Michahelles, F. (2026). Automation of Thought: Creative Machines, Compliant Humans? In Human Choice and Computers (pp. 164–171). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-34044-3_12
For centuries, building tools has been how humans compensate for what biology denied them. The rise of artificial intelligence is the latest and most consequential chapter in that story, because for the first time automation reaches into cognitive domains we once thought were distinctively human. This paper asks what that shift means for the humans on the other side of the interface. We draw on Arnold Gehlen’s philosophical anthropology to frame tool-making as constitutive of human identity, and on Fitts’ HABA-MABA framework to trace how the division of cognitive labor between humans and machines has evolved. Five case studies from our own research illustrate how combined intelligence plays out in practice across different everyday contexts. Together, they point toward a single design imperative: keep humans genuinely in control while improving overall outcomes.
