Other Intelligence
Other Intelligence is a new conference on the intersection of ecology, technology, and culture.
AI dominates the conversation, but other forms of intelligence have always surrounded us. This conference widens that frame by bringing AI into contact with animal communication, plant intelligence, biomaterials, ecological sensing, rights of nature, and new models of the physical world.
How can our understanding of nonhuman intelligence change the way we build technology? And how can new tools open new possibilities in ecology, conservation, and interspecies communication?
Other Intelligence brings together researchers, artists, designers, entrepreneurs, technologists, legal thinkers, and cultural workers for a midsummer summit in New York City.
Themes:
Bioacoustics: Can technology help us hear the living world? From biodiversity monitoring to interspecies communication, scientists and artists are using sound to study animals and ecosystems. This session brings together researchers and practitioners developing new ways to listen.
New Matter: Seaweed, mycelium, chitosan, and agricultural waste are becoming the basis for new materials. This session looks at the entrepreneurs and designers rethinking the built and manufactured world through biomaterials, circular systems, and post-plastic design.
Designing with (and for) Nonhumans: What happens when design no longer begins and ends with human users? Looking at AI, environmental sensing, animal collaboration, landscape, architecture, and product design, this session asks how design changes when the client, collaborator, or beneficiary is not only human.
Rights of Nature: Can a river speak for itself? Can a mountain be a legal person? Rights of nature is an expanding legal and political field that asks how institutions might represent the living world, and what obligations we owe to the places and beings that sustain us.
World Models: What does it mean to simulate a world? Researchers working in machine learning, climate modeling, Earth systems, robotics, and spatial intelligence are building new ways to model physical reality. This session looks at what these tools make visible, what they miss, and how they may shape climate science and policymaking.
Details:
Where: NYC, location TBA
When: Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Pitch a Session or Activation:
Interested in participating, speaking, or sponsoring? Apply here https://forms.gle/qA96HUxv2By9sB8V6 or get in touch: [email protected]
This conference is in active development, and themes and descriptions may change.