Sean Michaels at The Baffler:
Literary Theory for Robots is mainly concerned with an alternative view—the “Aristotelian,” instrumental idea that intelligence represents the ability to successfully do shit—and not some internal, mental model. Intelligence is a set of mechanisms that one applies to one’s problems. It doesn’t matter what’s contained in those mechanisms, how conscious or self-conscious or “correct” they are, just that they work. Negotiating a ceasefire; completing a jigsaw puzzle; shifting gears; turning bread into toast—each of these requires intelligence to solve, and the degree of this intelligence is evaluated by (a) how well the set of mechanisms performs; and (b) how capably the same cocktail can be applied to other problems. A toaster is intelligent, Tenen argues, because its mechanism succeeds at turning bread into toast. And it sits at the bottom rung of a ladder, incapable of applying its wits to any other test.
more here.