This article introduces the concept of Entangled Twins (ETs) as an interdisciplinary framework emerging from a sustained dialogue between Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) research and phenomenological philosophy. Building on the Digital Twin (DT) paradigm while critically reworking its representational logic, ETs are conceived as relational configurations in which human users and AI-driven systems become dynamically entangled, with significant implications for agency, responsibility, and human-centered design. The theoretical framework draws on phenomenological analyses of intersubjectivity and embodiment (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre) together with design-oriented concerns in HCI.Within this perspective, human–machine interaction is conceptualized in terms of aWe-subject: a plural and co-constituted configuration of agency. Through this interdisciplinary approach, a prototypical audio-augmented experience is examined as a phenomenologically informed case, elucidating the conditions under which human–machine entanglement can emerge. On this basis, the paper argues that ETs raise distinctive questions concerning responsibility and agency, articulating an ethics of entanglement capable of informing the human-centered aspirations of Industry 5.0.
This article offers a selective, concise comparison of the ancient Greeks’ ideas about happiness with contemporary metrics and AI-mediated wellbeing apps. It argues that these schools’ views of happiness provide criteria for assessing the trajectory of today’s approaches of development to the subject of happiness. Using a critical–analytical approach, it presents and compares those schools with major happiness metrics (e.g.,World Happiness Report, Better Life Index, Happy Planet Index, Gallup Global Emotions) and popular wellbeing applications (Headspace, Calm, Insight Timer, Happify). The findings clarify where ancient insights align or clash with current practices and offer implications for wellbeing technologies. The paper also evaluates whether AI can support eudaimonia without eroding autonomy or commodifying the inner life. The article raises awareness that we are entering a new phase of understanding happiness, in which technology influences our choices and becomes not only a tool, but also a co-creator of our everyday experiences.
This article examines artificial intelligence and shows how it is embedded in a history of technology. It develops a philosophical classification of tools as technologies based on the degree and nature of mediation that technology provides between humans and the world. Drawing on phenomenological and post-phenomenological conceptions—in particular the work of Ihde, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty—it identifies five distinct stages in the historical development of technology, ranging from simple passive extensions of the body to advanced artificial intelligence systems. Each stage is defined by a qualitatively different mode of technological mediation between humans and the world, each transforming human perception and intentionality in increasingly complex ways. The most recent contemporary fifth stage in the evolution of technology, is characterized by the use of artificial neural networks, and the article demonstrates that a significant break from lower artificial intelligence systems separates this technology. Unlike simpler machines, these systems exhibit partial autonomy, are not epistemically transparent, and their outputs are unpredictable, forcing us to rethink their instrumental nature and the nature of instrumentality itself.
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs), together with renewed speculation about artificial consciousness, have intensified debates concerning meaning and semantic intentionality in artificial systems. This paper advances a restricted and conditional thesis: even if LLMs were to possess some form of consciousness, this would not suffice to establish intrinsic semantic intentionality. To clarify this claim, I introduce a hieroglyph-copying thought experiment showing that consciousness, even when accompanied by goal-directed or procedural intentionality, does not guarantee normatively assessable semantic content. Drawing on this result, I argue that contemporary LLM architectures—despite their ability to generate contextually appropriate linguistic outputs—operate through probabilistic optimization processes that do not by themselves ground epistemic commitment or truth-directed representation. The argument does not deny the sophistication of LLM representations nor attempt to resolve competing theories of meaning. Rather, it isolates and defends an insufficiency thesis: consciousness alone does not ground intrinsic semantics. The apparent meaningfulness of LLM outputs is therefore best understood as dependent on human interpretive projection rather than as an internally grounded semantic achievement.
This article introduces the concept of Entangled Twins (ETs) as an interdisciplinary framework emerging from a sustained dialogue between Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) research and phenomenological philosophy. Building on the Digital Twin (DT) paradigm while critically reworking its representational logic, ETs are conceived as relational configurations in which human users and AI-driven systems become dynamically entangled, with significant implications for agency, responsibility, and human-centered design. The theoretical framework draws on phenomenological analyses of intersubjectivity and embodiment (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre) together with design-oriented concerns in HCI.Within this perspective, human–machine interaction is conceptualized in terms of aWe-subject: a plural and co-constituted configuration of agency. Through this interdisciplinary approach, a prototypical audio-augmented experience is examined as a phenomenologically informed case, elucidating the conditions under which human–machine entanglement can emerge. On this basis, the paper argues that ETs raise distinctive questions concerning responsibility and agency, articulating an ethics of entanglement capable of informing the human-centered aspirations of Industry 5.0.
