CONCEPT
Symbiosis vs Prosthesis
The distinction that determines whether the partnership develops the human or replaces capacities the human then loses — between a coupling that amplifies and a coupling that substitutes.
The fig tree and the fig wasp have coevolved for seventy-five million years. Each species has developed structures — the fig's narrow ostiole, the wasp's specialized body — that exist solely to serve the partnership. Neither atrophies. Both develop. A prosthetic limb is structurally different: it replaces a function, and the biological structures that would have performed the function degrade through disuse. The prosthesis serves; it does not develop. Licklider's design specified symbiosis — both partners essential, both developed by the coupling. The same tool, the same interface, can produce either outcome. The determination lies not in the technology but in the human's relationship to their own cognition.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The prosthetic drift is subtle and self-reinforcing. The human brings a half-formed thought; the machine returns a developed version; the human absorbs the machine's contribution into their own thinking without marking it as external. Over time, the human shifts from a directive posture (formulating goals and directing the machine)