Generation of needs in the civilization of cognitive technologies (Part 1. Origins and diversity of needs)

The article argues that an emerging 'civilization of cognitive technologies' replaces humans in productive, managerial, and intellectual functions, raising the question of an irreplaceable human role. It proposes that generating needs is an inalienable human function that artificial cognitive systems cannot fulfill due to their lack of subjectivity. The authors analyze five directions for expanding the space of needs—liberation of time and active energy, expansion of consciousness, development of sensory capabilities, physiological initiation, and reformatting of social connections—and propose a typology of six expanded needs: self-determination, understanding from another person, emotional authenticity, sensory richness, meaningful...

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Abstract

The civilization of cognitive technologies is an emerging stage of civilizational development in which artificial cognitive systems replace humans in productive, managerial, and intellectual functions. This raises the question of the irreplaceable role of humans with new urgency. The article investigates the generation of needs as an inalienable civilizational function of humans, which artificial cognitive systems are incapable of fulfilling due to the absence of subjectivity. It analyzes five directions for expanding the space of needs in the context of the new civilization: the liberation of time and active energy, the expansion of consciousness, the development of sensory capabilities, physiological initiation, and the reformatting of social connections. Based on this, a typology of expanded needs is proposed, organized around six dimensions of human existence: the need for self-determination, the need for understanding from another person, the need for emotional authenticity, the need for sensory richness, the need for meaningful connectivity, and the need for uniqueness of contribution, integrating the others in the pursuit of wholeness. The research relies on philosophical-anthropological analysis, a systemic approach, and the method of conceptual typology, drawing on data from cognitive sciences and the philosophy of consciousness. For the first time, the generation of needs is considered not as a side effect of human activity but as an independent civilizational function that defines the irreplaceability of humans in the era of cognitive technologies. It is shown that each of the six identified needs is fundamentally unsatisfiable by the means of artificial cognitive systems, as this is determined not by technological limitations but by the ontological difference between subjectivity and functionality. An original typology is proposed that links the expansion of the space of needs with specific mechanisms of civilizational transformation and allows for defining the role of humans not as objects of technological replacement, but as sources of goal-setting and meaning-making. It is established that the highlighted needs form a dynamic system of mutual conditioning, in which self-determination serves as the generating foundation, and the pursuit of wholeness is the integrating principle of the entire system.