Land mines and gold mines in cognitive technologies

Technology has long played an important role in human activity. However, with technological advances we are witnessing major changes in the role technology plays. These changes are especially revolutionary in two senses: First, new technologies are playing greater than ever roles in human cognitive activities. These activities include: 1. New levels of cognitive interactions between people. These interactions, both quantitatively and qualitatively, are at an intensity and scale that allow new forms of cognition to emerge, such as distributed cognition. 2. Technologies that cognitize with us, thus playing an active part in our cognitive processes and constituting themselves as inherent components in human cognition. 3. These new technologies do not only cognitize with us, but they also cognitize for us. In this sense they go beyond supplementing human cognition; rather than playing a facilitating role they actually take over and replace certain aspects in human cognition altogether.