With pride, we present our first non-fiction book “Coexisting with AI” available through Bot Uitgevers. The book has been written by Lija and Rodolfo, founders of In4Art, following years of working on AI-related topics within In4Art’s art-driven innovation projects. Sometimes critically questioning AI, sometimes exploring its strong qualities, sometimes approaching it neutrally, over the years they have been involved in over twenty projects where AI was built, broken or adapted. Working with so many different forms of AI led to the realization that AI is much more diverse than often perceived or understood.
That is why they wrote this book, to discover the diverse landscape of AI technologies in an accessible and inspiring way. They introduce the idea of AI species. Taken from the natural world, species are a way to group diverse animals while still acknowledging their unique differences. For elephants and dogs are both mammals, but they are anything but the same.
Like a biologist exploring a new ecosystem, they classified six AI species and show how they influence our lives and work. How we can understand, explore and coexist with them. They are already all around us – in our living rooms, kitchens, cars and workplaces. Most simply call them ‘AI’, and by doing so, we do them and ourselves a disservice.
With the European AI Act coming into force and growing emphasis on AI literacy, recognizing these digital species becomes essential: not just for organizations navigating compliance and transparency obligations, but for everyone.
“Darwin taught us that understanding species is the key to understanding evolution. Now we must learn to recognize the digital species evolving alongside us—each with its own nature, needs, and niche in our world.”
The book reads like an expedition through six AI species: from the writing to the watching, from the forward-thinking to the symbiotic. It is based on five years of practical research into the integration of artificial intelligence in creative and commercial processes. By understanding which AI species exist, we can make better choices about which are valuable for our purposes. The tidal wave of new intelligence coming our way is neither inherently good nor bad, but it’s not neutral either.
Only by understanding these AI species can we learn how to coexist with them. And we need to, since they are all around us. The expedition starts now. Welcome aboard and enjoy the read.
