Ciaunica, Gallagher: AI may turn humans into 'hybrid creatures'

The familiar question about AI is whether machines are becoming more human. Anna Ciaunica and Shaun Gallagher, writing in a PsyArXiv preprint posted November 4, press the inverse: whether humans are becoming less human, or more artificial, through sustained interaction with artificial agents.

Their paper, 'Becoming Hybrid Selves,' argues that living systems are 'fundamentally open systems, continuously shaped and constituted by exchanges and interactions with the physical and social world.' The through-line: 'Being surrounded by artificial agents from the cradle and across the lifespan may transform us, humans, into hybrid creatures.'

What matters, the authors write, is 'not what we learn, but how we learn and with whom we learn and what happens in between us and our creations.'

The preprint is argument, not experiment. It reports no empirical study and no participants. It is a framing proposal for a question the authors think the field has been asking in only one direction. A pair of researchers we track had the link circulating within days of its posting.