---
title: "Synthetic Intelligence"
description: "Antikythera's machine-intelligence research track and Bratton's preferred replacement for \"artificial intelligence\"."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/synthetic-intelligence"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/synthetic-intelligence"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Synthetic Intelligence

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/synthetic-intelligence), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

Antikythera's machine-intelligence research track and Bratton's preferred replacement for "artificial intelligence". In the research statement it spans every artificially composed intelligent system, whether or not it matches humanist traditions, anthropomorphic and automorphic alike, distributed and evolving rather than a brain in a box; After Alignment repeats the definition almost verbatim. Two ideas ride on the adjective. First, in the Planetary Sapience chapter of The Planetary, Bratton borrows Herbert Simon's contrast between the artificial, which merely resembles an original, and the synthetic, a genuine version deliberately made: artificial intelligence seems smart, synthetic intelligence is. Second, synthesis proper: human and machine cognition reaching together what neither could alone, as with AlphaGo's move 37 and Lee Sedol's answering move 78; the statement adds that such amalgamations alter both for good. The term is bound to Artificialization, defined as deliberate composition rather than fakery, and to Productive Disalignment, since synthesis requires minds that differ.

## Appears in

- [Diffusion: A New Venture for Antikythera](https://antikythera.wiki/work/substack/2025-09-25-diffusion-a-new-venture-for-antikythera) (2025-09-25)
- [After Alignment](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/afteralignment) (2025-05-10)
- [Speculative Philosophy of Planetary Computation](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/spoc) (2025-05-10)
- [Antikythera](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/research) (2025-05-10)
- [The Planetary](https://antikythera.wiki/work/book/the-planetary) (2024-11-10)
- [Planetary Sapience](https://antikythera.wiki/work/media/noema-planetary-sapience) (2021-06-17)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._