2025/09/10 by Paul B. Rainey, Michael Hochberg · 2 voices
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Embodied and Extended Cognition #Mental Health Research Topics #Neural dynamics and brain function
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.2509122122
openalex publication_date 2025/09/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Artificial intelligence (AI)-broadly defined as the capacity of engineered systems to perform tasks that would require intelligence if done by humansis increasingly embedded in the infrastructure of human life.From personalized recommendation systems to large-scale decision-making frameworks, AI shapes what humans see, choose, believe, and do (1, 2).Much of the current concern about AI centers on its understanding, safety, and alignment with human values (3-5).But alongside these immediate challenges lies a broader, more speculative, and potentially more profound question: could the deepening interdependence between humans and AI give rise to a new kind of evolutionary individual?We argue that as interdependencies grow, humans and AI could come to function not merely as interacting agents, but as an integrated evolutionary individual subject to selection at the collective level.As interdependencies between humans and AI grow, the two could come to function not merely as interacting agents, but as an integrated evolutionary individual subject to selection at the collective level.