Cybersophy: A Framework for Human Cognition, Identity, and Values in the Age of Artificial Agents

Artificial agents—algorithms, large language models, and AI companions—now mediate human cognition, social identity, and moral development at scale. Yet the conceptual frameworks guiding behavioural research into human–AI interaction remain fragmented across disciplines, and no unified architecture spans the cognitive, ethical, existential, and axiological consequences of living alongside artificial agents. We propose Cybersophy—a fourth guiding principle—defined as the systematic wisdom through which humans understand and orient their relationship with digitally mediated environments and artificial agents. Building on prior foundational work that established Cybersophy’s philosophical architecture ([Author], 2025b), the present paper makes a distinct empirical contribution: we operationalise each dimension through established psychological theory—epistemic (distributed cognition, metacognitive adaptation), ethical (algorithmic justice, procedural fairness), existential (virtual–physical identity fusion), and axiological (digital well-being)—and derive falsifiable hypotheses with specified mediators, moderators, and recommended designs. Crucially, integrating these dimensions generates four emergent cross-dimensional predictions unavailable from any single anchor theory: habitual AI reliance predicts reduced sensitivity to algorithmic procedural injustice; identity fragmentation attenuates autonomy-supportive well-being interventions; repeated algorithmic injustice erodes identity self-efficacy and triggers resistance-identity formation; and AI-reliance-induced cognitive delegation undermines the autonomy need satisfaction that mediates digital well-being. Cybersophy is advanced as a conceptual framework that generates an empirical research agenda rather than as a completed empirical theory: the hypotheses and cross-dimensional predictions are testable implications rather than validations of it, and we specify a staged strategy for evaluating them, including the conditions under which the integrative claims would require revision.