Generative AI inherently triggers a computational failure mode in human observers (a "generative crash") due to a lack of latent intentionality required for Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) convergence. Artistic appreciation operates as the biological execution of this IRL process. To address the generative crash and broader AI alignment failures, I introduce the Ghost Scale (an HCI cognitive affordance for identifying intentionality) and propose Cooperative Inverse Reinforcement Learning (CIRL) to mimic biological value transmission. The Intent Extraction Limit is formalized to define the prior relationship. Applying this model addresses two major issues: generative AI's friction with the art community (via the Ghost Scale, a cognitive affordance and UX framework for signaling intentionality) and AI alignment [via a proposed shift from Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) toward top-down value capture through Cooperative Inverse Reinforcement Learning (CIRL) informed by world models]. Six empirical hypotheses are proposed to test the framework.
Generative AI has entered intellectual practice with a quality best described as irresistible. Much of the intellectual response in research and education has been organized around an alarm: that these systems induce a surrender of thinking, an atrophy of cognitive capacity, an a…
Generative AI technologies are increasingly acquiring characteristics of interactive cognitive agents. These systems have considerable potential to augment learning and creativity, but they also pose novel challenges to the human mind. Continuous reliance on generative AI may res…
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The explosion of AI-generated imagery and generative neural network data systematically threatens human artistic originality. Digital spaces are oversaturated with code-driven "copycats" and continuous web-scraping. This crisis creates an urgent need for a robust socio-aesthetic…
The externalization of cognitive abilities to tools is not new. Writing externalized memory; calculators externalized computation; search engines externalized knowledge retrieval. Each generation lost the skills its predecessors possessed, naturalized its tools, and claimed autho…