Extending Human Intelligence Through AI

Microsoft Research · 1 month ago

Researchers argue that modern AI systems work by extending structures rooted in human cognition rather than replicating human intelligence, which explains both their capabilities like text generation and their limitations like hallucinations and compositional reasoning failures. The paper draws on phenomenology to show that language contains sedimented human understanding that AI systems learn to model, but unlike humans, AI systems lack grounded engagement with the world and cannot continually correct their expectations against reality. This perspective reframes AI safety as a system-level challenge requiring layered governance and human oversight rather than fears of autonomous superintelligence, with responsible deployment depending on treating AI as a human-governed extension rather than as an independent mind.