Ecological Psychology and Artificial Intelligence

This is episode #31 of the podcast and it’s Thursday, the 27th of April, 2023.

My invited guest this month is Tony Chemero,  a Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Cincinnati (UC), and a primary member of both the Center for Cognition, Action, and Perception and the Strange Tools Research Lab. In his research, both philosophical and empirical, he addresses questions related to nonlinear dynamical modeling, ecological psychology, complex systems, phenomenology, and social cognition. He is the author of more than 100 articles and the books Radical Embodied Cognitive Science (2009, MIT Press) and, with Stephan Käufer, Phenomenology (2015, Polity Press; second edition, 2021).

In this episode, I asked Tony to introduce the field of econogical psychology and share his views on its potential importance to artificial intelligence (details are provided in the interview notes).

Here is the show.

Show Notes:
- Ecological psychology (definition and importance) vs. traditional cognitive science
- The replication crisis in psychology
- Is ecological psychology a science?
- The concept of affordances: definition matters
- Interpersonal synergies and alignment systems (especially online) and their implication for interface design and AI
- Can AI help us understand one another? Can ecological psychology help us design platforms that support social connections online?
- Ecological psychology and the Metaverse

Tony’s books:
Radical Embodied Cognitive Science:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516471/radical-embodied-cognitive-science/

Phenomenology: An Introduction, 2nd Edition:
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Phenomenology:+An+Introduction,+2nd+Edition-p-9781509540655