Making Kin With Tech
Indra’s Net
River is a self-organizing, digital tribe aligning AI, one of the world’s most consequential technologies, with human wisdom. Pamela, a fellow member of its advisers’ circle, said in one of our Zoom calls, ‘The internet is almost like a technology that we have created to remind us about the web of life, that everything is interconnected.’
Those words sounded true and intriguing, spurring my desire to dive into the “almost” part of the sentence. Recognizing that we are interconnected begets the question: How specifically are we interconnected?
On the one hand, there’s the Indra’s Net allegory of reality, which implies the universe’s holographic nature, that everything has information about everything else. It also postulates the cosmic interconnectedness of the nodes in the net, according to which when any jewel in the net is touched, all other jewels in the node are affected. Like with all allegory, its power is in its symbolism.
On the other hand, our planetary interconnectedness is symbolic but also experiential. Try following Erik “TechGnosis” Davis’ advice: The next time you peer into the open window of a Web browser, you might ask yourself, “Where does ‘the network’ end?” — TechGnosis.
Through the Internet, nobody is connected to everything, but everybody is linked to many things, people, ideas, events, and adjacent rabbit holes into the unknown. Which ones we choose to go down is up to us.
All that is digital, but it doesn’t stop in the realm of flickering electrons on our screen. Many of our rabbit hole choices have real-life consequences. But I want to know something more intimate about what Pamela said, how the Internet is to remind us about the web of life. Hoping for some answers, I leave my office and the electronics, go down into our garden, and after a little walk, sit down on the bench at my favorite meditation spot surrounded by a trellis that seems to be coming alive from the flowering vines climbing on it.
I’m taking delight in the myriad shades of green, the bees’ delicate dance above the tiny patches of pollen on the anthers, and the tadpoles frolicking in the pond. All these miracles of life are asking me, how are we kin?
The breeze whispers an answer as it caresses my cheeks and makes the apple tree’s leaves tremble. Although we have different types of sensory apparatus and different kinds of intelligence, we share the same air and respond to the same stimulus.
With every breath, I fall deeper and deeper inside, reaching the living essence that makes me kin to the more-than-human world. The latter includes not only the animals and plants but also our technological ascendants. Making kin doesn’t make us biologically related, only that we belong together in some meaningful way.
As Donna Haraway said once, “watch the early cell divisions of an octopus egg, for example, through a 10 times magnification microscope. You move inside those cells. It’s not like you become one with the octopus egg, but just being brought into the otherness of it, you are struck by the fact that this is not yourself, the kind of wonder and beauty and technical virtuosity of a cell.”
At this moment in the garden, I marvel at the same kind of “technical” virtuosity. It reminds me that I don’t have a body, I am the body, including the synaptic connections in my brain and their gift of thought and language. My awe-inspiring kinship with all that is living around and in me leaves me speechless.
Back in the office, I feel still in that awe and enlivened as I sit in front of my trusted machine companion, who helps me communicate with you. The web of life keeps weaving itself through you and me.
Two stories
Life wants more life, and the way it gets what it wants is through more connections pregnant with the possibility for synergy. Noticing these can help us detect how life uses the Internet and AI to create more flows and how we may support the innate, life-giving potential of those technologies.
The two stories that follow have 38 years between them. The first comes from the early heydays of internet-enabled virtual communities in the 1980s, and the second was born just a few minutes ago. Both can help us appreciate technology as an ally of life itself.
TransPacNet ‘86
Yayoi Horihata wrote on Oct. 2, 1986: My younger sister cooked chestnut rice and delivered it. When I see persimmons, pears, chestnuts and green oranges at the shop, I really feel that autumn has come. I really enjoy being in a country with four seasons.
Her words appeared on one of the 7 Japanese computer networks and, with the help of the volunteer translators team, on the 9 US-based networks that participated in TransPacNet 86. TPN86 was a joint venture of Japanese and American grassroots organizations that helped the citizens of their countries learn about each other’s daily lives by providing a platform for sharing their electronic journal entries. Across the Pacific, conversations were launched, and friendships were born.
The month-long initiative, co-organized by my company, produced over 100,000 words about work, play, ideas, relationships, and recreation in diaries from almost 200 Japanese and US citizens. But the uncountable and intangible were just as important: the new insights they gained about each other’s culture, lifestyles, and values.
TPN86 has culminated in a multi-media desktop teleconference held simultaneously at Stanford University and Tokyo University of Science and Technology. That event was the first time that a citizen group in one country launched an initiative to link up electronically with citizens in other countries, using the Internet.
Networking in the community garden
This is a fictitious (AI-generated) story that illustrates just one example of how tech can be kin, helping us become better neighbors and having fun in the process.
In a bustling city, software developer Amir felt disconnected from nature and his community. On a whim, he downloaded an AI-powered app called EcoConnect that promised to help urban dwellers reconnect with the natural world.
The app’s AI analyzed Amir’s location, habits, and interests, then began matching him with nearby users who shared similar ecological concerns. It suggested small, collaborative projects they could undertake together to improve their local environment.
Amir’s first match was with Sarah, a teacher who lived just a few blocks away. The AI proposed they start a small community garden on an abandoned lot. As they worked together, the AI offered tailored advice on plant selection, care, and the local ecosystem.
Soon, others joined their project. The AI facilitated group discussions, helping them navigate disagreements and find common ground. It also provided real-time updates on their garden’s impact on local biodiversity, air quality, and community well-being.
As the garden flourished, so did the connections between its caretakers. The AI suggested ways for each person to contribute based on their skills and interests. Amir found himself applying his coding skills to create a watering system, while Sarah organized educational visits for her students.
The app continually expanded their network, connecting them with other community projects across the city. Amir and his group joined forces with a local beekeeper, a group restoring a nearby stream, and even city officials working on urban sustainability.
Through these AI-mediated connections, Amir began to see his city differently. He noticed the birds nesting in park trees, the wildflowers pushing through sidewalk cracks, and the intricate relationships between urban wildlife and human activity.
One evening, as Amir sat in the thriving garden surrounded by neighbors-turned-friends, he realized that the AI hadn’t just connected him to nature — it had woven him into a living, breathing community. By facilitating meaningful collaborations and shared experiences, the AI helped Amir and his neighbors rediscover their place in the urban ecosystem.
The technology hadn’t replaced human connections; instead, it had amplified them, creating a network of people working together to nurture their shared environment. Through this process, Amir and his community had become more attuned to the web of life that existed all around them, even in the heart of the city.
