NEW INC Y11 Creative Science: SYMLINK: An Ecological Intelligence for Citizen-led Regenerative Design

Artificial intelligence has the potential to bridge the gap between the global scale of climate change and the local community efforts required to reconcile humanity’s relationship with the environment. This paper introduces SYMLINK, a prototypical system for ecological intelligence that uses generative AI to empower citizens to practice regenerative design at the local level. By chaining together a large language model and an image generator, it is capable of analyzing environmental data, deriving insights, and providing guidance on design interventions. SYMLINK acts as a mediator between natural ecosystems and human action, giving voice to non-human actors and critically stepping outside of an anthropomorphic view of the world. This fundamental recontextualization of current-day AI transforms it into an ecological intelligence that fosters symbiotic local design practices for a regenerative future.