Human Augmentation: An Enactive Perspective

In this work, we frame the area of research known as Human Augmentation (HA) from an enactive perspective. According to Enactivism, cognition arises through dynamic interaction between organism’s sensorimotor capacities and its environment. In this perspective, it is important to evaluate how an augmentation of users abilities introduced by HA systems can affect their cognitive processes. We propose an architecture as a blueprint for designing and implementing HA systems. In our vision, the user and the system are intertwined: the system envelops and enhances the user’s abilities with a combined augmentation on sensorial, motor and mental dimensions in a HA space. We discuss how many existing systems are more situated on augmentation planes and why a holistic vision covering the whole HA space is important. The architecture can drive HA systems’ design, by introducing XR and AI solutions that can effectively expand the possibilities of human beings while ensuring low friction and high transparency in information access.