The Double Contingency Problem: AI Recursion and the Limits of Interspecies Understanding

TL;DR

This paper explores the limitations of current bioacoustic AI systems in understanding recursive communication across species, highlighting the double contingency problem where AI cognition may distort interspecies signals and proposing a shift towards diplomatic, cross-cognitive approaches.

Contribution

It introduces the double contingency problem in bioacoustic AI, emphasizing the need to reconceptualize models as recursive cognitive agents rather than mere pattern detectors.

Findings

AI systems may distort interspecies communication signals

Recursive cognition in AI creates double contingency issues

Reconceptualizing bioacoustic AI as diplomatic encounter is proposed

Abstract

Current bioacoustic AI systems achieve impressive cross-species performance by processing animal communication through transformer architectures, foundation model paradigms, and other computational approaches. However, these approaches overlook a fundamental question: what happens when one form of recursive cognition--AI systems with their attention mechanisms, iterative processing, and feedback loops--encounters the recursive communicative processes of other species? Drawing on philosopher Yuk Hui's work on recursivity and contingency, I argue that AI systems are not neutral pattern detectors but recursive cognitive agents whose own information processing may systematically obscure or distort other species' communicative structures. This creates a double contingency problem: each species' communication emerges through contingent ecological and evolutionary conditions, while AI systems process these signals through their own contingent architectural and training conditions. I propose that addressing this challenge requires reconceptualizing bioacoustic AI from universal pattern recognition toward diplomatic encounter between different forms of recursive cognition, with implications for model design, evaluation frameworks, and research methodologies.