The voyager, the mirror and the creative act: how we interpret GenAI

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) goes beyond the status of a technical tool to become a resource that only acquires meaning when it is embedded within a human process of intentional action. A recent study by Alessandro Iannella (SUFFP, Scuola Universitaria Federale per la Formazione Professionale, Lugano) and Maria Carmela Ostillio, included in the volume Artificial Intelligence in the cultural and creative sectors. Opportunities, challenges and transformations, proposes three metaphors — the voyager, the mirror and the creative act — to map the ways in which GenAI is perceived and used, particularly within business schools.

These three metaphors provide managers with a language and conceptual framework to understand whether, when and how GenAI can generate value, what cultural or competence-related barriers may emerge, and how to align it with business strategies. In other words, it is not enough to implement this technology; it must be mobilized consciously — interacted with through cognitive and metacognitive skills, while recognizing the risks of passive reliance.

The context

Systems that automatically generate text, music and video, as well as agents that operate in virtual environments based on our instructions, are finding applications in an increasing number of contexts, including creative and cultural ones. Although a significant body of research already exists, there remains strong scientific interest in understanding how such technologies are perceived by professionals, and what cognitive, organizational and educational factors influence their adoption.

From this perspective, the questions posed by the study conducted by Alessandro Iannella and Maria Carmela Ostillio are:

• How do professionals and educators perceive GenAI?
• What metaphors and mental representations do they use?
• What are the implications for education and organizational change?

The research

The authors carried out a qualitative and quantitative investigation involving lecturers from various Italian business schools engaged in management education. Specifically, they administered questionnaires and conducted interviews with instructors to gather their perceptions of GenAI use, practical experiences, challenges and professional outlooks.

The analysis identified three critical themes: the unreliability of AI-generated content as a reason for caution; the need to develop skills, above all, metacognitive, for conscious use of GenAI; and the potential for professional growth that this technology can activate when properly integrated. In the discussion, these themes were synthesized into three metaphors inspired by the work of figures in the socio-psycho-pedagogical tradition (Vygotsky, Turkle and Winnicott) that help interpret the role of GenAI in educational and managerial processes.

The voyager. GenAI is trained on vast datasets whose origin and quality, unfortunately, cannot always be precisely known, as they often belong to non-transparent commercial systems. The content it generates does not stem from verified knowledge but from probabilistic reworkings of heterogeneous information: what AI produces is therefore plausible, not necessarily true. Like a voyager recounting what they have seen in lands unknown to us, GenAI offers narratives that can sometimes be interesting, creative and accurate, and at other times partial, mistaken or distorted. Within this uncertain narrative, one that deserves attention but not blind trust, the user may find new ideas, fresh perspectives and exploratory openings.

The mirror. GenAI also functions as an evocative, agentic mirror: it reflects what the user projects into it while simultaneously supporting the user in constructing their own identity. To benefit from this technology, it is necessary to clarify usage goals, formulate prompts consistent with specific intentions, and critically assess the outputs. These are processes that demand skill, awareness and reflection, unfolding across multiple levels of relationship with knowledge. From this perspective, GenAI stimulates self-analysis and reflective learning: it does not simply provide answers but makes visible to us the potential and limits of how we think, ask, analyze, evaluate and apply.

The creative act. Finally, GenAI can be interpreted as a partner in the process of knowledge construction. The interaction between human and machine creates a liminal, boundary space, open yet structured, where machine information and individual competence intertwine to produce something neither could have built alone. The value of this exchange lies not so much in the final output as in the process of co-creation, experimentation and dialogue — in that human capacity to guide, filter and give meaning to algorithmic production. In this sense, GenAI does not replace human creativity but extends it, supporting individual generativity by providing practices, interpretations and stimuli, thus opening access to many possible worlds.

Conclusions and implications

Iannella and Ostillio conclude that GenAI is an ambivalent resource that gains meaning only when embedded within an intentional human process. On the one hand, it entails risks related to unreliability, lack of transparency and potential cognitive passivity among users; on the other, when placed within a conscious socio-psycho-pedagogical framework, it can become a tool that fosters exploration, reflection and creativity.

The authors point out that GenAI is neither an epistemic authority nor a substitute for human skills: rather, it is a latent potential that acquires value only when activated by the user through intentionality, critical judgment and purposeful design. The three metaphors — the voyager, the mirror and the creative act — are not mere descriptive images but true interpretive devices that help us understand how to interact with technology and what stance to take in the process of knowledge construction. The implications concern, in fact, the need to critically assess the reliability of content, to develop metacognitive skills for managing interaction with AI, and to value co-creation as a space for professional growth.

Alessandro Iannella, Maria Carmela Ostillio, "The Voyager, the Mirror and the Creative Act. Three Metaphors for Understanding Generative Artificial Intelligence." In Marta Massi, Marek Prok?pek, Alessandra Ricci, Maria Carmela Ostillio (Eds.), Artificial Intelligence in the Cultural and Creative Sectors. Opportunities, Challenges and Transformations, Routledge.