Paul Smart Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton.

Paul Smart Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Web-Extended Minds: the Web as an environment that supports cognitive extension and a change in individual cognitive abilities. Collective Cognitive Systems: the Web as an environment that supports collective cognition and collective intelligence. Human-Extended Machine Cognition: the Web as an environment in which human agents can contribute to the realization of machine cognition and machine intelligence. An ecological approach: the Web forms part of a cognitive ecosystem in which a variety of (materially-distinct) cognitive systems may emerge. The Web: a set of resources that are identified using URIs and accessed using HTTP protocols. not just Web pages! Web-Based System: any system that consists of one or more Web resources. Web resources form part of the realization base for one or more system processes. Web-Extended Cognitive System: a cognitive system that is also a Web-based system. Web resources form part of the realization base for one or more system processes. Application of active externalist theorizing to the Web. The informational and technological elements of the Web can form part of the physical machinery that realizes human mental states and processes. Criteria for cognitive extension: availability accessibility trust Smart (in press) general thrust of Web technology development supports the possibility of Web-extended minds. Web as a globally- distributed database. Advantages: flexible modes of data integration, presentation and combination. moving beyond the browser interface. search and query. device independence. SELECT ?street WHERE { ?m type Museum ?m name Museum of Modern Art ?m address ?a ?a city NewYork ?a street ?street } Ottos Data 53 rd Street Availability Processing Sharing Personalization Corporeal Extension: functional conception of the body (Clark, 2007) progressive embodiment (Biocca, 1999) technologies are moving inwards can Web-enabled devices become literal extensions of the body? Measurable Me: monitoring of physical actions and cognitive activity enhanced context sensitivity the quantified cognizer? Parasynthetic Expression: making bodily information explicitly available. Augmented reality: Google Glass 2 Smart contact lenses Holographic computing: HoloLens Magic Leap Haptic holograms Hologrammatically- extended minds coupling with virtual representations Extended Environments: virtual extensions of the real world these provide new features and affordances that serve to shape and scaffold human thought and action. virtual resources may be more available than their physical counterparts rapid configuration and development of virtual designer environments use of immersive virtual reality systems to create entirely new kinds of (physically impossible?) environments. provide a space for new forms of human/machine collaboration and interaction Notion of Web-extended minds leads to the possibility of Web-extended knowers i.e., agents whose epistemic capabilities are enhanced as a result of Web-based forms of cognitive extension. Epistemological work: explosion in knowledge (Ludwig, 2015) epistemic omniscience (Bjerring & Pedersen, 2014) If we have the right kind of coupling to the Web, perhaps the limits of our knowledge is limited only by the information that the Web makes available! Fisher et al (2015): searching for information online leads to an increase in self-assessed knowledge as people mistakenly think they have more knowledge in the head. Our metacognitive assessments as to when we feel we know something may be grounded in the access we have to relevant information irrespective to whether that information is internally or externally situated. These findings thus seem to support ideas regarding cognitive extension and epistemic expansion. Personalized search mechanisms (e.g., Google) deemed to be harmful to our epistemic standing. Pariser (2011) filter bubbles Miller & Record (2013) personalized search reduces the justificatory status of a users beliefs. Simpson (2012) need for government regulation to improve the objectivity of Internet search providers. Individual cognitive limitations, biases, shortcomings can, on occasion, play positive functional role in collective cognition Examples: distrust Smart et al. (2010) dogmatism Zollman (2010) mavericks Muldoon (2013) irrationality Xu et al (in press) novelty Lehman & Stanley (2011) Individuals can look epistemically or cognitively sub-optimal, but such shortcomings may be instrumental in yielding collective cognitive success. Many of the properties that seem to make a technology apt for cognitive incorporation are also ones that seem to threaten or undermine the epistemic standing of extended knowers. fluent interaction leads to truth bias (Reber & Schwarz, 1999) linked data enhances accessibility of online content (relative to conventional Web pages), but removes contextual info that could be used for epistemic evaluation reductions in time and effort costs can lead to preference for inaccurate information (Gray & Fu, 2004) Virtual Teams: tens of individuals key focus of current research relates to the effect of network structure adaptive configuration of network structure social physics and cognitive ethnography Social Machines: thousands to millions of individuals e.g., Google Search, Wikipedia social physics and digital sociology The Global Brain: planetary scale systems global brain theorists seem to embrace notions of cognitive extension and distributed cognition but does the global brain need a body? Cognitive Computing: computational emulation of human cognitive capabilities. use of data mining, pattern recognition, machine learning and natural language processing technologies. Cognitive Systems Engineering: attempt to engineer hybrid systems that combine human capabilities with machine-based processing. still human-centred - aim is to use AI technologies to better enable humans to exploit, analyze and understand Web data. Humans have capabilities that are difficult for machines to emulate. The Web makes the exploitation of these capabilities a realistic possibility. Plug points and reflexive mediation points of contact into the human mind and body Human agents are seen as part of the physical machinery that realizes machine intelligence. A kind of wide computationalism (Wilson 1994) in reverse. Incorporating human capabilities extends the reach of machine cognition. Access to human social environment may serve as an important form of scaffolding: scaffolding of machine learning (e.g., Galaxy Zoo). social scaffolding of conscious experience. The Web as an ecology that supports the emergence of a variety of biotechnologically hybrid systems: individual human agent socio-technical systems individual machine agent We are all ecological engineers! Examples: Heintz (2006) Google Search Smart and Shadbolt (in press) social construction of reliability indicators Wikipedia Forthcoming article: Foundations and Trends in Web Science Extended (embodied) cognition and Web technologies: linked data, augmented reality, cloud computing, wearable tech Epistemic impact of the Web how does the Web affect our epistemic status? personalized search mandevillian intelligence technology-induced tensions Collective cognition does the global brain need a body? Human-extended machine cognition a new direction for AI and active externalism? Smart, P. R. (submitted) Mixed Realities, Hybrid Minds. Topics in Cognitive Science Smart, P. R. (submitted) Mandevillian Intelligence. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Smart, P. R. (forthcoming) Emerging Digital Technologies: Implications for Extended Conceptions of Cognition and Knowledge. In A. J. Carter, A. Clark, J. Kallestrup, O. S. Palermos & D. Pritchard (Eds.), Extended Epistemology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Smart, P. R. (submitted) Human-Extended Machine Cognition: The Mutual Permeability of the Cognitive Frontier. Philosophy & Technology Smart, P. R., Heersmink, R., & Clowes, R. (forthcoming) The Cognitive Ecology of the Web. In S. J. Cowley & F. Valle-Tourangeau (Eds.), Cognition Beyond the Brain (2nd ed.). Springer-Verlag, London, England, UK.