On April 11, 2026, a high-level academic lecture bringing together the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, comparative literature, and digital humanities was successfully held at Shenzhen University. Professor N. Katherine Hayles from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Wang Ning from Shanghai Jiao Tong University delivered keynote speeches, offering in-depth explorations from two major perspectives: “biological cognition and technological symbiosis” and “comparative literature and digital humanities.” Together, they examined the transformations, challenges, and future directions of human cognition, artificial intelligence, and humanities research in the digital age, providing highly inspiring intellectual resources for interdisciplinary studies. The event was organized by the Digital Humanities Research Center of the School of Humanities, Shenzhen University. The center’s director, Professor Jiang Yuqin, served as the moderator, with Professor Wang Quan from Beihang University and Associate Professor Lyu Guangzhao from Fudan University as discussants. More than a hundred faculty members and students from institutions including Shenzhen University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University participated in this online lecture.
1. Everything is Cognition: A New Paradigm of Symbiosis among Life, AI, and Technology
Professor Hayles, centering on her book From Bacteria to AI, delivered an academic presentation titled “Cognitive Subjects: The Future of Human and Non-Human Symbionts,” which subversively broke away from the anthropocentric tradition of cognition.
At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Hayles pinpointed the deep root of contemporary multiple crises: humanity’s long-held self-perception as the “top cognitive beings on Earth”—a sense of cognitive superiority that has severely distorted our relationships with other living beings and with technology. She put forward her core proposition: “Where there is life, there is cognition,” and defined cognition as “a dynamic process of interpreting information and connecting meaning in context.” She then established five criteria for cognitive systems: perception, interpretation, flexible response, anticipation, and learning.
Building on this framework, Professor Hayles drew on a wealth of empirical cases to support her argument: the optic nerve of a frog can interpret external information with high precision; rabbits can dynamically store odor memories. When under pest attack, tobacco plants release volatile compounds to enable flexible inter-plant communication. Bacteria use the CRISPR system to recognize and cut viral DNA—a mechanism that has become the basis for gene-editing technology and serves as a classic example of “technological symbiosis.” Citing the work of evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, Hayles pointed out that “symbiosis drives evolution more than natural selection,” a view that marks a major shift from Darwinism to a symbiotic paradigm, and reshapes our understanding of the fundamental logic of life’s evolution.
Addressing the most debated issue of artificial intelligence today, Professor Hayles directly confronted the controversy over “whether computers possess cognition” and forcefully refuted the anthropocentric bias of the “Chinese room” argument. She pointed out that computers, through quantitative loops, logic gates, error correction, and multi-layer code associations, fully satisfy the five criteria of cognition and are essentially a type of cognitive system. When comparing humans and large language models (LLMs), Professor Hayles clearly delineated their core differences: humans rely on embodied cognition, sensory experience, self-awareness, and emotions to interact with the world, yet have relatively limited memory and computational power; whereas LLMs cannot perceive the physical environment, are built on vast amounts of human-generated text to construct language models, lack consciousness and emotions, but possess super strong data processing and reasoning abilities. At the same time, she introduced neuromorphic systems developed by IBM and other institutions, as well as research on embodied intelligence that combines LLMs with mobile robots, indicating that artificial intelligence is moving from abstract computation toward environmental immersion, gradually approaching biological cognition.
Based on the above research, Professor Hayles put forward the core concept of “technological symbiosis”: artificial intelligence is the most important cultural adaptation achieved by humans since the invention of language. From an evolutionary perspective, biological evolution moves from environmental immersion toward abstract thinking, while computational evolution moves from abstraction toward immersion—the two forming a dialectically complementary structure. In the future, human evolution and AI evolution will be deeply intertwined and inseparable. Addressing concerns that AI might develop its own autonomous goals, Professor Hayles also emphasized the urgency of establishing an “international regulatory framework for artificial intelligence.”
Finally, to address the predicament of anthropocentrism, Professor Hayles proposed an “Integrated Cognitive Framework” (ICF): acknowledging the cognitive capabilities of all life forms and technological forms, emphasizing connection and symbiosis rather than domination between humans, other living beings, and technologies, focusing on distributed agency, and respecting cognitive differences across species. This framework not only repositions the place of humans in the universe but also provides crucial theoretical support for confronting the challenges posed by artificial intelligence and building a sustainable future.
2. Paradigm Shift: Contemporary Challenges for Digital Humanities and Comparative Literature
Based on Professor Hayles’s presentation, Professor Wang Ning gave a talk entitled “Challenges of Digital Humanities in Comparative Literature,” focusing on the transformation and breakthrough of the humanities in the digital age, and addressing the path of integration between technology and the humanities.
Professor Wang Ning first acknowledged Professor Hayles’s groundbreaking contributions, pointing out that her research has always been at the forefront of the times, laying an important foundation for digital humanities research. He then directly confronted the current academic predicament: digital technology is revolutionizing teaching and research paradigms, disrupting the traditional research models of humanities scholars. Some scholars at home and abroad still cling to handwriting and paper-based reading, resisting technological intervention, yet the technological tide is irreversible. Faced with the rise of online literature, the closure of physical bookstores, and the decline of literary journals, the pessimistic view that “literature is dead” is spreading, and the humanities are in urgent need of transformation.
Professor Wang Ning explicitly stated, “Digital humanities is the key to bridging the gap between technology and the humanities.” As an interdisciplinary field combining computer science and the humanities, digital humanities uses digital tools to empower traditional research, freeing scholars from labor-intensive data work, improving research efficiency and scientific rigor, and marking a paradigm revolution in the humanities. He particularly recommended Professor Hayles’s book How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis, pointing out that even before digital humanities became widely recognized, the book had already put forward forward-looking core ideas such as “co-evolution of humans and technology” and “complementary multiple modes of reading,” profoundly influencing contemporary humanities research.
Drawing on research practices in the field of comparative literature, Professor Wang Ning elaborated on the applied value of digital humanities. Traditional literary studies tend to oppose technology to literature, but emerging forms such as science fiction literature and metaverse writing increasingly incorporate technological elements, requiring researchers to master digital tools. Moreover, the limited reading capacity of humans cannot exhaustively cover world literature, and traditional “close reading” struggles to grasp the overall landscape of global literature. Thus, he offered an in-depth interpretation of Franco Moretti’s theory of “distant reading,” proposing the use of digital technologies and statistical methods to examine world literature from a macro perspective, including works from marginalized regions, thereby compensating for the limitations of close reading.
Professor Wang Ning emphasized, “Distant reading and close reading are not opposed but complementary and symbiotic.” Ideal comparative literature research should use distant reading to construct a macro-level overview and close reading to deeply explore textual value, achieving a unity of the macroscopic and microscopic. Addressing concerns that “technology erodes the humanistic spirit,” he pointed out that digital humanities does not abandon the humanistic core but rather carries forward the humanistic spirit through scientific methods. Humanities and technology share a common origin and coexist; both rely on imagination. In the future, humanities scholars should break down disciplinary boundaries and actively improve their digital literacy, while technology researchers must uphold the humanistic foundation, thereby achieving a win-win symbiosis.
3. Intellectual Convergence: A Two-Way Journey between Technology and the Humanities
Professor Wang Quan from Beihang University spoke highly of both keynote speeches. He praised Professor Wang Ning as a bridge for academic communication between China and the world, noting that he integrates digital humanities with the Chinese context and science fiction research, setting an example for domestic scholars. At the same time, he fully recognized Professor Hayles’s lecture, stating that her theories on cognition, cross-species and bacterial cognition, and other research have broadened academic horizons. Finally, drawing on the case of frog perception, Professor Wang Quan agreed with the view that “organisms do not objectively record reality but rather construct a subjective cognitive world,” and further explored the cognitive differences among different species and bacteria, as well as the relationships between cognition and evolution, and cross-species symbiosis.
Associate Professor Lyu Guangzhao from Fudan University responded to Professor Hayles’s core concept of “embodied cognition,” arguing that cognition is inseparable from the body and the external world, and that non-human subjects such as AI also have their own modes of understanding the world. Drawing on the theory of “politics of speed,” he pointed out that human information-processing capacity has biological limits, and that the ICF framework holds the potential to transcend these limits, thereby moving toward symbiotic collaboration between human and non-human subjects. Finally, he raised a crucial question: how can ICF theory be integrated with real-world politics and social change, and how can power holders be persuaded to accept the paradigm shift from “domination” to “symbiosis”? In response, Professor Hayles argued that only by using literary works to inspire new ideas and employing computer science to construct a “more-than-human” framework can ICF move from theory to practice and gradually influence society.
Professor Jiang Yuqin, Director of the Digital Humanities Research Center at Shenzhen University, spoke highly of the presentations by Professor Hayles and Professor Wang Ning. Professor Hayles’s ICF framework and her cutting-edge theory of cross-media cognitive systems provide profound insights into our understanding of contemporary AI development and the necessary realignment of our own disciplines. Professor Wang Ning, drawing on the context of comparative literature research, engaged in a dialogue with Professor Hayles’s ideas, guiding us to address the disciplinary challenges brought about by technological transformation and offering feasible new pathways for future development. This intellectual feast not only broadened our academic horizons but also prompted us to rethink the meaning of life, the value of technology, and the stance humanity should take in the world to come.
The following are the questions from the Q&A session of this lecture:
Question 1: Associate Professor Huo Shengya, Central University of Finance and Economics: Your Integrated Cognitive Framework (ICF) extends cognitive agency from bacteria to artificial intelligence, seemingly dissolving the traditional boundary between the living and the non-living. Although your research is grounded in cognitive science rather than metaphysics, I would like to ask: on a functional level, does your framework tend toward a kind of secularized panpsychism—that is, attributing agency or proto-cognitive properties to all matter capable of responding to its environment? If so, how do you distinguish your position from naturalized panpsychism, rather than merely relabeling it?
Professor Hayles: I take cognition as my entry point, with the core aim of deconstructing anthropocentrism—that is, the notion that “human cognition is superior to all other forms of cognition.” I make a crucial distinction between actors and agents. Physical processes such as avalanches and typhoons belong to the category of agents: they do not make choices, follow only hardwired responses, and operate within a predictable temporal system. All biological organisms, by contrast, are actors: they are capable of making choices, possess flexible response capabilities, and operate within an unpredictable temporal system. My position is fundamentally different from naturalized panpsychism and new materialism. I do not subscribe to the view that proto-cognitive properties should be attributed to all matter capable of responding to its environment, nor do I agree with the kind of philosophy of consciousness put forward by Whitehead (e.g., that “rocks have consciousness”). I have a scientific background, and therefore place great importance on empirical evidence in my research. This is the key basis on which I distinguish my position from naturalized panpsychism. I do not arbitrarily attribute consciousness or cognitive properties to inanimate matter; I only discuss cognitive issues at the level of biological organisms that possess the capacity for choice.
Question 2: Online audience: How can the Integrated Cognitive Framework (ICF) be applied to specific literary criticism and literary research?
Professor Hayles: I am currently collaborating with literary scholars and computer scientists in Australia, and we have completed a grant application for research that covers both biological organisms and computational media. In terms of specific applications, I use the Integrated Cognitive Framework (ICF) to juxtapose and analyze texts and theories from writers from different regions, such as Indigenous, Western European, and Australian authors, while integrating research on human-computer interaction and paradigm shifts in literary studies. An important contribution of literary research lies in uncovering texts that lead these paradigm shifts, bringing theory to life through the fictional and poetic contexts of literary works, and providing concrete case studies for a more-than-human perspective.
Question 3: Dr. Ou Yulong, Shenzhen University: It is actually very difficult for humans to escape an anthropocentric perspective, because as human beings we can only view things from our own standpoint. In the entire ecological network, how should humans position themselves? Is it by empathizing as much as possible with other non-human species while fully exercising their own subjective agency?
Professor Hayles: Anthropomorphism is an instinct that humans cannot avoid; we can only think and act as humans. However, the human Umwelt is unique. It is capable of connecting with the Umwelten of many other living beings and understanding other organisms from a human perspective. Although we can never step outside our own Umwelt, we can still come to know various life forms more fully and understand how their specific Umwelten operate. In fact, this is precisely the core value of science, especially the biological sciences: to explore and understand how other species construct their worlds. As Thomas Nagel points out in his classic book What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, we can never truly experience the Umwelt of another organism from its own subjective perspective, because that lived experience is an essential part of its life; humans can only observe from the outside. Thus, humans can never overcome their own limitations, but through scientific research and through works of fiction such as Sue Burke’s novel Semiosis, which explores plant cognition, we can gain a deeper understanding of other living beings’ worlds. Even though we always exist as humans, we still have multiple pathways to approach non-human perspectives. This is the power of literary imagination: it enables us to truly perceive the existence and unique viewpoints of other beings with whom we share the Earth.
The presentations of the two professors were both cutting-edge and incisive as well as steady and pragmatic, providing important references for interdisciplinary research, AI governance, and the transformation of humanities research, and demonstrating the innovative vitality and humanistic responsibility of academic research in the digital age.
Finally, amid warm applause, the lecture came to a successful conclusion!
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