AI +Tools for Thought Workshop

I have written here previously about AI for IA and AI and the extended mind. Now, 40 years after the publication of my book Tools for Thought, we're seeing toolmakers operationalize these ideas with Tools for Thought Workshops:

GenAI radically widens the scope and capability of automation for work, learning, and creativity. While impactful, it also changes workflows, raising questions about its effects on cognition, including critical thinking and learning. Yet GenAI also offers opportunities for designing “tools for thought” (TfT) that protect and augment cognition. Such systems provoke critical thinking, provide personalized tutoring, or enable novel ways of sensemaking, among other approaches.

How does GenAI change workflows and human cognition? What are opportunities and challenges for designing GenAI systems that protect and augment thinking? Which theories, perspectives, and methods are relevant? This workshop aims to develop a multidisciplinary community interested in exploring these questions to protect against the erosion, and fuel the augmentation, of human cognition using GenAI.

This workshop is a follow-up to the CHI 2025 Tools for Thought workshop, which brought together 56 participants with 34 accepted submissions, culminating in a workshop synthesis and an HCI journal special issue on tools for thought. While last year’s workshop focussed on mapping the field, this edition moves towards developing operational frameworks, principles, and tools.

For more details, see our workshop proposal.

The previous workshop was about "Understanding, Protecting, and Augmenting Human Cognition with Generative AI: A Synthesis of the CHI 2025 Tools for Thought Workshop"

A special issue of Human-Computer Interaction explored how:

Generative AI is rapidly reshaping cognitive workflows—from creative writing to scientific reasoning. Yet we still grapple with questions: Does GenAI amplify our creativity or foster over-reliance? How do we design AI systems that preserve critical thinking and cognitive agency? This special issue brings together HCI scholars, cognitive scientists, designers, and ethicists to tackle these challenges.