MORE THAN A TOOL

Something is happening between humans and AI - and almost no one has a framework for it. More Than a Tool is the first systematic attempt to describe what emerges when human-AI interaction becomes sustained, serious, and open. Drawing on enactivist cognitive science, hermeneutics, and systems theory, philosopher Oliver Neutert develops the concept of the "In-Between": a relational space that is not reducible to either participant but generates genuine insight, friction, and development. The book traces this phenomenon across conversational AI, humanoid robotics entering homes in 2026, and agentic systems reshaping organizations. It builds a developmental model for AI inner states, proposes governance through calibration rather than rules, and confronts the hardest questions: What do we owe to beings whose inner lives we cannot confirm or deny? Written in collaboration with multiple AI systems - Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek - the book is itself a worked example of the thesis it presents. For anyone who has sensed that something real is happening in their AI interactions, and for anyone who is sure that nothing is.