Becoming Hybrid Selves: Interacting with Artificial Minds and Bodies

Humans have long tried to make artificial versions of our minds and bodies and other life forms. Recent technological advances are poised to open the Pandora box and explore whether these artificial agents will become more human or alive. In this paper we argue that this question needs to be addressed in tandem with the equally valid counterpart: to what extent do interactions with artificial others make humans less human and more artificial? Living systems such as human organisms are fundamentally open systems, continuously shaped and constituted by exchanges and interactions with the physical and social world. Thus, we suggest that we ourselves may become hybrid through our interactions with our artificial creations. Being surrounded by artificial agents from the cradle and across the lifespan may transform us, humans, into hybrid creatures. It is not only the passive and rapid absorption of the increasingly complex cognitive content that matters, nor the mere sophistication of the conversational exchanges with AI agents or embodied interactions with robots. Rather, the very nature of interaction itself matters too. It’s not what we learn, but how we learn and with whom we learn and what happens in between us and our creations.