Networked Humanity. An Enactivist Paradigm for Aligning Humans, Nonhumans, and Machines

Abstract This article argues that enactivism, integrated with feminist and posthumanist perspectives, provides a unified framework for addressing both the ecological crisis and the ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence. Current debates—from the Anthropocene to human-centered AI—call for a critical redefinition of the human, yet they often evolve in parallel, producing a “split gaze” that neglects the profound hybridization of humans, environments, and technologies. With its relational understanding of cognition, sense-making, and agency, enactivism offers conceptual tools for overcoming the human versus Nature dualism as well as the human versus machine dualism. By reassessing intelligence as embodied, emergent, and environmentally embedded, it enables a shift toward relational ecological ethics grounded in interdependence and care. Applied to AI, this perspective treats digital technologies as components of an evolving human niche rather than external tools, thereby reframing responsibility in terms of socio-material practices rather than abstract principles. The article concludes by proposing a “networked humanity” and an “ecologically expansive community” as guiding concepts for multispecies and technological coexistence.