As part of our mission to promote study and discussion of diverse intelligences. The Global Research Centre for Diverse Intelligences has selected two new workshops we will be helping to support in the coming year.
These events come from our recent call, which received a great field of submissions and ideas for workshops to bring together members of the Diverse Intelligences community in creative ways and foster interdisciplinary research.
Investigating “Understanding” Across Artificial and Natural Minds
Edinburgh, UK, November 2026
Danaja Rutar & Matthew Sims
This workshop brings together researchers from philosophy, cognitive science, developmental psychology, comparative cognition, biology, and artificial intelligence to ask a very timely question: how can we tell when a system genuinely understands something? Claims about understanding are continuously being made across these fields, from infants’ and animals’ understanding of their environments, to debates about whether AI systems understand language, meaning, or the world. Yet these claims often rely on very different kinds of evidence.
The workshop will explore how understanding can be identified, measured, and compared across humans, non-human animals, and artificial systems. Rather than assuming that success on a task automatically shows understanding, the workshop will ask how we can tell when success reflects deeper competence rather than a simpler strategy, shortcut, or coincidence. The aim of the workshop is to develop better ways of comparing different forms of intelligence, and to build shared theoretical tools and methodologies for designing more rigorous tests of understanding across disciplines.
Collaborating with Diverse Intelligences: Theory, Method and Practice
Reading, UK, March 2027
Matt Pritchard & Philip Tovey
We will hold a workshop in Spring 2027 against a backdrop whereby research continues to highlight remarkable and diverse forms of more-than-human cognition at a time of global biodiversity loss and ecosystems collapse (see e.g. the recent UK Government assessment). Simultaneously, artificial intelligence is swiftly transforming many areas of our lives, but there are fears about how its forms of intelligence should interact with others. Hence, this is a moment where there are enormous opportunities for collaborating with the diverse intelligences of the living world, yet those relationships are ethically and practically complex and, in the case of other species, existentially imperilled. A broad theory of collaboration across intelligences has yet to be established – methods are domain specific and practice is emergent, but not yet systemically conceived. Moreover, some in technology, industry and elsewhere are already attempting to harness other intelligences without the rigour and risk assessment exhibited in academia.
This workshop seeks to address these critical shortfalls by inviting scholars and practitioners to a venue in Berkshire, UK, to explore ‘applied’ forms of diverse intelligences research. On day one, we will explore what ‘collaboration’ means, hearing presentations from those who are pioneering related approaches. This will include the range of intelligence functions with which we might partner (sensory, computational, decision-making, etc.) as well as the various objectives that this might serve. On day two, we will transition into scenario-based application of theory, surfacing necessary conditions, socio-technical/socio-political innovations, ethical issues and risks. At dinner in between, participants will be invited to offer short interventions – from readings to provocations – to stimulate deeper level reflection and forge what we hope will be long-lasting academic and social connections.