Associating culture with humans is a mistake. Studying bees has shown us that culture is more widespread than we thought, flowing through humans and nonhuman animals. While culture may be a lot simpler than we thought, the power culture has given humans is one that could be bestowed on A.I. systems, with possibly apocalyptic consequences, writes philosopher Grant Ramsey.

You visit the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and are captivated by its form: the shape reminiscent of an ocean vessel but with whimsical curves like windblown fabric, its surface an expanse of shimmering scales like a well-polished armadillo. You marvel at the massive puppy guarding its entrance, its overbearing size and cuteness an embodied contradiction. Inside, you navigate Serra’s vertiginous torqued spirals, you wander wide-eyed through the galleries, imbibing the abstract, the avant-garde, the innovative. This is culture. You drink it in, savor it.

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What, then, should we make of scientists’ claims of discovering culture beyond the human? In a recent study, researchers purport to have demonstrated culture not in apes or even vertebrates, but in bumblebees. Can insects—or even A.I.—exhibit culture? I believe the answer is yes, and that this expansive way of understanding culture allows us to see culture’s immense power. It’s a power that made us the extraordinary species that we are, but it carries with it real dangers when it comes to A.I. systems. But before we get to the bots, we need to talk about the bees.