deittrick’s co-humanist framing, it also reflects a growing recognition that guidance alone is not sufficient in moments of systemic reorganization. As ecological limits, technological acceleration, and institutional fragility converge, the question is no longer only how intelligence is guided, but what enables systems to hold coherence through loss, constraint, and renewal. This reflection sits at that intersection.
We tend to talk about artificial intelligence as if intelligence itself were the breakthrough — as if the future hinges on how capable our machines become. Faster models. Broader pattern recognition. Greater automation.
Recently, Frank Diana offered a framing that shifts this conversation in an important way: we are entering a Biointelligence Age — not an age of singular intelligence, but one of polyintelligence.
Human intelligence.
Machine intelligence.
And the intelligence embedded in living systems.
That framing matters because intelligence has never been scarce. What is scarce is coherence between intelligences that operate at radically different scales, speeds, and logics — and do not meet on equal terms.
Intelligence Is Plentiful. Viability Is Not.
Living systems do not offer wisdom in the way humans seek it. They offer constraint.
Energy budgets. Material cycles. Feedback delays. Threshold effects. Redundancy rather than efficiency. These are not metaphors; they are operating conditions. Human systems can override them temporarily — through fossil fuels, globalized supply chains, algorithmic optimization — but they cannot repeal them.
This is how nature’s intelligence sets the conditions for viability. Not as a moral authority, but as a causal one.
Nature does not negotiate with efficiency targets.
It does not respond to quarterly incentives.
It does not optimize without consequence.
Corrections arrive late — and then all at once.
Polyintelligence Is Not a Partnership of Equals
Much AI discourse implicitly assumes symmetry: humans and machines coevolve, negotiate trade-offs, and adapt to one another. That logic breaks down the moment living systems enter the picture.
The relationship is not triadic in the sense of equal partners. It is asymmetric.
Machine intelligence adapts quickly, expands capability, and scales decisions.
Human intelligence interprets meaning, weighs values, and bears responsibility.
Living systems impose limits — regardless of intent, intelligence, or design.
One of these intelligences has veto power.
This is not a flaw in the framing. It is the central design challenge of the Biointelligence Age.
To design under polyintelligence is to design inside a system that will not renegotiate terms when thresholds are crossed — and that may require allowing certain forms to decay so that coherence can re-emerge.
Co-Humanism Still Matters — But Its Role Shifts
Michael Deittrick’s co-humanist framing remains essential here. Intelligence alone — human or artificial — is not sufficient. It must be shaped by intuition, introspection, imagination, and invention.
But in a polyintelligent world, these are no longer abstract virtues. They become disciplines humans must exercise precisely because the system they operate within is asymmetrical — and because not all systems will be preserved.
Intelligence helps us see patterns and trade-offs.
Intuition alerts us when metrics lag reality.
Introspection questions incentives before harm becomes systemic.
Imagination allows us to design futures that are not inherited by default.
Invention translates all of this into institutions, infrastructures, and daily life.
The Four I’s don’t govern nature’s ecosystems.
They govern how humans choose to act inside nature’s non-negotiable constraints — including when to let existing logics die.
What “Regenerative Ecosystems” Actually Mean
In this context, a regenerative ecosystem is not a metaphor and not a single governance model. It is an organizing logic with specific characteristics:
multiple actors with distributed agency
explicit ecological and social constraints
governance driven by feedback, not just forecasts
value creation oriented toward long-term system viability
Regeneration does not mean preserving existing structures. It means preserving the capacity for systems to reorganize without collapse becoming terminal.
This is where co-humanism meets ecological reality — and where guidance must coexist with release.
A Practical Shift: From Optimization to Viability
Consider global supply chains.
Machine intelligence optimizes routing, forecasting, and inventory.
Human intelligence manages trade-offs, cost, and risk.
Ecological constraints — energy intensity, climate volatility, material throughput — are treated as externalities.
The result is not immediate failure. It is fragility: systems that perform exceptionally well under normal conditions and fracture catastrophically under shock.
A polyintelligent lens doesn’t ask only, Can we optimize this further?
It asks, What conditions must remain intact for this system to continue functioning at all?
A polyintelligent alternative does not look like one prescription — slower shipping, regional production, or excess capacity — taken in isolation. It looks like systems designed to remain viable under non-negotiable ecological constraints. That often means selective slowdown where speed amplifies fragility, regional redundancy where concentration creates dependency, and visible excess capacity where optimization would otherwise erase resilience. These choices are not failures of intelligence, but expressions of maturity — trading peak performance for durability before living systems enforce the trade for us.
That shift — from performance to viability — is the regenerative move.
Ecological Maturity Is Not Harmony
Natural systems are not gentle. They are often brutal, wasteful, and indifferent to individual suffering. Regeneration is not about romantic alignment with nature.
It is about mature deviation:
resisting biological indifference with ethics
respecting biological constraints with humility
Ecological maturity shows up institutionally as the capacity to:
pause optimization when feedback signals risk
accept slower trajectories in exchange for durability
allow obsolete logics to decay while safeguarding essential functions
This is not an end state. It is a practiced capability — learned under pressure.
Closing: Designing Under Veto
The Biointelligence Age does not demand that we become less intelligent.
It demands that we become less naïve about intelligence itself.
Co-humanism governs how humans relate to machines.
Regenerative logic governs how intelligent systems remain coherent under constraint, loss, and renewal.
Invention, then, is not about building smarter tools — it is about building systems that know when not to optimize, when to slow down, when to listen, and when to adapt.
That is not artificial intelligence.
It is ecological maturity under asymmetric intelligence.
And it is the operating logic polyintelligence requires to endure.
Other Works
My Medium series: Shaping a Regenerative Future
Related tool: Regenerative Possibility Chains – A Primer on Pressure, Hinges, and Reconfiguration
Regarding polyintelligence, yes! That coherence point is absolutly brilliant.