From Artificial Intelligence to Augmented Understanding: Applied Curiosity as a Social and Managerial Architecture for the NEXT? Generation

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is usually framed as a progressively more capable system for prediction, classification, generation and automation. This article argues that capability and computational capacity alone is an inadequate criterion for the next generation of human–machine systems. In other words, Artificial Intelligence is the last frontier, and the NEXT? one.  The more consequential transition is from artificial intelligence (AI) to augmented understanding (AU): from systems that produce plausible outputs to arrangements that enlarge the capacity of people and institutions to encounter uncertainty, test impossibility, construct meaning and act with others. The article develops applied curiosity as the governing architecture for that transition. Applied curiosity is defined not as a personality trait or episodic desire for information, but as a disciplined social practice that opens the possibility of a complete exploration of Chances, and discrimination of Choices and an authorisation of Changes (cCC*) across four transitional movements of Belonging, Becoming, Bridging and Building. The framework integrates dialogical inquiry, personal construct theory, living-systems analysis, global-workspace perspectives, Peircean inquiry, fast–slow judgement and an R1–R16 transitional register. It distinguishes an LLM-based decision-support system from an AU relationship in which stakeholders retain authorship, contestability and responsibility. Sixteen research propositions and a practical design protocol are offered for organisational strategy, public narrative, stakeholder engagement and reflective governance. The central claim is that the NEXT? generation should not be defined by a larger model, a more autonomous agent or a more persuasive simulation of intelligence as a truer articulation of applied knowledge. It should be defined by whether human and institutional participants can achieve MORE: Meaning, Options, Relationships and Expression.