Generative midtended cognition and Artificial Intelligence: thinging with thinging things.
This paper introduces the concept of “generative midtended cognition”, that explores the integration of generative AI technologies with human cognitive processes. The term “generative” reflects AI’s ability to iteratively produce structured outputs, while “midtended” captures the potential hybrid (h...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 205; no. 4; pp. 1 - 25 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Apr2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=184294745&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 184294745 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2025 vid: 205 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 184294745 10.1007/s11229-025-04961-4 ppf: 1 ppct: 24 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.2MB tig: atl: Generative midtended cognition and Artificial Intelligence: thinging with thinging things. aug: au: Barandiaran, Xabier E. Pérez-Verdugo, Marta affil: https://ror.org/000xsnr85 IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and, Society (Department of Philosophy), University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Tolosa Hiribidea 70, 20018, Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain sug: keyword: Authorship Creativity Cyborg intentionality Extended cognition Generative AI Midtention Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology ab: This paper introduces the concept of “generative midtended cognition”, that explores the integration of generative AI technologies with human cognitive processes. The term “generative” reflects AI’s ability to iteratively produce structured outputs, while “midtended” captures the potential hybrid (human-AI) nature of the process. It stands between traditional conceptions of intended creation, understood as steered or directed from within, and extended processes that bring exo-biological processes into the creative process. We examine the working of current generative technologies (based on multimodal transformer architectures typical of large language models like ChatGPT) to explain how they can transform human cognitive agency beyond what the conceptual resources of standard theories of extended cognition can capture. We suggest that the type of cognitive activity typical of the coupling between a human and generative technologies is closer (but not equivalent) to social cognition than to classical extended cognitive paradigms. Yet, it deserves a specific treatment. We provide an explicit definition of generative midtended cognition in which we treat interventions by AI systems as constitutive of the agent’s intentional creative processes. Furthermore, we distinguish two dimensions of generative hybrid creativity: 1. Width: captures the sensitivity of the context of the generative process (from the single letter to the whole historical and surrounding data), 2. Depth: captures the granularity of iteration loops involved in the process. Generative midtended cognition stands in the middle depth between conversational forms of cognition in which complete utterances or creative units are exchanged, and micro-cognitive (e.g. neural) subpersonal processes. Finally, the paper discusses the potential risks and benefits of widespread generative AI adoption, including the challenges of authenticity, generative power asymmetry, and creative boost or atrophy. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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