2026/02/27 by Almudena Barrientos-Báez, Juan Manuel Barceló-Sánchez, David Caldevilla-Domínguez · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Computer Science · #Cybernetics and Technology in Society #Media, Communication, and Education #Digital Media and Philosophy
paper · pdf · doi:10.24137/raeic.13.25.2
openalex publication_date 2026/02/27 · openalex created_date 2026/02/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
This study critically updates Marshall McLuhan’s media theory to analyze the mental, sociological, and artistic effects of generative artificial intelligence, understood as a radical cognitive extension that reconfigures perception, identity, and cultural production. A qualitative approach based on comparative conceptual analysis is employed. Foundational texts by McLuhan are examined in dialogue with recent scholarship in neuroscience, algorithmic sociology, and computational creativity studies. McLuhan’s tetrad is systematically applied as an interpretative framework. Findings indicate that AI externalizes cognitive processes such as synthesis and writing, enhancing efficiency while activating the Law of Reversal. Risks of digital amnesia, cognitive sedentarism, and the erosion of deep reading are identified. Sociologically, the “global village” evolves into algorithmic fragmentation and a surveillance capitalism model. In the artistic domain, authorship becomes decentralized and creativity is redefined in terms of statistical recombination. AI emerges as a structural media environment whose efficiency may reverse into intellectual dependency and conformism. The study underscores the need for anticipatory governance and renewed critical media literacy to safeguard human agency.