First, we aim to demonstrate how the ExM enhances our reflections on human-AI interaction, specifically by undermining the Standard model of AI, a view according to which, machines fulfill our desires and goals the way we intend them to do (Russell, 2019).
Second, the article introduces a fourth criterion: maintainability, to the existing three crucial criteria of Trust and Glue — trustworthiness, reliability, and accessibility (Clark, 2008). By proposing maintainability as a fourth crucial criterion of Trust and Glue, we address concerns about control in human-AI interactions. One of the issues surrounding human-AI interactions is the concern that humans may eventually become passive participants in decision-making processes. Taking the ExM case into consideration, when a person integrates their mind with AI, it may become difficult to determine who is actually in control, potentially until it is too late.
As a result, AI might not act according to our goals as we initially believed intelligent machines would — and here is where the ExM challenges the Standard model of AI. Thus, our proposal to add maintainability to the Trust and Glue criteria is that the organic component needs to be the one holding and maintaining the upper hand over the inorganic component. After all, although our minds extend beyond our skulls and brains, such an extension must be constantly evaluated. We call this the maintainability criterion.
Maintainability helps us to assess that the human component continuously evaluates the non-biological component based on the other three crucial criteria. Without a continued evaluation of the application of the three criteria after the formation of the cognitive system, we would have no reason to believe that acceptability, trustworthiness, and reliability are still in place, and Trust and Glue itself would collapse. Therefore, the introduction of the maintainability criterion emerges as a crucial safeguard for Trust and Glue and against unforeseen challenges in human-AI interactions posed by AI advances.
OLIVEIRA, D.G.S. Maintainability as the Fourth Criterion of the Trust and Glue Criteria in Human-AI Integration [online]. SciELO in Perspective: Humanities, 2025 [viewed ]. Available from: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/en/2025/05/07/maintainability-as-the-fourth-criterion-of-the-trust-and-glue-criteria-in-human-ai-integration/
In the paper Rethinking Human-AI Interactions Through the Maintainability: A New Criterion for Trust and Glue in the Extended Mind Thesis, published by Trans/Form/Ação (vol. 48, no. 6, 2025), we seek to explore how an old thesis that deeply marked our understanding of mind, the Extended Mind Hypothesis (ExM), is very helpful to address some challenges born with the launch of artificial intelligence (AI).
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