The Polyphony of Silence

Abstract

The possibility of a hybrid human-machine intelligence elaboration through the use of a new type of sign system based on digital self-executing code in communications is discussed. Hybrid intelligence technologies allow to manage systems of high complexity, in which not only people and technical objects, but also any physical and abstract entities can become actors (including animals, plants, ecosystems etc.). The possibilities of using this approach to solve planetary problems (including climate change), as well as to solve the problems of the "front sight" are demonstrated.

Full text

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The Polyphony of Silence
Dmitry Vladimirovich Kholkin, General Director of the ANO Center for Energy Systems of the Future
EnergyNet, e-mail: dvh@internetofenergy.ru
Abstract. The possibility of a hybrid human-machine intelligence elaboration through the use of a new type
of sign system based on digital self-executing code in communications is discussed. Hybrid intelligence
technologies allow to manage systems of high complexity, in which not only people and technical objects,
but also any physical and abstract entities can become actors (including animals, plants, ecosystems etc.).
The possibilities of using this approach to solve planetary problems (including climate change), as well as to
solve the problems of the "front sight" are demonstrated.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, hybrid intelligence, multi-agent technologies, anthropo-bio-techno systems,
Internet of energy.
Dmitry Kholkin, General Director of the Energy Systems of the Future Center Energynet, e-mail:
dvh@internetofenergy.ru
This article is based on the results of meetings and discussions held in November 2023 at the Kamchatka
Club events.
Introduction
In 2023, the ChatGPT revolution took place, marking a cognitive “phase transition” to generative artificial
intelligence [1]. At least, this is what some analysts believe. They cite the demonstrated achievements of
GPT applications, loud statements by scientists, entrepreneurs, and representatives of national governments.
Some of these statements are existential in nature, predicting threats to the existence of humanity. Can such
judgments and statements be trusted? Are they a manifestation of the low critical thinking of the speakers,
or, on the contrary, do they suggest reflexive and communicative manipulations pursuing their own interests?
It is probably possible and necessary to admit that a large-scale transformation of civilization is currently
taking place. Indeed, “generative artificial intelligence represents a philosophical and practical challenge of a
scale not seen since the Enlightenment” [2]. And one can agree with the opinion of Google CEO Sundar
Pichai that artificial intelligence technologies are currently a phenomenon more profound than the mastery of
electricity and fire once were [3]. However, all this was already discussed several years ago, when the
concept of the fourth industrial revolution appeared on the global agenda. Has something unexpected
happened or are we now simply observing the first and most striking fruits of a new technological and
economic order?
The reaction of scientists and thinkers who have been studying the problem of artificial intelligence for many
years is noteworthy. Their opinions are often different, if not polar. For example, physicist and computer
scientist Douglas Hofstadter believes in the imminent "arrival" of AGI (strong artificial intelligence) and is very
concerned about this, since humanity is not ready for such radical changes. When he wrote a book about
artificial intelligence at the end of the last century, he thought that machine intelligence comparable to human
intelligence would only appear in 500 years [4]. Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, on the contrary, is
pessimistic about the latest achievements in the field of AI. He says that machine learning, which has now
seen a breakthrough, is only "high-tech plagiarism that has nothing to do with reason," and that we need to
return to the original scientific program for studying human intelligence [5].
However, it is not so much a matter of discussing the timing of the emergence of AGI, but rather, based on
existing technological artifacts and ongoing applied developments, to build constructive ideas about the place
of new technologies, their impact on society and people, and to identify probable problems and emerging
opportunities. For example, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, putting aside reflections on
the philosophical status of the emerging “intelligence” of machines, discusses a problem for which society, it
seems, was not prepared: “The most pressing problem is not that they are going to take our jobs, not that

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they are going to change the way we wage war, but that they are going to destroy human trust. They are
going to move us into a world where it is impossible to distinguish truth from lies.” At the same time, recalling
the words of the Soviet mathematician, systems engineer and chief designer Spartak Nikanorov, “what is not
useful is not dangerous, and, conversely, what is not dangerous is not useful,” we can discover the usefulness
of the emergence of AI, as significant and large-scale as the danger. To discover this usefulness, we will
need to take an engineering position, implying the practical synthesis of new scientific knowledge aimed at
designing the future of humanity.
On the threshold of hybrid intelligence
The human brain is a natural computer integrated into the cultural sphere. This is a short way to formulate
the approach developed in the theory of consciousness by the previously mentioned Daniel Dennett [7]. This
statement does not intend to belittle the complexity of the intellectual, emotional and spiritual organization of
man. It is given only to feel the engineering path in the still wild jungle of ideas about intelligence. As a
consistent physicalist, Dennett claims that man does not have a special thinking organ that animals do not
have. The brain of man (and animals) is intended by natural selection in the process of biological evolution
to play the role of reliable "equipment" capable of developing stably and extracting semantic information
necessary to control its behavior. At the heart of its work, there are the algorithms of Bayesian statistics,
which prescribe supposedly correct judgments about the probabilities of upcoming events. We are dealing,
so to speak, with forecasters with outstanding abilities. There is nothing magical about these Bayesian
predictors: they work like ordinary computers, only of natural origin.
The difference between human behavior and animal behavior, which we designate with the concept of
“rational,” consists in understanding the causes of the processes they monitor. This understanding allows us
to consciously use causes as tools and goals of our rational behavior. Only in humans can we find free will
to learn and use thinking techniques, systematically study different possibilities for solving certain problems,
and attempt to control higher-order thinking processes. This allows us to construct and apply new knowledge,
new ways and methods that serve as causes for our actions. That is, we are capable of being not just driven
by causes, but causes created by ourselves. Humans are the only species that have discovered that there
are other things (besides biological survival and reproduction) for which one can die: freedom, democracy,
truth, communism, the Roman Catholic Church, Islam, and much more [7].
This understanding became possible only after a new type of evolutionary reproduction appeared on the
scene – the transmission of information entities in the space of culture. This is what allowed the installation
of thinking tools and information symbionts (memes) in human brains, turning brains into minds. Modern
human consciousness is largely a product of cultural evolution, which created an array of memes and thinking
tools in our brains, thus creating a special cognitive architecture that is different from the architecture of the
animal brain. Thanks to the settlement of cultural evolutionary symbionts, information structures, our brain
acquired the ability to and can create artifacts and our own lives [7].
Communications are carried out using memes, which are a product of cultural evolution
Consciousness developed only under the pressure of the need for communication. The habit of sharing
information in the process of communication with others, asking and offering reasons is the reason for the
emergence of new intellectual artifacts and thinking tools. For example, such an intellectual artifact as a
person's personality is formed only in constant attempts to explain ourselves to others. Thus, communications
are a decisive factor in the emergence, maintenance and development of consciousness.

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The ingredients of intelligence are “hard” (Bayesian predictors) and “soft” (information structures supplied
within the framework of cultural communications). The “hard” is already technologically reproducible to a
certain extent, and as computing productivity grows, the machine brain will be comparable to the human one.
And the entire sacred part of intelligence is in supra-individual processes. An example of such a supra-
individual process is thinking. Let us recall that the Soviet philosopher and methodologist Georgy
Shchedrovitsky said: “In essence, it is not man who thinks, but thinking that thinks through man” [8].
The Soviet philosopher Evald Ilyenkov and his colleagues also wrote about the defining role of social relations
(and communications) in human rationality. According to their view, the ability to think is not “coded” in a
person genetically or biologically, it is “inherited”, passed on from generation to generation in a completely
different way – through the forms of the objective world created by labor, through the body of civilization. In
order for an individual brain to acquire the ability to think, its owner must be included in the system of social-
human relations, in linguistic practice, from childhood, and developed in accordance with its requirements
and norms. The function of thinking is determined not by the morphological organization of the individual’s
body itself, but by the organization of that grandiosely complex system, which in the language of science is
called “the totality of social relations between people” [9].
The logical conclusion from all of the above is that in order to endow a machine with intelligence, it must be
made a participant in social-human relations, a party to communications, so that it becomes more than a fast
Bayesian predictor, so that it enters the “sphere of reason”. In support of this idea, we will cite another
statement by Georgy Shchedrovitsky: “People are random carriers of thinking. Thinking can be implemented
on people, or on mixed systems of people and machines. The main thing is what thinking is, and what it is
implemented on is unimportant. In our world, it is random - on people, in another world - on penguins, and in
a third - as Lem said, on hardware. What difference does it make what it is implemented on!” [8].
Self-executing digital code - a new sign system for communications
Modern digital technologies make such communications between humans and machines, as well as between
machines, possible. “Digital” (self-executing code) is a new sign system that has replaced speech and
language and includes machines as communicators [10].
To eliminate the sharpness of these statements, it is necessary to introduce a distinction between subjectivity
and actorhood, which are present in human-machine relations. Subjectivity is based on reflection, expressed
in a volitional action that can be performed contrary to pre-set norms and settings (even emotions and
reflexes). Actorhood is the generation of decisions based on pre-set norms and settings. For further
reasoning, we can proceed from the fact that AI does not have subjectivity, but it does have actorhood, which
is based on principles set by another subject.
According to futurologists, a new form of human organization is being born before our eyes: hybrid collective
intelligence — collective human-machine systems that combine the power of natural individual perception
and thinking, collective co-creation and machine learning. In hybrid intelligence, the leading role — setting
tasks, making decisions, learning and creativity — is assigned to people and their collective interaction.
Artificial intelligence performs many supporting tasks that enhance collective potential — collecting and
analyzing data, evaluating solution options, controlled changes in operating modes of technical systems, risk
control [11].
Of course, today we see another type of system – “synthetic” intelligence, in which artificial intelligence
occupies a central place, is the task setter (at the moment – at the will of its creators), and people play a
Speech
Language
Code

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subordinate role of performers, “sensors”, information providers, training systems. But this is a temporary
situation: as physicist and sociologist Dirk Helbing shows in his work, hybrid collective intelligence systems
have long-term strategic advantages over synthetic artificial intelligence, trained on big data arrays, with the
growing complexity of the environment with which it interacts [12].
An important conclusion follows from all this. A new technological shift has emerged somewhat apart from
the ChatGPT hype. Its strong point will be not so much the arrangement of relationships between people,
but the interaction between a person and the external environment. Machine intelligence through digital
communications will become an actant of human-organized systems. Due to the formation of a hybrid
collective intelligence, these systems will be able to cope with the ordinal growth of the complexity of the
managed processes. In our engineering thinking about the future, this is a key point.
Managing Complexity in Anthropo-Techno-Bio-Systems
"Just as the steam engine allowed us to obtain independent physical force, separated from nature, so AI
allows us to obtain independent intellectual force, separated from humans." This is how we can "tighten" the
idea with which Andrey Sebrant, Director of Strategic Marketing at Yandex, began his speech at the meeting
with the Kamchatka Club. Yes, intellectual force separated from humans, even if it remains part of the hybrid
collective intelligence, provides the basis for revolutionary changes, co-scale with the events of the first
industrial revolution. Let us explain this using one of the technological approaches to the use of AI.
The key direction of AI technology development, allowing us to create systems based on hybrid collective
intelligence, is the multi-agent approach. Its essence lies in a fundamentally new method of solving complex
problems that are not solved or are difficult to solve using classical mathematical methods. Unlike the
classical method, in which a combinatorial search for solution options is carried out using a clearly defined
(deterministic) algorithm, in multi-agent technologies the solution to the problem is carried out in the course
of self-organization of many software agents capable of competition and cooperation, and having their own
criteria, preferences and limitations. The answer is considered to be found when, in the course of their non-
deterministic interactions, the agents reach an unimprovable consensus (temporary equilibrium or balance
of interests), which is accepted as the solution to the problem [13].
Multi-agent technologies are another breakthrough direction of AI
Multi-agent technologies offer new models, methods and tools for creating truly intelligent systems capable
of independently solving complex problems in conditions of uncertainty and high dynamics of change. In this
case, we can talk about observing the phenomenon of "swarm intelligence" (Swarm Intelligence), which
manifests itself in some natural systems. Indeed, the mental capabilities of one ant or bee may be relatively
small, but acting together as a single organism, a swarm of bees or a colony of ants represent a powerful
force with a high degree of intelligence, allowing it to protect the nest from unforeseen invasions, constantly
develop new territories, find food in unfamiliar areas and solve many other critically important life problems
under constantly changing conditions in the environment. The phenomenon of "intelligent swarm",
reproduced using multi-agent technologies, illustrates new possibilities for managing complex processes.

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The creation of intelligent systems based on a multi-agent approach, where the actants are technical objects
(see, for example, the creation of a multi-agent voltage and reactive power control system in the Elgaugol
cluster [14]), is already a fairly common practice. A new trend is that agents can act on behalf of any physical
and abstract entities (including plants, animals, ecosystems). Specialists in the field of science art have long
been playing with this idea. Interesting installations were presented at the First Biennale "Art of the Future"
in the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum. For example, Yulia Vergazova created an activity world of plants
connected to robots, the state parameters of which are constantly measured by sensors, based on their
readings, a generative algorithm determines the effects that the robot has on the plants - waters them,
changes the composition of the nutrient mixture, the lighting mode. In the emerging feedback loop, the
boundary between the natural and the artificial, the naturalized and the artificial is blurred and disappears.
Another example is a techno-biological installation by the art group 18apples. Controlled by a convolutional
neural network connected to light-sensitive sensors, a 3D printer prints a growing colony of chimeric bacteria
using bioink, the genome of which includes the jellyfish gene responsible for fluorescent glow. On the one
hand, the printed colony grows in a nutrient medium itself, on the other hand, the neural network records this
growth and, based on the rules embedded in it, prints the colony, and the bacteria that make it up react to
these actions and change the direction and nature of the colony's growth. In the resulting mutual influences
with a feedback loop, the subject-object relations between the printing program and the luminous bacterial
colony are destroyed [15].
Science art installation from the First Biennale "Art of the Future"
Futurologists are sure that the world of the future at the end of the 21st century is a polyphonic picture
assembled by a wide variety of actants: among them are people, human and human-machine collectives,
constructs of personalities of the past and “digital clones” of the living, artificial intelligence and “smart
environments” of the Internet of Things, animals, plants – perhaps even myceliums and bacterial colonies. In
recent years, active work has been underway to decipher the languages of communication of such biological
communities and societies, and in the second half of the 21st century, we will most likely be able to establish
constant contact with “planet dwellers” thanks to new interfaces based on neural networks. From a
technological point of view, we can imagine many interfaces of feedback from our environment – giving us
the opportunity to feel the mood of a forest or a city, a coral reef or artificial intelligence. Thanks to “intelligent
translators,” these entities will acquire a voice and will be able to build a dialogue with a person. And a
sensory interface (for example, a neural interface or a haptic interface) will enable a person to directly sense
their state, including a comprehensive sense of the impact of the technosphere on the environment [11].
Dialogue with non-human subjects can be built on two different foundations:
• • "Intelligence" is a more traditional (going back to the interpretation of Plato's idea of an organically
living Cosmos, which gained popularity in the mid-20th century) and quite typical of the industrial era
approach. This approach assumes that it is possible to set a certain unified scale of "levels of

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intelligence", the top position on which is occupied by a conventionally adult human. According to
this approach, the main task of a human is to "raise" other species to their level. The first experiments
in which dolphins, chimpanzees and ravens were taught human language and mathematics show
that there is a high probability of growing one or more species on Earth that are "intelligent" in the
human understanding.
• • "Equal Position" is a more modern approach to interaction with non-human entities, recognizing
their fundamental difference from humans. What if we assume that other living beings can potentially
be “equal” to us (even if as completely different, but no less complex entities), and that they have an
interest in communicating with us in the absence of the opportunity?
The second approach seems more promising. It is discussed in detail in the works of Eduardo Kohn, How
Forests Think: Towards an Anthropology Beyond Humans [25] and Alexander Shpera, The Internet of
Animals: A New Dialogue Between Humans and Nature [26].
In this and only in this case can the actorhood of non-human entities and the inclusion of the "voice of nature"
or "voice of future generations" in the decision-making system be ensured. This will allow for the targeted
integration of previously disparate social, natural and technological systems into single complexes - anthropo-
bio-techno-systems (-cenoses). Man, of course, will remain the "key species" in this system, the "most adult"
in the family of actants, the organizer of dialogue and the environment of communication, but he creates this
space of interaction not only for himself, but for all actants, and not from the position of "colonizer" or "master",
but from the position of equality, the position of "service to Life".
Method of creating anthropo-bio-techno-systems
Ashby's law states that the diversity (complexity) of the control system should be no less than the diversity
(complexity) of the controlled object. Hybrid collective intelligence systems, which allow for the consideration
of many local and rapidly changing factors in complex interactions when making decisions, open up the
possibility of increasing the diversity (complexity) of control by orders of magnitude. This is ensured by the
fact that various participants in anthropo-bio-techno-systems are mediated in communications and interaction
by intelligent machine agents, the very same intellectual force that is separated from people but can perform
intellectual work. How can these opportunities be used?
Solving planetary problems
In matters of climate and ecology, industry and agriculture, large cities and remote settlements, politics and
war, humanity has hit a barrier of management complexity. Management systems do not recognize the
diversity of the state of management objects and cannot reliably predict the dynamics of their change. As a
result, we see unsolved problems in many areas. It seems that the barrier of management complexity can
be overcome by management systems based on hybrid collective intelligence. In the limit, such systems will
help solve super-complex problems on a planetary scale. Let us illustrate this statement with the example of
combating climate change.

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Climate scientists' data lead to the conclusion that the implementation of the currently dominant Mitigation
strategy, which consists of curbing the increase in average annual surface air temperature and mitigating the
effects of climate change, is not enough. In particular, according to the "Emissions Gap Report 2023"
prepared by the UN IPCC, the current level of commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions undertaken
by countries in accordance with the Paris Agreement will limit global warming to 3°C above pre-industrial
levels this century. This far exceeds the goals of the Paris Agreement and will lead to significant changes in
the Earth's climate. To limit global warming to below 1.5°C this century, the world needs to significantly
accelerate the reduction in the rate of annual greenhouse gas emissions [16]. However, as noted in the IEA
materials, to achieve net zero emissions in 2050, technological changes alone will not be enough; deep
behavioral changes in people will be required, that is, adjustments in everyday life that reduce wasteful or
excessive energy consumption. These are especially important in the richer parts of the world, where energy-
intensive lifestyles are the norm. Behavioural changes include cycling or walking instead of driving, turning
off the heating, and going on holiday close to home [17].
From a practical point of view, we need not only to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, but
also to understand how to clean the air from billions of tons of CO2 that were emitted earlier. This cannot be
achieved without new technological solutions, simply by returning back to nature, limiting human activity on
the planet. The answer to climate change, probably caused by human activity, should again be targeted
human intervention. More and more experts and scientists recognize the critical importance of the transition
to the Adaptation strategy, including, in the extreme, the practices of geoengineering and terraforming of
planet Earth. Humanity is facing planetary problems that seem impossible to solve without a transition to
planetary thinking and action.
The topic of planetarity is the subject of the texts of the American sociologist and philosopher, author of
numerous books on social and political theory Benjamin Bratton. In particular, he argues that planetarity is
becoming a new format of human intervention, implying that “we do not distinguish between phenomena
invented and created by man and what already existed on the planet before him. With all inventions and
technologies, man is an inseparable part of the planet. The subject of intervention is this planetary whole.
Only such a view of the world allows us to achieve a healthy balance. Otherwise, humanity comes to a
destructive over expenditure of natural resources. We are a product of the planet itself, it produced man in
the process of its development. This is precisely why we cannot consider ourselves the center of the universe;
we are only an integral part of the Earth” [18]. Of great importance for the formation of the concept of
planetarity are the works of Dipesh Chakrabarty “On the Anthropocene” [27], where the idea of removing the
opposition between human history and natural history is introduced, and Bruno Latour “Where to Land? An
experience of political orientation”, where an active view of nature and the “critical layer” of the planet as the
subject of an active relationship is proposed [28].
In particular, planetarity practices are manifested in geoengineering, which is a set of measures and impacts
aimed at actively changing climate conditions in a local region of the Earth or across the entire planet.
However, environmentalists warn of the dangers of using geoengineering technologies. In particular, one of
the lead authors of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Paul N. Edwards, writes: “It is certainly possible, and
even really cheap, to limit temperature increases using some of these methods. The problem is that we
cannot accurately predict what the consequences will be without trying these methods. So if you were going
to control solar radiation, you would need some means to stop the process immediately if it led to really bad
consequences. But even then, the process may cause unknown effects that we simply do not know about”
[19]. It is obvious that in this situation the fundamental solution is to use technologies that allow significantly
increasing the number of factors of the control object taken into account and improve the accuracy of
forecasting, in the long term to provide flexible feedback-based impact on geoengineering systems. We are
talking about the digitalization of processes on a planetary scale.
The goal of such digitalization should be the material transformation of planetary biochemistry and regional
ecosystems, including cities. Incidentally, the problem of "climate change" itself arose as a result of digital
probing, modeling and calculation of measurable changes on the planet in ways that go far beyond direct
human observation. In our approach, planetary digitalization is based on the actorhood of not only humans
or social institutions and organizations, but also the technologically mediated actorhood of natural objects

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and the technosphere. Its task is to "hear" their "voices" in time and take them into account when developing
solutions. Models based on the obtained digital data of the past, present and future of the planet become a
collective mind, a means of communication and a tool for managing interventions based on a dynamic
analysis of their consequences.
Geoengineering Project Options
An example, albeit somewhat fantastic, of controlled intervention in the planet's climate is the installation of
heat-reflecting mirrors in space. According to astrophysicist Lowell Wood, to solve the problem of global
warming it would be enough to reflect 1% of the sunlight coming to the planet. Scientists argue whether one
mirror with an area of 600 thousand square miles or a huge number of small mirrors should be built [20]. It
can only be noted that we obtain a special effect of a more "subtle" influence in the second case, since due
to the coordinated control of a multitude of mirrors, it becomes possible to flexibly regulate the illumination of
the planet or its individual regions. A climate data monitoring system, closed to the control system of such
mirrors, creates a new degree of freedom for the planet to support and develop life.
The approach to solving climate problems using digital technologies and hybrid collective intelligence
presented here is only an illustration intended to demonstrate the power of this class of technologies and
practices. Examples can be given for solving other complex problems: controlled change of ecosystems,
management of “smart” cities, creation of a long-term life support system for a large number of people in
planetary orbit. It is important to note that a person plays a leading role in all these tasks, this becomes
especially clear when solving planetary problems. A person defines the boundaries of the system, explores
problems, sets goals, decides what is bad and what is good, analyzes the results of modeling, builds
hypotheses about fundamental patterns, designs unique systems, makes strong-willed decisions in
conditions of uncertainty. The emergence of control systems based on hybrid collective intelligence does not
deprive us of work, but, on the contrary, creates a huge mass of creative, interesting, important activities for
people.
Shaping a New Order with AI
For a hybrid collective intelligence, one of the “near-term” tasks may be the creation of a new economy that
operates on the principles of a closed cycle and restoration (circular economy), which will require
restructuring the basic systems of our civilization: urban and transport infrastructure, energy, food production

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systems, and material production. The technosphere that we are creating must expand the capabilities of
humanity and the biosphere, and not “play” against them, must become nature-friendly. We must change the
principles by which we manage our habitat - how we invent new objects in this environment, how we create
and use them, what we do with them after their service life has expired.
To create and manage such systems, new methods of design and coordination are needed [21], including:
• Instead of linear logic, anthropo-bio-technosystems will be based on the logic of multiple feedbacks
(including the use of recycled matter and renewable energy).
• Instead of the logic of fragmentation and division — on the logic of integrity, connection, work for a
common system result (prosperity of all participants in the system).
• Instead of the logic of intervention, imposition, colonization of the environment — will be based on
the logic of consistency, conformity with the environment and its properties (including the use of
natural or local materials, processes).
• Instead of the logic of following a predetermined plan — will be based on constant additional training,
completion, development of control codes and structures (including taking into account the life cycles
of developing systems).
• Instead of the logic of standardization and unification — will rely on the principles of experimentation,
growth of diversity and uniqueness, "generational involvement" (including the involvement of the
creative potential of people and nature).
• Instead of the logic of centralization in operating a passive environment, they will be based on the
logic of dialogue and co-tuning of many active and independent entities (including people, other living
beings and autonomous technological systems).
In essence, the complex systems we are talking about will be “designed” and “built” less and less, and
increasingly “born” and “grown”. Languages of description, models, design and management methods will
increasingly rely on the metaphor and properties of life, an organism, and not a mechanism. At the mome nt,
there are already a number of approaches that offer work in such logic: the theory of complex adaptive
systems, design based on permaculture principles, the biomimicry approach, and many others. To create
such systems, digital adaptive models will be required, essentially digital twins that develop as the living and
social systems themselves evolve. Artificial intelligence will be able to act as a coordinator of the complex
interaction of its constituent elements, a holder of the integrity of a constantly evolving complex system as its
environment changes.
In the energy sector, such models of hybrid collective intelligence will be in demand in new-generation energy
systems built on the principles of decentralized control of distributed energy objects. Within the framework of
this approach, many distributed energy sources and sources of energy flexibility, prosumers, active and
passive consumers, united in a common network, carry out free energy exchange. To support such energy
exchange, a cyber-physical infrastructure will be required that implements decentralized intelligent (robotic)
control systems. This infrastructure is called the Internet of Energy. Multi-agent technologies and other AI
tools make it possible to organize this type of energy systems. In Russia, within the framework of the National
Technology Initiative in the direction of "EnergyNet", an architectural framework for building a distributed
energy system was developed - Internet of Distributed Energy Architecture (IDEA) [23]. Based on the
framework, two preliminary national standards were developed on terms and definitions, as well as on the
architecture of Internet of Energy systems; they will be put into effect by decision of Rosstandart on July 1 of
this year.
A practical example of the application of the Internet of Energy approach for the communal infrastructure of
cities and towns is a new trend called sector coupling (cross-sector integration) that has recently emerged in
the process of transition to renewable energy sources and deep electrification of industry, agriculture,
transport and the household sector [24]. Within the framework of this trend, a multi-infrastructure is being
created that combines the processes of production, circulation and supply of electricity, heat, water, fuel for
transport, energy utilization of household and industrial waste. To implement the multi-infrastructure
approach, complex systems must be created that manage the flexible conversion of a wide range of energy
sources into different forms (electricity, heat, hydrogen), using distributed sources of energy flexibility (from

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electric vehicles to prosumers), creating a variety of customized services for consumers. Obviously, the
effective management of such complex systems will require technologies and practices of hybrid collective
intelligence.
As we can see, the emergence of AI technologies does create opportunities for building qualitatively new
systems that provide management of complex processes of various scales. However, in order to discern
these opportunities, it is necessary to change the ideas about new technology and methods of engineering
complex systems. In essence, it is necessary to realize that it is not some individual technologies that are
changing, but the entire technological structure.
Conclusion
We are entering a period of time when the very survival of our species will depend on our ability to change
our thinking, our way of acting, and our priorities. The long-term survival and prosperity of humanity will
require a fundamental change in our relationship with our environment - instead of subjugating and reshaping
this environment, we must learn to negotiate with it - just as we have learned to negotiate with each other in
complex cultures and civilizations. And therefore, it is becoming necessary to be able to sense the state and
direction of the world's development, to carry out complex "subtle" influences on the object of control, to
predict and control their consequences. If you like, we should "give voice to silence", slightly expanding the
interpretation of Jean-François Lyotard's "silent witness" to all actants of ecosystems [10].
Artificial intelligence technologies, often viewed from a layman's perspective as a threat to the good old order
of life, are a powerful tool for the survival of humanity and its transition to a new stage of development. They
create technological prerequisites for the creation of control systems based on hybrid collective intelligence,
which will help overcome the barrier of complexity of the modern world, which is developing under the
pressure of planetary challenges. Such global problems as global warming set the trend for the formation of
planetary technologies and practices, where digital sign systems based on intelligent self-executing code will
be a critical infrastructure, they will allow for control based on communications between people, machines
and natural objects.
On this path, we should start small – create control systems based on hybrid collective intelligence to solve
complex problems of a smaller scale. For example, setting the task of transitioning to clean, carbon-free
energy, integrating the city's communal infrastructure, and economically developing hard-to-reach territories
leads to a level of complexity where technologies and management practices based on hybrid collective
intelligence will allow for a breakthrough.
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