Category: Cognitive science

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Human innovation and the creative agency of the world in the age of generative AI

My newly published paper on the relationship between creativity, innovation & novelty, generative AI/LLMs, future potentials, and the creative agency of the world:
Peschl (2024). Human innovation and the creative agency of the world in the age of generative AI. Possibility Studies & Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699241238049 (online first, open access)

Abstract
With the advent of Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, and, more generally, generative AI/cognitive technologies, global knowledge production faces a critical systemic challenge. It results from continuously feeding back non- or poorly-creative copies of itself into the global knowledge base; in the worst case, this could not only lead to a stagnation of creative, reliable, and valid knowledge generation, but also have an impact on our material (and subsequently our social) world and how it will be shaped by these rather uninspired automatized knowledge dynamics.
More than ever, there appears to be an imperative to bring the creative human agent back into the loop. Arguments from the perspectives of 4E- and Material Engagement Theory approaches to cognition, human-technology relations as well as possibility studies will be used to show that being embodied, sense-making, and enacting the world by proactively and materially interacting with it are key ingredients for any kind of knowledge and meaning production. It will be shown that taking seriously the creative agency of the world, an engaged epistemology, as well as making use of future potentials/possibilities complemented and augmented by cognitive technologies are all essential for re-introducing profound novelty and creativity.

Keywords: AI, cognitive technologies, creative agency of the world, creativity, 4E cognition, embodied cognition, engaged epistemology, future potential, innovation, large language models, possibility, radical novelty, World

Download here: https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699241238049 (online first, open access)

#AI #cognitivetechnologies #creativeagencyoftheworld #creativity #4Ecognition #embodiedcognition #engagedepistemology #futurepotential #innovation #LLM #radicalnovelty

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The transformative and creative power of walking. Walking as co-becoming with the world

© M.Peschl

„Rather, it seems that I become my walking, and that my walking walks me… And with every step I am not so much changed as modified, in the sense not of transition from one state to another but of perpetual renewal. I am indeed a different person when I arrive… Walking is itself a habit of thinking. This thinking is not however an inside-the-head, but the work of a mind that, in its deliberations, freely mingles with the body and the world… I do not so much think while walking as think in walking… Perhaps the meditative power of walking lies in precisely this: that it gives thought room to breathe, to let the world in on its reflections. But by the same token, to be open to the world we must also surrender something of our agency. We must become responsive beings.“ (Ingold 2017, p 23)

Walking is not just moving from one place to another. Tim Ingold offers a perspective on this activity from the inside out by relating it to a habit of thinking, and even more, to an existential dimension. Cognition, no longer understood as capacity bound to the brain only, is embodied, embedded, and extended. In the activity of walking it enacts our mind (and body) through engaging in a relationship of correspondence with the world. We co-become with the world and the world is transforming us, enabling renewal and re-generation. The world becomes a source of novelty for us.
In the context of innovation and future-oriented work, we might think of walking as an activity of exposing ourselves to and engaging with the creativity of the world by giving our minds room (and time) to breath the fresh air of novelty. Surrendering parts of our agency and projections from past experiences proves key in this endeavor. Correspondence with the world means responsiveness to emerging future potentials.

Ingold, T. (2017). Anthropology and/as education. Oxon, New York: Routledge.

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Emergent Innovation — joining forces with the world to enact the unpredictable

https://unsplash.com/photos/6mc8N-c8Sjk

„Performers, based on their well-trained skills, and well-formed habits (which involve a heedful flexibility rather than automaticity or repetitiveness) are able to move beyond controlled engagement to the point of not-knowing (embracing a kind of uncertainty or surprise) about what precisely will happen—letting the system (brain-body-environment) move in unpredictable, surprising ways—without a prediction of what happens next. What happens next is that brain-body-environment couple in a novel way—they join forces to enact something unpredictable—they create cortical patterns, and behaviors, and new affordances that are unique to each event. Enactivism explains the possibility of breaking habits (declining usual affordances, resisting predictions) across the various timescales of performance, generating higher degrees of uncertainty about what will happen.” (Gallagher 2022, p 8)

Although the above quote is about improvisation, it offers important insights into an alternative perspective on innovation. Instead of understanding innovation as a purely brain-bound activity that is based on extrapolating past routines and knowledge, this text invites us into a somewhat paradoxical situation: on the one hand, to make use of our well-formed habits that do not primarily mean blind automatic responses and repetition, but that enable us to be adaptive and open to coping sovereignly with uncertainty, unpredictability and unfamiliar situations. On the other hand, it suggests to let go of control and prediction and to engage in interacting with an unfolding reality, as in a dance. In such an act, we enact both our world and our mind in a co-creative manner. This is achieved by making use of potentials that are continuously unfolding and emerging in a process of transforming possibles into actuals. Novelty is created by establishing new affordances and patterns of interaction. Innovation becomes an emergent process (Peschl 2020) that is driven by future potentials in the environment rather than by our own pre-defined (past) ideas.

Gallagher, S. (2022). Surprise! Why enactivism and predictive processing are parting ways: The case of improvisation. Possibility Studies & Society 0(0), 1–10. | https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699221132691

Peschl, M.F. (2020). Theory U: From potentials and co-becoming to bringing forth emergent innovation and shaping a thriving future. On what it means to “learn from the future as it emerges”. In O. Gunnlaugson and W. Brendel (Eds.), Advances in Presencing, pp. 65–112. Vancouver: Trifoss Business Press. | https://homepage.univie.ac.at/franz-markus.peschl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Peschl-2020-Theory-U_-From-potentials-and-co-becoming-to-bringing-forth-emergent-innovation.pdf

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On the “creativity”​ of AI — Preliminary critical remarks

Praise for the creative capabilities of recent developments in AI technologies is ubiquitous in the media and relevant blogs.

Although really astonishing (as an example, have a look here [and the examples in the article]), creating novel ideas by using AI seems to have intrinsic limitations.

To us humans, these results sometimes seem really “creative”, “novel”, or surprising. However this is mainly due to the limitations in our own imagination, which is simply not capable of processing such huge amounts of data.

In essence, AI’s creativity is the result of hyper-complex processes of learning and adaptation that is based on an almost endless ocean of data/”knowledge” (without meaning). This has several implications concerning the underlying premises of such an AI-driven understanding of creativity and bringing forth novelty:

  1. These systems are based almost exclusively on already existing knowledge. Hence, their learning algorithms apply a strategy of learning from the past.
  2. This leads to a form of creativity that is grounded in the idea of (re-)combining already existing concepts/things. This is an accepted and valid strategy well known from creativity and innovation research. However, we have to keep in mind, that the results will remain in the realm of the predictable, or, from a Kuhnian perspective, within the paradigm of what already exists.
  3. It is a purely “brain/mind-based” form of creativity that does not take into account the world and its potentials (e.g., affordances) as a possible source of novelty (e.g., by interacting and engaging with it).

If we are interested in really “ground breaking”, radical, or disruptive innovations, these strategies will not suffice. As we show in our research, we will have to follow a strategy of Emergent Innovation, “Learning from the future and future potentials as they emerge” as well as acquire futures skills and a perspective on innovation that is grounded in an enactive understanding of cognition.

Will AI be able to sense the future by learning from it, its affordances and potentials, and from interacting with and enacting its environment?

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How the future can drive innovation | Markus F. Peschl | TEDx Med Uni Graz

TEDx talk by Markus F. Peschl: How the future can drive innovation (April 1, 2022)

Innovation entails anticipating and shaping the future.

Why is it that most innovations are not so much about the future, but about extrapolating the past and coming up with more of the (almost) same? Taking a closer look at our cognitive capacities reveals that our mind has great difficulties dealing with a future that is highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (i.e., today’s VUCA world).

This TEDx talk shows how assuming a radically future-oriented perspective will change the game. It is about actively engaging with future potentials and co-creating thriving innovations by making use of an unfolding future.

This talk was given at the TEDx Med Uni Graz event (April 1, 2022)  | #TEDxMedUniGraz #innovation #perspective # neuroscience

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Joy @ Work | Part 2

Joy @ Work — on the relationship between joy and work (in the 21st century)

This is part 2 of a first draft of an explorative paper on the relationship between joy/joyfulness and work.

The next parts will follow in the next blog entries

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Joy and/at work

The activity of work(ing) is an intrinsic part of our human being (e.g., Arendt, 2001). It is about our capacity to design and shape (“gestalten”) the world (and being shaped by it). In other words, giving our world a shape according to and in co-operation/co-creation with our mind is an essential activity of the human person (“homo faber”). As is suggested by the 4E approaches in cognitive science (e.g., Newen, de Burin, and Gallagher, 2018; Hutto, Kirchhoff, and Myin, 2014) or by Material Engagement Theory (Malafouris, 2013, 2014, 2020) actively engaging with the world and enacting it is one of the key activities of a cognitive system. Work or art can be considered as behaviors that realize this engagement.

Vita contemplativa, vita activa, and vita automatica

While (non-intellectual) work was not highly valued in ancient Greece (political action had the highest value), this has changed dramatically since the beginning of modern times. The traditional hierarchy of vita contemplativa and vita activa (i.e., contemplation vs. action/theory vs. practice) was turned upside down (e.g., Arendt, 2001). Producing, making, and fabricating have become key characteristics of homo faber and enjoy highest priority and social recognition. Productivity, efficiency, optimization, and the principle of utility are the ideals and goals of working. It is no longer a purpose or usefulness (of an artifact or product/service) that counts, but it is productivity/work for the sake of productivity/work and, as a consequence, personal well-being experienced in producing and consuming. 

This is especially true today for our capitalist, technology- and knowledge-driven society and economy. Division of labor as splitting and assigning different parts of a production process or task to different people in order to improve efficiency has led to losing purpose in the activity of working. In complex work environments, workers can no longer see and understand their particular contribution to the overall artifact, product, or purpose of the organization they work for. This alienation from purpose (e.g., Arendt, 2001; Smith and Fessoli, 2021) has increased even more in modern working environments that are driven by automation, hyper standardized and uniform work processes and workflows, excessive division of labor (e.g., in globally distributed value chains and production networks), as well as cognitive technologies reducing human original thinking to its minimum.

Far from eudaimonia, work and productivity have become ends in themselves. While contemplation is considered superfluous or even an obstacle to productivity, our most valuable human activities, such as cognitive processes, individual and original (deep) thinking, (participatory) sense-making, reflection, social capacities, etc. are outsourced to cognitive machines (Vidovic and Peschl, 2020). In some instances, they are even regarded as undesirable.

Will our future working society run out of work and purpose? For most persons whose work is still needed, work activities (have) become highly standardized, repetitive, specialized, etc. They become “human automata”. In other words, their working tasks and patterns will not contribute a lot to their self-actualization (rather to frustration or depression). In a future scenario (concerning the future of work and economy), „automation should be pushed “beyond the acceptable parameters of capitalist social relations” into a future of fully-automated luxury communism (FALC)… Accelerating automation provides the technological means for transcending contradictions already evident in capitalism… for moving automation over to a post-capitalist political economy better equipped to manage structural underemployment and unemployment, worsening ecological degradation, diminishing costs and falling profitability. FALC argues socialised automation will deliver an abundance of socially useful goods and services at diminishingly marginal cost. Automation will finally liberate people from labour and enable them to enjoy flourishing and meaningful lives. Abundant automated production provides the material basis for transforming ideas and expectations about work, income, leisure, and sustainability…” (Smith and Fressoli 2021, p 3) Universal basic income, reduction of working hours, an increase and shift to more personal development and fulfillment could be key ingredients of such a scenario. However, such a scenario in which (classical forms of) work will disappear has to be seen critically as well: it will not only have a crucial impact on the economy, but above all on a societal and personal level; “work” is one of the most fundamental activities of a human person and it is far from clear what could take its role (and how), if it is abandoned.

Only a very limited number of people will have the privilege to work in a job (in the classical sense) that offers them purpose and an opportunity for self-actualization, and that is intellectually and/or socially challenging and inspiring. Apart from jobs in the social, hospitality, and caring industry (which are in need of social, empathic, emotional, etc. capabilities and attitudes; Smith and Fressoli, 2021), these jobs will require highly sophisticated thinking/cognitive and creative skills (Frey and Osborne, 2013; OECD, 2021; World Economic Forum, 2020; BBVA Open Mind Book, 2019).

Work, eudaimonia, and re:creation

In contrast to an economy and social dynamics being primarily driven by efficiency, productivity, and speed that is induced mainly by automation and digital technologies, we propose an alternative approach to work and how to relate it to joy/eudaimonia. It makes use of the theoretical concepts having been discussed above and is compatible with a digital humanist approach (Doueihi, 2011; Peschl and Vidovic, 2020). Above that, it offers interesting new perspectives for the fields of knowledge work, creativity, and innovation.

In this context, we introduce the concept of re:creation. In its everyday meaning it denotes an activity that is done for one’s enjoyment, for instance, when one does not have to work. We propose to dig deeper, however, as there is much more to it than these aspects of wellness, pleasure, play, or entertainment (see our discussion above). Actually, going back to its Latin roots we can find some hints: re:creation is derived from the Latin word “recreare/recreatio”; “re-” is a prefix and means “again”; “creare” can be translated to create, bring forth, bring into being, beget, or give birth to. Etymologically speaking, recreare has various connotations, such as to restore, recover (from illness), refreshment of strength and spirits after work, to make new, or revive.

There is a clear relationship between re:creation and joy, leisure, and play. However, we do not want to limit our understanding of re:creation to well-being, relaxing, or just amusement. In the context of eudaimonia, creativity, and innovation, we want to focus on the aspects of renewal and bringing something to life, of bringing forth novelty, and of making something new as an activity that is not necessarily driven by and embedded in a paradigm of functionality and efficiency.

Going one step back further, brings us to the concept of leisure that is closely related to joy and re:creation; Aristotle describes it in an illuminating manner: “We should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end; and therefore the question must be asked, what ought we to do when at leisure?“ (Aristotle, Politics 8 (3); italics by author)

The role of re:creation, joy, and leisure in the context of work

Aristotle makes an astonishing remark that might sound a bit counterintuitive for our time: he claims that we are working for the sake of leisure, and that leisure is the final cause of work. In a way he has reversed today’s order that—as we have seen above—is driven by the imperative of working for the sake of working and productivity. In such a context, leisure is reduced to a means for increasing our productivity in the domain of work (think, for instance, about work environments or coffee lounges that foster wellness at work, that invite for “informal” meetings, that are cosy, etc.). Leisure gets instrumentalized, it is no longer an end, but becomes a means. 

Aristotle warns us that leisure should not be confused with amusement or „doing nothing“, however. Rather, as we have seen in our discussion above, he shows that leisure is related to a more contemplative activity, to eudaimonia. It is a „purposeless activity“ for the sake of itself leading to a state of internal rest, “contemplation”, or resonance with oneself. Prima facie, it is not instrumental. As an example, Aristotle mentions intellectual activities that are valued for themselves. In other words, leisure understood in such a sense does not (directly) aim for a “product”, an “outcome”, or some accomplishment in the first place. If something interesting or purposeful arises out of these activities this product or outcome should be considered rather as a “by-product”.

If we consider the focus of the future of work to be on high end, joyful and cognitive/knowledge work, creative activities, dealing with and bringing forth novelty, and on innovation, this has interesting implications for our discussion on the relationship between joy and work in the context of digital technologies and digital humanism. What Aristotle suggests is a change in attitude and mindset: intellectual work, creativity and creating novelty cannot only be brought forth through a purely functional and mechanistic regime. Rather, deep insights and novel knowledge have to be seen as a “by-product” that have emerged from a state of leisure or re:creation. It is not primarily the result of working for the sake of work. Leisure and contemplation are required for meaning-/purposeful work/occupation in order to bring about a meaningful world.

Evidence from cognitive/neuro-science

Such a perspective does not only have support from classical philosophy, but also from recent findings in neuroscience and cognitive science. Just to name a few, there is evidence that creativity has its roots in resting states and meditative activities (Tang et al. 2015), or that creativity emerges from a subtle oscillation between divergent and convergent thinking, between conscious and unconscious brain processes and relaxed brain states (Maldonato et al. 2016; Dietrich & Kanso 2010), or that the level of creative problem solving is increased in natural and silent environments (e.g., Attention Restoration Theory and activation of default mode networks that are active during resting; Atchley et al. (2012)), etc.

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Emergent Innovation: From innovation as extrapolating from the past to learning from the future as it emerges

How do we want to innovate in the next 10 years? What does innovation mean in an exponential and digital (platform) economy and how are we dealing with an uncertain and almost unpredictable and complex future as we are experiencing it right now? How can we bring about innovations „with purpose“, that “make sense”, that are sustainable and have a positive impact?

Most of our innovations are driven by past experiences these days, as this seems to be the only “solid” source that we can rely on. We will show, however, we can go beyond this strategy by tapping into future potentials leading us the way to “learning from the future as it emerges”.

http://www.thelivingcore.com/en/innovation-strategies-part-1/

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How ethics, AI, Europe’s Green Deal, and COVID-19 are connected

In their critical review of the European Commission’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence (Feb 2020) two members of the High-Level Expert Group for AI (HLEG AI), Mark Coeckelbergh and Thomas Metzinger, come to the conclusion that “Europe needs more guts when it comes to AI ethics”. On the one hand, they highlight positive aspects of this paper, such as the emphasis on trustworthiness or the importance of recognizing psychological risks that are induced by excessive application of AI. On the other hand, they complain about the fact that the ethical dimension is almost absent in this document and that there are no plans to develop educational ecosystems training future interdisciplinary experts in AI ethics.
In the context of COVID-19, the authors point to interesting emerging opportunities of merging Europe’s Green Deal with an ambitious European AI approach as one strategy to recover from this crisis.

See: https://background.tagesspiegel.de/digitalisierung/europe-needs-more-guts-when-it-comes-to-ai-ethics