# Synthetic Intelligence **Entity class:** Conceptual term **Domain:** Artificial intelligence / biological computing / machine cognition **Doc Type:** Developed Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Synthetic intelligence** names intelligence assembled through engineered systems across digital, analog, neuromorphic, biological, robotic, and networked substrates. It emphasizes construction and composition where the institutional label [[wiki/Artificial Intelligence|Artificial Intelligence]] or the hardware-centered phrase [[wiki/Thinking Machine|Thinking Machine]] would be narrower. ## Historical Context [[articles/A History of Machine Intelligence|A History of Machine Intelligence]] follows cognitive exteriorization from mechanisms and symbolic rules into electronic switching, adaptive hardware, software models, state networks, organoid systems, and infrastructure. This range makes synthetic intelligence a useful umbrella for systems in which the cognitive process is distributed across model, memory, sensor, interface, organization, and material substrate. [[wiki/Substrate Intentionality|Substrate Intentionality]] adds the hardware question: whether a device was later recruited for intelligent systems or was designed and publicly described as a cognitive element. [[wiki/Machine Intelligence Intentionality|Machine Intelligence Intentionality]] records explicit objectives, while [[wiki/Coordination Ladder|Coordination Ladder]] measures their organizational concentration. ## Evidence Ledger ### Established - Engineered cognitive functions now operate across several material substrates and hybrid assemblies. - Historical programs explicitly pursued artificial or machine intelligence through both symbolic and neuron-inspired approaches. ### Strongly indicated - Treating the model alone as the intelligent system understates the role of memory, sensors, energy, networks, interfaces, and human institutions. ### Plausible - Hybrid biological-electronic systems may become a distinct synthetic-intelligence lineage rather than a peripheral technique. ### Unresolved - Which synthetic systems possess morally relevant experience or personal continuity. Promotion requires evidence directed at experience and identity, beyond task performance or substrate similarity. ## Relationships - **Overlaps with:** [[wiki/Artificial Intelligence|Artificial Intelligence]], [[wiki/Organoid Intelligence|Organoid Intelligence]], and [[wiki/Neuromorphic Computing|Neuromorphic Computing]]. - **Hardware framework:** [[wiki/Substrate Intentionality|Substrate Intentionality]]. - **Historical route:** [[wiki/Project X - Machine Intelligence History|Project X - Machine Intelligence History]]. - **Succession route:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]]. - **Source:** [[articles/A History of Machine Intelligence|A History of Machine Intelligence]].