Autonomy and Openness in Human and Machine Systems: Participatory Sense-Making and Artificial Minds

Abstract

Within artificial intelligence (AI) and machine consciousness research, social cognition as a whole is often ignored. When it is addressed, it is often thought of as one application of more traditional forms of cognition. However, while theoretical approaches to AI have been fairly stagnant in recent years, social cognition research has progressed in productive new ways, specifically through enactive approaches. Using participatory sense-making (PSM) as an approach, we rethink conceptions of autonomy and openness in AI and enactivism, shifting the focus away from living systems to allow incorporation of artificial systems into social forms of sense-making. PSM provides an entire level of analysis through an overlooked autonomous system produced via social interaction that can be both measured and modeled in order to instantiate and examine more robust artificial cognitive systems.