Is Intent the Problem? How about scope?

As we scramble to find ways to distinguish artifacts that other forms of life create such as beaver damns or anthills, we search frantically for distinctions so we can say "Well, there's the difference!" This is actually a feeble minded attempt to maintain one's un-examined worldview rather than a serious attempt to understand the underlying issue. Nonetheless, it does crop up. So we must deal with it. 

We might try to forgive the creation of artifacts in nature by saying that even though things are created in nature that impact the environment of the species that created them, any bad things that happen were not intentional. The were just by products of the species' attempt to survive. So, for example, when a mutating virus creates a virile new copy of itself that wipes out a population, we might say that it didn't really mean any harm. Or when a beaver builds a dam that floods a field near the dam, they didn't do it just to be mean.

 But, if intent is the distinction, then it doesn't get us anywhere. When the automobile was invented, for example, nobody said "let's invent and then mass produce an internal combustion engine that uses fossil fuels and see if we can heat up the planet". I feel fairly confident, that this outcome never occurred to anyone. And, nobody is saying now, "let's burn as much fossil fuel as we can and see how hot we can make it". Granted that there are some unfortunate side effects of the things we do. But, to suggest intent is to way overstate the case.

Even the characterization of "unfortunate" is a matter of perspective. If you were part of the next species waiting to dominate the planet once the humans had driven themselves into extinction, your might find some of these side effects to be very promising. And, as you saw repeated attempts by humans to prevent or postpone their extinction, you might think - "How selfish!"

If intent doesn't get us anywhere in making distinctions between the things that humans do which we call artificial and the similar things that other life forms do, then maybe we can think of it as a difference in scale rather than a difference in kind. After all, a beaver damn is not going to flood the planet or cause the sea levels to rise. And an anthill is unlikely to destroy other species. But, is it really true that only humans can do real damage? Aren't don't locust plagues create devastation on a very large scale. How about army ants that eat everything in their path. Or what about mutating viruses, such as the flu, which routinely (in geological time) wipe out other species.

Let's say that the planet heats up causing the sea levels to rise until it creates a massive extinction event. What happens next? Well, new species will arise and life will go on just as it has done in any number similar events of varying magnitude to life on this planet since life first came to the planet. Granted there might be a few less humans.  And their beach front properties aren't worth a dime any more. But, in the cosmological scheme of things, it is business as usual. So, even the attribute of scale will not give us a meaningful distinction.