A.I. as Extension of the Human Mind
Extensions, Becoming, and the AI Doorway We are living at the edge. Let me say that again: we are living at the edge . The edge of what was, the threshold into what is becoming. And around us, technologies — once thought inert tools, mere prolongations of muscle or sight — have quietly become the very fabric of how we experience being human. To speak of these machines as mere “gadgets” or “utility” is to miss the cosmic joke: the gadgets are us. They are our limbs, our senses, our brains, grafted outward into the world. And now a new grafting is underway: AI as an extension of the mind . (1) McLuhan, extension, and the prosthetic mind McLuhan famously said that every technology is an extension of the human body—of sight, hearing, motion, nerve, and sense. The wheel extended the leg; clothing extended the skin; the telephone extended the voice and ear; the television extended sight and the nervous system; the computer extended memory and central nervous coordination. What was i...