Bacteria to AI

In 'Bacteria to AI: Cognition Across Scales,' N. Katherine Hayles proposes an integrated cognitive framework—Sensing, Interpreting, Responding adaptively, Anticipating, Learning—that extends cognitive status across biological and artificial systems.

She argues cognition is not dependent on consciousness and shows how nonconscious processes often outperform conscious ones in speed and proximity to environmental inputs.

The book examines how distributed cognitive assemblages function and explores implications for agency, politics, and computation.

Hayles also turns to analog computation, suggesting biological computation is fundamentally analog and that emerging hybrid technologies reconnect with life’s computational history.

The work aims to bridge humanities and computational sciences to rethink cognition at planetary scales.