# Coevolution > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] connects this node to the substrate-independent history of heredity, selection and computational populations. **Domain:** Evolution / Reciprocal Systems / Human-Machine Relations **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Foundational ## Definition **Coevolution** is evolutionary change produced by reciprocal selective influence among interacting lineages. Each lineage alters the environment in which variants of the other survive or reproduce. ## Human-Machine Context [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] proposes coevolution as the governing frame for human-machine relations. Humans construct models, data regimes and interfaces; those systems then restructure attention, labor, memory and institutional selection. The next human design decision occurs inside an environment partly produced by earlier machines. The term must not erase asymmetry. Human beings and machine systems currently differ in embodiment, legal standing, reproduction and dependence. Reciprocal influence can coexist with ownership, coercion and concentrated platform power. ## Continuity Context Substrate transition becomes coevolutionary when the receiving substrate changes the subject and the subject changes the architecture that receives it. A continuity system is therefore not a neutral container but a participant in the continuant's development. ## Key Insight **The machine is not merely an external tool once it becomes part of the selection environment through which human cognition and institutions reproduce.** ## Sources / Provenance - Ehrlich and Raven, “Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution,” 1964. - Nexus synthesis: [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]]. ## See Also [[wiki/Human-Machine Symbiosis|Human-Machine Symbiosis]], [[wiki/Niche Construction|Niche Construction]], [[wiki/Cultural Transmission|Cultural Transmission]], [[wiki/Co-Creative Substrate|Co-Creative Substrate]] ## Relationships - **Historical convergence proposal:** [[wiki/Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance|the 2002 NBIC Overview]] pictured human culture and physiology changing together. [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] and [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] provide the later technical route without treating that metaphor as a completed evolutionary process. - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Unless we believe that we have now stabilized all planetary and galactic variables, these cycles of growth and extinction will continue time and again. 99% of species, including all other hominids, have gone extinct. Often this has happened over long periods of time. What is interesting today, 200 years after Darwin's birth, is that we are taking direct and deliberate control over the evolution of many, many species, including ourselves. So the single biggest game changer will likely be the beginning of human speciation. We will begin to get glimpses of it in our lifetime. Our grandchildren will likely live it.” > **— Juan Enriquez**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Evolution/99% of Species, Including All Other Hominids, Have Gone Extinct by Juan Enriquez|99% of Species, Including All Other Hominids, Have Gone Extinct by Juan Enriquez]] > “Natural selection often operates on “life history” characteristics, and life history plays an important role in evolution, in general. Biologists long distinguished between “K” species and “R” species. R species, most fish, for example, may produce thousands of offspring, but most of them die and the rest live only a short time. In contrast “K” species like primates and whales, have only a few babies, invest a great deal in their care, and live a long time. Generally speaking, a “K” life history strategy is correlated with a larger brain and higher intelligence. We are the ultimate “K” species.” > **— Alison Gopnik**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Biologists Long Distinguished Between K Species and R Species by Alison Gopnik|Biologists Long Distinguished Between K Species and R Species by Alison Gopnik]] > “Rising computer power led to the first large break with the math-model approach in various species of artificial intelligence. Computer scientists programmed expert-system search trees directly from words. Some put uncertainty math models on the trees but the tree structure itself used words or text strings. The non-numerical structure let experts directly encode their expertise in verbal rules. That removed the old math models but still left the problem of literally doing only what the expert or modeler said to do. Adaptive fuzzy rule-based systems allowed experts to state rules in words while the fuzzy system itself remained numeric. Data could in principle overcome modeler bias by adapting the rule structure in new directions as the data poured in. That reduced expert or modeler input to little more than giving initial conditions and occasional updates to the inference structure. Still all these AI tree-based knowledge systems suffer from the curse of dimensionality in some form of combinatorial rule explosion.” > **— Bart Kosko**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Computer Power Broke AI Away from Mathematical Models by Bart Kosko|Computer Power Broke AI Away from Mathematical Models by Bart Kosko]] > “The example of cosmetic plastic surgery is instructive. Reconstructive in its origins, it is increasingly used for cosmetic purposes. I predict the same shift for deep brain stimulation. Cosmetic surgery is used to render people more appealing. In human affairs, appearance is critical. For our hypersocial species, personal appeal opens doors that remain shut to mere competence and intellect. Undoubtedly, cosmetic surgery enhances quality of life, so how can it be denied to anyone? And yet, it is by its very nature deceptive; the operated face is not really the person's face, the operated body not really their body. However, experience teaches that these reservations as to authenticity remain theoretical. The cosmetically adjusted nose, breast, thighs or skin tones become the person's new reality, without significant social backlash. Even face transplants are now feasible. We read so much into a face—but what if it is not the person's "real" face? Does anyone care, or even remember the previous appearance? So it will be with neurocosmetics.” > **— Marcel Kinsbourne**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Deep Brain Stimulation Will Become Neurocosmetic by Marcel Kinsbourne|Deep Brain Stimulation Will Become Neurocosmetic by Marcel Kinsbourne]] > “Until a few generations ago, the human species was dealing with the following question: Do we have what it takes to survive? We answered that question with the invention of heat, plumbing, medicine and agriculture. Now we have the means to survive, but do we have the will?” > **— Dave Winer**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Does the Human Species Have the Will to Survive by Dave Winer|Does the Human Species Have the Will to Survive by Dave Winer]] > “One resource is the (ever-growing) order of the evolutionary process itself. Each stage of evolution provides more powerful tools for the next. In biological evolution, the advent of DNA allowed more powerful and faster evolutionary "experiments." Later, setting the "designs" of animal body plans during the Cambrian explosion allowed rapid evolutionary development of other body organs, such as the brain. Or to take a more recent example, the advent of computer-assisted design tools allows rapid development of the next generation of computers.” > **— Ray Kurzweil**, *2004, Edge Annual Question, “What's Your Law?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Each Evolutionary Stage Builds Tools for the Next by Ray Kurzweil|Each Evolutionary Stage Builds Tools for the Next by Ray Kurzweil]] > “Our species might well be renamed Homo Dilatus, the procrastinating ape. Somewhere in our evolution we acquired the brain circuitry to deal with sudden crises and respond with urgent action. Steady declines and slowly developing threats are quite different. "Why act now when the future is far off," is the maxim for a species designed to deal with near-term problems and not long term uncertainties. It's a handy view of humankind which everyone who uses science to change policy should keep in their mental took kit, and one that that is greatly reinforced by the endless procrastination in tacking climate change. Cancun follows Copenhagen follows Kyoto but the more we dither and no extraordinary disaster follows, the more dithering seems just fine.” > **— Alun Anderson**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolution Prepared Us for Sudden Crises Not Slow Decline by Alun Anderson|Evolution Prepared Us for Sudden Crises Not Slow Decline by Alun Anderson]] > “My example of a deep, elegant, beautiful explanation in science is John Maynard Smith's concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). Not only does this wonderfully straightforward idea explain a whole host of biological phenomena, but it also provides a useful heuristic tool to test the plausibility of various types of claims in evolutionary biology—allowing us, for example, to quickly dismiss group-selectionist misconceptions, such as the idea that altruistic acts by individuals can be explained by the benefits that accrue to the species as a whole. Indeed, the idea is so powerful that it explains things I didn't even realize needed explaining until I was given the explanation.” > **— S. Abbas Raza**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolutionary Stable Strategies by S. Abbas Raza|Evolutionary Stable Strategies by S. Abbas Raza]] > “Prior episodes of significant global warming within the Pleistocene, more-or-less the last 2 million years, have invariably followed cooling periods with glacial advances. During the Pleistocene, the human lineage, within the genus Homo, successfully adapted to changing environments (including climate) and evolved to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the changes, even as populations of Homo reacted to the constraints environmental changes created. Human populations evolved diverse adaptations to the different climates and ecological circumstances they encountered, but the improvements in communication skills, planning depth, and retention of deep history with tales, poems, song, and other aspects of cultural behavior dispersed throughout humanity.” > **— Milford H. Wolpoff**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Consider The Most Interesting Recent [Scientific] News? What Makes It Important?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Global Warming Once Again, a Most Serious Challenge to Our Species by Milford H. Wolpoff|Global Warming Once Again, a Most Serious Challenge to Our Species by Milford H. Wolpoff]] > “The Neanderthals disappeared when Homo sapiens, who by then had learned the art of sewing, took over Europe and Asia. This new species, descended from a southern branch of Homo erectus, was unique among primates in being hairless. In their view, anything with fur on it could be classified as "animal"—or, to put it more bluntly, game. Neanderthal disappeared in Europe for the same reason the woolly mammoth disappeared there: the ancestors of the modern Europeans ate them. In Africa today, hungry humans eat the meat of chimpanzees and gorillas.” > **— Judith Rich Harris**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Hairlessness Helped Make Humans a New Kind of Primate by Judith Rich Harris|Hairlessness Helped Make Humans a New Kind of Primate by Judith Rich Harris]] > “To be sure, the idea has appeared before. Empedocles discusses the idea that the apparent finality in the living kingdom could be the result of selected randomness, and Aristotle himself in his "Physics" mentions a version of this idea for species ("seeds"). But the times where not yet ripe, and the suggestion was lost in the following religious ages. I think that the resistance against Darwin is not just the difficulty of seeing the power of a spectacularly beautiful explanation: it is the fear of realizing the extraordinary power that such an explanation has in shattering rests of old world views.” > **— Carlo Rovelli**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/How Apparent Finality Can Emerge by Carlo Rovelli|How Apparent Finality Can Emerge by Carlo Rovelli]] > “Humans are biologically exceptional. We're exceptionally long-lived and exceptionally cooperative with non-kin. We have exceptionally small guts and exceptionally large brains. We have an exceptional communication system and an exceptional ability to learn from other members of our species. Scientists love to study biologically exceptional human traits such as these, and that's a perfectly reasonable research strategy. Human evolutionary exceptionalism, however—the tendency to assume that biologically exceptional human traits come into the world through exceptional processes of biological evolution—is a bad habit we need to break. Human evolutionary exceptionalism has sown misunderstanding in every area it has touched. Here are three examples.” > **— Michael McCullough**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Humans Are Biologically Exceptional by Michael McCullough|Humans Are Biologically Exceptional by Michael McCullough]] > “Many people find my optimism naive, if not delusional. Last semester, I taught a class called "War and Human Nature," and my students polled classmates on the following question: "Do you think humanity will ever stop fighting wars once and for all time?" Of the 205 respondents, 185 replied "No"; 20 said "Yes" or "Maybe. " Several of the "optimists" added comments like "Yes, war will end when the human race will end," and "Yes, because in the future the human species will unite to fight alien species. "” > **— John Horgan**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* [[reminders/Civilization/In the Future the Human Species Will Unite to Fight Alien Species by John Horgan|In the Future the Human Species Will Unite to Fight Alien Species by John Horgan]] > “Our species itself is partly shaped by the force of our environment through selection, and partly by fluctuations of chance. If humans had gone extinct 100,000 years ago, the world would go on turning, life would go on thriving, and some other species would be prospering in our place — and most likely not by following the same intelligence-driven technological path we did.” > **— P Z Myers**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Intelligence Is Not Evolution's Inevitable Destination by P Z Myers|Intelligence Is Not Evolution's Inevitable Destination by P Z Myers]] > “What inspired Darwin and Wallace were encounters with places rich in birds and mammals found nowhere else—the Galapagos and the islands in southeast Asia. There are no such places in Europe. Darwin spent most of HMS Beagle's voyage too far south in South America, while Wallace's first trip was to the Amazon. The Amazon is very rich in species, but it is a striking example of the law that such places rarely have many species with small ranges. (I suspect this cost Wallace dearly because his sponsors wanted novelty. He found that on his next trip, to the East.)” > **— Stuart Pimm**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Islands Reveal Evolutionary Laws That Continents Conceal by Stuart Pimm|Islands Reveal Evolutionary Laws That Continents Conceal by Stuart Pimm]] > “Resolution of religious conflict is impossible because there is no empirical test of the ghostly, and many theologians prey, intentionally or not, upon the fears, superstitions, irrationality, and herd tendencies that are our species' neurobehavioral endowment. Religious fundamentalism inflames conflict and prevents solution—the more extreme and irrational one's position, the stronger one's faith, and, when possessing absolute truth, compromise is not an option.” > **— Robert Provine**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Material Life Is All There Is by Robert Provine|Material Life Is All There Is by Robert Provine]] > “There are several messages to be taken from the realization that natural selection functions more like a tinkerer than an engineer. We shouldn’t expect optimality from natural selection—it just gets the job done, taking the easiest, most accessible route. And as a corollary: we humans are not perfection personified, just natural selection’s way of turning a quadrupedal ape into a big-brained biped. Had we not come along, some other species, from some other ancestral stock, might eventually have evolved hyper-intelligence. But from different starting blocks, that species probably would not have looked much like us.” > **— Jonathan B. Losos**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Natural Selection Is a Tinkerer Not an Engineer by Jonathan B. Losos|Natural Selection Is a Tinkerer Not an Engineer by Jonathan B. Losos]] > “Natural selection sculpts human thought across generations and at geologic time scales. Fitness is its tool, and human nature, our shared endowment as members of a species, is among its key effects. Although the thought life of each person is unique, one can discern patterns of thought that transcend racial, cultural and occupational differences; similarly, although the face of each person is unique, one can discern patterns of physiognomy — two eyes above a nose above a mouth — that transcend individual differences.” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Natural Selection Sculpts Human Thought Across Generations by Donald D. Hoffman|Natural Selection Sculpts Human Thought Across Generations by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “One of the most pernicious misconceptions in cognitive science is the belief in a dichotomy between nature and nurture. Many psychologists, linguists and social scientists, along with the popular press, continue to treat nature and nurture as combatting ideologies, rather than complementary perspectives. For such people, the idea that something isboth "innate" and "learned", or both "biological" and "cultural", is an absurdity. Yet most biologists today recognize that understanding behavior requires that we understand the interaction between inborn cognitive processes (e.g. learning and memory) and individual experience. This is particularly true in human behaviour, since the capacities for language and culture are some of the key adaptations of our species, and involve irreducible elements of both biology and environment, of both nature and nurture.” > **— W. Tecumseh Fitch**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Nature and Nurture Are Complementary Not Competing Forces by W. Tecumseh Fitch|Nature and Nurture Are Complementary Not Competing Forces by W. Tecumseh Fitch]] > “A second step then becomes possible. That is, the organisms find new ways of copying information. This creates a second replicator and starts another evolutionary process, building on the first. This happened on earth when just one species, humans, became able to imitate each others' behaviour with sufficiently high fidelity to create a new replicator, memes. These memes (the behaviours, habits, and skills that were copied) evolved slowly at first and then faster and faster, creating our languages, social institutions, and complex culture.” > **— Susan Blackmore**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* [[reminders/Evolution/New Replicators Start New Evolutionary Processes by Susan Blackmore|New Replicators Start New Evolutionary Processes by Susan Blackmore]] > “A median estimate is that a third of all the species will be on the fast track to extinction within the next quarter century. Over 90% of all languages will be gone by then, because languages spoken by fewer than a million people are rarely taught to children. Most tropical forests will be gone by 2025 and with them, their species and peoples. Global warming will ensure that the species that survive do so in the wrong place. Coral reefs will be cooked alive in too-warm oceans, tropical glaciers will long have been only a memory preserved in the National Geographic photo collection.” > **— Stuart Pimm**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/One Third of Species May Be Headed Toward Extinction by Stuart Pimm|One Third of Species May Be Headed Toward Extinction by Stuart Pimm]] > “The Internet is the ultimate mating ground for ideas, the supreme lekking arena for memes. Cultural and intellectual evolution depends on sex just as much as biological evolution does; otherwise it remains a merely vertical transmission system. Sex allows creatures to draw upon mutations that happen anywhere in their species. The Internet allows people to draw upon ideas that occur to anybody in the world. Radio and printing did this too, and so did writing, and before that language, but the Internet has made it fast and furious.” > **— Matt Ridley**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Internet Is a Sexual Recombination Engine for Ideas by Matt Ridley|The Internet Is a Sexual Recombination Engine for Ideas by Matt Ridley]] > “The truth is that we simply don't know enough about the potential biotechnology, nanotechonology, or future iterations of artificial intelligence to calculate what their risks are, compelling arguments have been made that in principle any of the three could lead to human extinction. These risks may prove manageable, but I don't think we can manage them if we don't take them seriously. In the long run, biotech, nanotech and AI are probably significantly more likely to help the species, by increasing productivity and limiting disease, than they are to destroy it. But we need to invest more in figuring out exactly what the risks are, and to better prepare for then. Right now, the US spends more than $2.5 billion dollars a year studying climate change, but (by my informal reckoning) less than 1% of that total studying the risk of biotech, nanotech, and AI.” > **— Gary Marcus**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/We Cannot Calculate the Risks of Future AI by Gary Marcus|We Cannot Calculate the Risks of Future AI by Gary Marcus]] From [[wiki/Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance|Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance]]: The DNA metaphor expresses a hoped-for coupling of cultural and physiological change. > "Human culture and human physiology may undergo rapid evolution, intertwining like the twin strands of DNA, hopefully guided by analytic science as well as traditional wisdom." > **— M. C. Roco and W. S. Bainbridge**, *2002, Overview of Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance* [[reminders/Evolution/Culture and Physiology Could Evolve Together by M. C. Roco and W. S. Bainbridge|Culture and Physiology Could Evolve Together by M. C. Roco and W. S. Bainbridge]] > “Life's unfolding is a tapestry in which every new thread is contingent upon the nature, timing, and interweaving of virtually all previous threads.” > **— Scott Sampson**, *2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage* [[reminders/Evolution/Every New Thread of Life Depends on Earlier Threads by Scott Sampson|Every New Thread of Life Depends on Earlier Threads by Scott Sampson]] > “The most important environmental influences on any organism are always the other organisms around it.” > **— John Rennie**, *2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage* [[reminders/Evolution/Other Organisms Are the Organism's Environment by John Rennie|Other Organisms Are the Organism's Environment by John Rennie]]