Work

Environmental Design in AI

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article advances the thesis that the development of Artificial Intelligence, far from representing an absolute rupture with nature, progressively incorporates characteristics inherent to environmental design. Rather than emerging as a purely abstract creation or something detached from the natural world, many AI systems are conceived through the observation of structures, behaviors, and adaptive strategies already present in living organisms and ecosystems. In other words, this means that AI can be understood as a kind of technical continuation of environmental solutions refined by evolution itself. The article further argues that AI design increasingly follows an ecological logic in which intelligent systems respond to environmental conditions, adjust to change, and expand human capacities through biological references. Finally, it is argued that Artificial Intelligence cannot be adequately understood through the traditional opposition between nature and artifact. Because it emerges from the convergence of biological inspiration, technical infrastructures, and informational processes, AI occupies a hybrid ontological position that differs both from living organisms and from classical artifacts, thereby requiring new conceptual categories within the philosophy of technology.

Source: Philosophies

DOI: 10.3390/philosophies11050160

Author: Leo Peruzzo Junior

Institutions: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná

Language: English

Topic: Cybernetics and Technology in Society

Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,689

Funder: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico