Thinking with AI: From Tools to Teammates : Generative AI, cognitive self-perception, and the capacityto develop sustainable futures

Sammanfattning

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly becoming embedded inprofessional innovation work, yet its implications for human cognition remain poorlyunderstood. As GenAI takes on an increasingly active role in innovation processes,questions arise about what sustained reliance on these tools may mean for the cognitivecapacities that complex problem-solving depends on, particularly in the context ofplanetary health challenges, where creativity, moral judgment, and imaginativethinking are foundational.This study explores how innovators, innovation advisors, and AI experts perceive theinfluence of GenAI on human cognition, and what those perceptions may mean for thecapacity to develop innovative solutions to planetary health challenges. Drawing onthe Extended Mind thesis and Sociotechnical Theory, the study employed a sequentialexplanatory mixed-methods design, combining a formative survey with semi-structured interviews across three professional groups, analysed using thematicanalysis.The findings point to a fundamental duality. GenAI is increasingly experienced as acognitive collaborator rather than a passive tool, simultaneously functioning as aproductivity amplifier and a source of potential cognitive risk. Five themes emerged:GenAI reshapes the cognitive and structural conditions of innovation work; its effectsare contradictory and use-dependent; maintaining cognitive capabilities requires activeeffort; it disrupts creative ownership and sense of self; and it carries structural risksrooted in bias, power, and unequal access.The study concludes that protecting the critical and imaginative capacities planetaryhealth innovation depends on requires cultivating metacognitive awareness as a corecompetency, a dimension current governance frameworks have yet to adequately address.