PART  2.

In this second section on an extended analysis of AI, I suggest it will be useful to pause and consider further the difference between Artificial Intelligence (AI), Individual Applied Human Intelligence (IAHI), and Socio-biological Human Intelligence (SBHI) that was referenced in the first paragraph of part 1 of this article. So what follows is a quick review of what we already know about the concept of intelligence. I suggest that human intelligence like all biological forms of intelligence, is the ability of any biological species with sufficiently developed sensory organs and a sufficiently developed central processing organ such as a brain to store and process sensory inputs from outside and inside its individual body form. This information is then used make decisions in the brain on how to act in response to those sensory inputs.

In social animals this bio-chemical process manifests itself in two forms; individual responses and socially mediated responses. A socially aware individual, (animal or human), at least from shortly after birth, is able to mediate and modify his or her particular individual response to their information processing to conform with family and group expectations, recognised social requirements or accepted social norms. For example, as an adult individual driver I may like to go fast, but I know I am expected to slow down going past schools, congested areas or where speed restrictions are in force. As an individual I may desire or fear something I see, hear or feel, but in the presence of others, or due to any socially acquired social responsibilities, my response to what I desire or fear may be modified, even to the extent of reversing my initial individual reaction. That is a collectively acquired or social form of intelligence.

I suggest it is also vitally Important to recognise that human social intelligence is the only form of intelligence that has evolved a critical and self-critical dimension to its functioning. As far as we yet know, no other species of life can mentally agonise over should I go there or not, should I do this or not. So since our 21st century socially acquired human intelligence is now aware that pollution, ecological, loss, climate change, and socio-economic employment pattern changes, are detrimental to socio-biological functioning as well as individual functioning then this adds an important dimension to our social intelligence. As I suggested in part 1, ‘intelligence’ now takes three, often competing forms; Individual Applied Human Intelligence (often the Bad) and Socio-Biological Applied Human intelligence (the Good), and now that computing based Artificial Intelligence (AI) that I provided evidence there as being the downright ugly form.

This doesn’t mean that the good social intelligence framework is always acted upon, particularly by those who stand to lose from its consistent application. Like seat belt and smoking type social responsibilities, pernicious individual resistance to beneficial changes can often be encountered. Nevertheless, in these days of climate change, ecological destruction and pollution there is now among human populations an early development of what I suggest is becoming an enhanced form of Socio-biological Human Intelligence. For probably the first time in the evolution of the hierarchical mass society form of human aggregation, nature and its entire species forms are no longer exclusively seen as useful resources to admire, exploit and pollute, but are understood as being the essential biological foundations that all forms of life on earth rely upon to survive.

Notably, however, Artificial Intelligence systems, like far too many capitalists have little or none of this socio-biological critical, social or self–critical awareness, nor have its designers and promoters. Nor, of course, do the out of date intellectual data sources AI processes have this enhanced, and I suggest is now a necessary 21st century form of socio-biological Intelligence. This socio-biological awareness perspective is so new that the mass of 20th and 21st century anthropocentric focussed, literature and images used as raw material data for AI processing, contains very little that is relevant in this regard for the future of life on earth. That missing ‘past’ dimension to the understanding of life on earth, and a lack of self-critical reflection from within its supporters, means that these few socio-biological understandings are already diluted and lost among the reams of anthropocentric self-absorbtions and congratulations.

For some considerable time, the data on the development of AI will also be overwhelmingly biased from the heavy promotion of its virtues by its investors and supporters and will merely add to the already overwhelming an anthropocentric based ideology that ”isn’t human life on earth technically progressive and wonderful’. Since AI algorithms just processes what it is anthropocentrically programmed to process, from its predominantly anthropocentric focussed historic data, it will hardly produce unbiased material or material which is authentically critical of AI or of the capitalist mode of production. Which interestingly and predictably, is a what the majority of most human individuals might do (and many are doing) due to a lack of critical and self-critical general observations and understandings of its processes, or due to vested interests in its success and therefore in the abscence of their own broader socio-biological concerns.

For example, Artificial Intelligence cannot and its individual investors and users, will not even metaphorically look at themselves and say; “what I am doing using these massive resource hungry data banks of plagiaristic extraction that are consuming scarce resources of metals, energy, minerals and are causing heat and water pollution of the environment and also plummeting a generation of intellectual workers into the relative or absolute poverty of unemployment. And for what?” “So someone somewhere can produce a faster jingle, a quicker novel, or an instant pop or blues song at less cost than someone living and earning!” Incidentally, whilst AI is a positive double whammy for a few investors, it is not hard to understand from part 1 that is a double negative whammy for ordinary people and the environment!

Similarly, we already know that individual Human Intelligence, (IHI) particularly when considering investment returns or social or pecuniary advantage, frequently does something social intelligence considers wrong or problematic. Some desirable personal things, left unattended are often stolen. Inventions if not registered correctly are consistently stolen. In terms of intellectual property rights, someone stealing ideas and falsely claiming them as their own would be considered a decietful plagiarist or a copyright thief. They would normally be condemned, shunned or even punished by their peers. Not so for the bandit billionaires who are currently bootlegging other peoples data via AI. Moreover, their hoodwinked naive punters are joining the bandwagon and boosting the billionaire’s capital investments by buying societies own recycled words and images back from them. Below is another enthusiastic snake oil ‘left’ perspective on AI but this time from the left;

“The recent developments in artificial intelligence have opened up vast possibilities for its applications across various fields. However, they have also sparked concerns about how this technology is being directed. From the perspective of digital leftism, AI can be a revolutionary tool that contributes to restructuring society toward greater justice and equality.” (Autumn 2025)

This left perspective on AI, considers it a revolutionary tool, restructuring society toward greater justice and equality! On what planet will that happen? As noted in part 1, even a moderately sized new 21st century AI factory construction may be using as much electrical power and water consumption as a medium sized township where its working class pensioners and single parents are unable to keep their old 19th century homes adequately warm or their stomach’s adequately filled with suitable nutrition. This contrast is another ugly symptom of AI investments. But who cares? Apart from the working class victims themselves – very few! And certainly not the left, right and centre political supporters of AI who have enthusiastically embraced the brave new world of digital plagiarism. Here is another example of the Individual Human Intelligence’s IHI) amazing ability to ignore the massive contradiction between ‘hoping to save the environment’ by means of launching another AI, energy crunching, job reducing, climate altering platform:

“BigEarthData.ai has launched as a new environmental intelligence platform dedicated to protecting the environment, climate, and people for global ecological sustainability. The platform helps the public, researchers, journalists, and decision-makers better understand the accelerating climate and ecological crisis through real-time data, science, and AI-assisted synthesis. A first-of-its-kind Deep Ecology GenAI tool is online now at: https://bigearthdata.”

According to the big earth data promoters of a ‘Deep Ecology ‘AI backed platform ‘tool’, which behind the scenes (or in the ‘woods’) will be using vast amounts of electricity and water 24/7, and tons of building materials extracted from here, there and everywhere. The fact is that this digitalised product of capitalism is rapidly replacing waged and salaried research labour, and yet in the above authors imagination it is going to protect “the environment, climate and people for global ecological sustainability”! Really? I don’t think so. We humans cannot protect things from damage by promoting and enthusiastically utilising the very things that do the damage in the first place. This is another example of a capitalist inspired ‘inovation’ which promises much, but which will deliver little except unemployment, pollution, ecological damage and further climate dislocation.

Of course, it is a digital ‘revolution’ which is as yet, in its early stages of development. It has not yet been not sufficiently developed and over-developed to reveal that its further progress will be every bit as socially, ecologically and environmentally detrimental to life on earth – in all its species forms – as the Industrial Revolution was in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. So let’s be clear, by AI data trawling, repurposing and re-selling our unattended archived ideas, stories, evaluations or images back to us, or as Bitcoin, crunching out abstract numbers for esoteric values, its capitalist owners get around this problem of vulgar plagiarism and golden fleece searching. For the capitalist investors in other peoples past creative narratives, borrowed assumptions or out of date opinions and still usable images, they have given themselves a get-out-of-jail-free card. They have also managed to avoid any sizable deductions of variable capital costs of wage-labour and hidden away from sight any intended or unintended biosphere negatives well out of sight from prying eyes.

Furthermore, Artificial Intelligence production allows the replacement of current paid intellectual labour by tax-deductable, mainly capital expenditure situated within its AI re-processing centres. This further shrinks the tax base which is available for social needs expenditure. At the same time this allows a disguised form of vulgar plagiarism of collective past intellectual labour to be both sold and amply rewarded and to go largely undetected. Again, it’s a double positive whammy for the owners of capital! But that’s not even the worst of AI because such large-scale data extraction of our collective past intellectual labour by AI comes at the intellectual cost of conserving all that is outdated mediocre and banal and is offering it up to current generations as something entirely new.

In fact, as noted in part 1, the only thing new is how this ancient and relatively recent intellectual raw material has been served up and delivered. This is particularly problematic when all the data which has been collected and stored for AI repurposing and reselling is undoubtedly 99% anthropocentrically based and biased. How could it not be? Serious global ecological concern was only triggered into international public prominence by a young Greta Thunberg this century and she has been consistently ridiculed and disrespected, so a large-scale, multifaceted Gaia-centric movement has still not caught on and still not produced the volume and quality of data necessary to render it incapable of being demoted, marginalised or totally ignored.

And in all such cases of computational or productive processing of past intellectual labour, the logical premise suggests the following! Anthropocentric biased and based data in = re-packaged Anthropocentric biased and based data – out. Its output may coherent  or incoherent and inconsistent, but what comes out will be a reassembled version of what has gone in and was thought to be rational and sensible in the past decades when climate change and ecological destruction was considered a hippy ‘tree-hugging fetish.

Furthermore, we have the spectacle, as above, and from what I increasingly read, the undoubted trend of human liberal and politically left individuals who at the rhetorical level claim to be concerned with protecting workers rights, animal rights and who are supposedly opposed to pollution, job de-skilling, climate change and ecological destruction, and yet many are welcoming and using AI to create or assist in the creation of their own free or paid-for-content in their various media outlets. So here is another view of AI from the left, resembling yet another modern version of snake oil salesmanship or promoters of ‘magic beans’.

“This vision aims to liberate AI from the constraints of the capitalist market and redirect it toward serving all humanity, transforming it into a means to improve quality of life, free people from burdensome routine labor, and enhance human creativity in all areas.” (Autumn 2025)

What’s this serving all humanity? Is it a call to nationalise Artificial Intelligence and replace current and future social intelligence by past social intelligence? What’s next, I ask? Perhaps it will be a plethora of Anti-capitalist and ‘green’ manifesto’s, constructed or largely assisted by AI algorithms which have repurposed past anti-capitalist slogans, juxtaposed and linked outdated socialist and ecological theses and outmoded biological understandings. Is this what is to be presented it to the masses as the latest and best in anti-capitalist intellectual shrewdness and competence? The opening question of this paragraph; ‘what is next’ is only rhetorical. I suggest this embrace of ugly Artificial Intelligence (AI) by some Anti-Capitalist and socialist activists (AC/SA’s) has already occurred on a number of occasions already, but crucially, without any full disclosure of doing so and without any accountability.

Yet any such left AI efforts will produce only  Manifesto’s which will only insert a facile understanding of the abstraction ‘nature’ and reference the term ‘green’ somewhere within them, because anything more ecologically critical and rigourous than “isn’t nature wonderful and modern technology extremely useful for exploiting it” before 2015, is not yet in the anthropocentric based data banks to be hoovered up for this greedily pernicious form of intellectual recycling. Meanwhile the out of sight AI and bitcoin factories are humming away 24/7 intentionally replacing paid jobs and intentionally consuming scarce resources whilst intentionally  producing profits for billionaire’s and their business buddies to help them become trillionnairs, whilst further undermining the biosphere upon which all life on earth depends.

These actual and potential examples that I have outlined are instances of some of the personifications of Individual Human Intelligence (IHI), intentionally or unintentionally, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to subvert the newly forming, enlightened biologically and ecologically informed Human Socio-biologicall Intelligence (SBHI), which is as yet only in its tentative historical beginnings. The real revolution in self-critical thinking within human ‘life on earth’ is still being drowned out by the reactionary hum, hum of the brave new world of previous generations of Anthropocentricaly focussed nationalist forces politicians and petro-chemical professionals who are still alive and monopolising information flow along with the increasing electrical hum of Computer generated Artificial Intelligence. Which, let’s face it, as outlined in part 1, is not really Intelligent at all even though it is thoroughly artificial.

The same goes for those capitalist individuals and capitalist collectives promoting and wealth extracting from the AI mining, repurposing and re-cycling of past sources of intellectual labour. Like all capital motivated producers these investors, promoters and gullible others have consciously chosen to not be critical or self-critical and have convinced themselves to be profitable AI extracters, producers and users first and climate, pollution, ecological damage and poverty creation apolgists or deniers second. These activists, for and against capital and hierarchy are also examples of Individual Human Intelligence (IHI) using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to subvert Socio-biological Intelligence (SBHI).

So to those who wish to, it is already relatively easy to spot the difference between the exercise of Artificial intelligence (AI) or Individual Human Intelligence (IHI) and the exercise of Socio-biological Intelligence (SBI). Whatever you hear, read or see, in AI production can be evidentially judged by the crudeness, the repetition, the disjointed phrasing of it, the cliches it contains, but most tellingly by the abscence of criticism of the hierarchical system of capitalist production. And, of course by the lack of self-criticism by the AI promoters, sellers and users of this new socio-economic incarnation of an elite-orientated extractive mass industry.

Underneath, the bonhomie bluster and media spin on AI, the form and function of AI like all previous extractive industries is based upon extracting easy to obtain raw materials in this case from the social environment and selling it back to people who created it in the first place. In this case it is data mining the raw material of past intellectual labour, written, visual and audible, and is doing so at the expense of and to the detriment of present intellectual labour, the ecological environment and the climate we live within.

The form and function of AI, (and bitcoin) production socio-economically, like all previous forms of capitalist production, is to create profits for the owners and controllers of capital; and its form and function ecologically is to continue the pollution, damage and destruction of the hidden (N-M-G-R + A-D) bio-chemical labour of all the species whose life-cycles contribute to the air we breathe and to all the food we eat and which keeps the biosphere and the rest of life on earth alive and in ecological balance.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2026)

For further analysis of the (N-M-G-R + A-D) life processes of all species of life on earth see; ‘Life on Earth (Past, Present and Future) by R. Ratcliffe. Available from Amazon,