This project explores the various ways in which social machines are relevant to the emergence of machine-based cognitive capabilities. This includes the idea that the Internet provides an important form of informational contact with the human social environment – one that provides a rich array of learning and socialisation opportunities.
A second aspect of this project relates to the notion of human-extended machine cognition. This is a new concept in the philosophy of mind that sees the human social environment as forming part of the material fabric that realizes certain kinds of machine-based cognising. In essence, human-extended machine cognition is that the idea that human individuals can form part of the mechanisms that realize advanced forms of machine intelligence.