It started with a diary entry by K Allado-McDowell initiating an experimental conversation w ith the AI language model GPT-3. Over the course of a fortnight, the exchange rapidly unfolded into a labyrinthine exploration of memory, language and cosmology.

The first book to be co-created with the emergent AI, Pharmako-AI is a hallucinatory journey into selfhood, ecology and intelligence via cyberpunk, ancestry and biosemiotics. Through a writing process akin to musical improvisation, Allado-McDowell and GPT-3 together offer a fractal poetics of AI and a glimpse into the future of literature.

Pharmako-AI reimagines cybernetics for a world facing multiple crises, with profound implications for how we see ourselves, nature and technology in the 21st century.

About the Author

K Allado-McDowell is a writer, speaker, and consultant to cultural, artistic, and technological institutions that seek to align their work with larger traditions of human understanding. Allado-McDowell established the Artists + Machine Intelligence program at Google AI. They are the co-editor, with Ben Vickers, of The Atlas of Anomalous AI. Allado-McDowell records and releases music under the name Qenric.

Praise

‘The GPT-3 neural net is powerful, and when it’s fed a steady diet of Californian psychedelic texts, the effect is spectacular’ (Bruce Sterling)

‘This is the first time I feel as if technology is actively participating in our collective effort to make sense of life and our shared destiny. And I’m actually hopeful we may get to do this next stage of existence, together.’ (Douglas Rushkoff)

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