The Conditions of Intelligence

Set Lonnert

ISBN 10: 9181143044 / ISBN 13: 9789181143041

Published by Bod - Books On Demand Jul 2026, 2026

About this Item

This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The Conditions of Intelligence traces artificial intelligence from its technical foundations to its philosophical, cultural, and political consequences. Beginning with the optimisation paradigm that drives modern AI, and its theoretical limits, the book asks what intelligence actually is, and what current systems demonstrably are not.The argument moves through four registers: the genuine capabilities and documented failure modes of large language models; the philosophical obstacles to alignment, among them value pluralism, Arrow's impossibility, and the hard problem of consciousness; the practical techniques that address part of those obstacles but not all; and the broader conditions, historical, cultural, geopolitical, in which AI development is taking place.Drawing on thinkers from Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt to Cajal, Chollet, and Quine, and examining traditions from Shinto ethics to Ubuntu philosophy, the book insists that AI is not only a technical problem. It is a question about what kind of intelligence we are building, for whom, under whose governance, and at what cost to labour, to the epistemic commons, and to the physical world.The answer is not yet known. The question is urgent. 240 pp. Englisch.

Seller Inventory # 9789181143041

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Conditions of Intelligence
• Publisher: Bod - Books On Demand Jul 2026
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9181143044
• ISBN 13: 9789181143041
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Edition: 3rd Edition
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 220W x 170H x 15D millimeters 220 millimeters width by 170 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 425 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The Conditions of Intelligence traces artificial intelligence from its technical foundations to its philosophical, cultural, and political consequences. Beginning with the optimisation paradigm that drives modern AI, and its theoretical limits, the book asks what intelligence actually is, and what current systems demonstrably are not. The argument moves through four registers: the genuine capabilities and documented failure modes of large language models; the philosophical obstacles to alignment, among them value pluralism, Arrow's impossibility, and the hard problem of consciousness; the practical techniques that address part of those obstacles but not all; and the broader conditions, historical, cultural, geopolitical, in which AI development is taking place. Drawing on thinkers from Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt to Cajal, Chollet, and Quine, and examining traditions from Shinto ethics to Ubuntu philosophy, the book insists that AI is not only a technical problem. It is a question about what kind of intelligence we are building, for whom, under whose governance, and at what cost to labour, to the epistemic commons, and to the physical world. The answer is not yet known. The question is urgent.

About the Author

Set Lonnert has been writing about the relationship between technology, knowledge, and human life since the 1990s. The Conditions of Intelligence is the second volume in the Code Crafting series. He lives in Sweden.