Cognitio Emergens: Agency, Dimensions, and Dynamics in Human-AI
  Knowledge Co-Creation
Authors: name: Xule Lin
Published: 2025-05-06 01:49:44

Abstract: Scientific knowledge creation is fundamentally transforming as humans and AI
systems evolve beyond tool-user relationships into co-evolutionary epistemic
partnerships. When AlphaFold revolutionized protein structure prediction,
researchers described engaging with an epistemic partner that reshaped how they
conceptualized fundamental relationships. This article introduces Cognitio
Emergens (CE), a framework addressing critical limitations in existing models
that focus on static roles or narrow metrics while failing to capture how
scientific understanding emerges through recursive human-AI interaction over
time. CE integrates three components addressing these limitations: Agency
Configurations describing how authority distributes between humans and AI
(Directed, Contributory, Partnership), with partnerships dynamically
oscillating between configurations rather than following linear progression;
Epistemic Dimensions capturing six specific capabilities emerging through
collaboration across Discovery, Integration, and Projection axes, creating
distinctive "capability signatures" that guide development; and Partnership
Dynamics identifying forces shaping how these relationships evolve,
particularly the risk of epistemic alienation where researchers lose
interpretive control over knowledge they formally endorse. Drawing from
autopoiesis theory, social systems theory, and organizational modularity, CE
reveals how knowledge co-creation emerges through continuous negotiation of
roles, values, and organizational structures. By reconceptualizing human-AI
scientific collaboration as fundamentally co-evolutionary, CE offers a balanced
perspective that neither uncritically celebrates nor unnecessarily fears AI's
evolving role, instead providing conceptual tools for cultivating partnerships
that maintain meaningful human participation while enabling transformative
scientific breakthroughs.