Transhumanism and Posthumanism in the Design of Socio-Technical Systems

Definition

Transhumanism subsumes system developments extending human capabilities, whereas posthumanism includes developments beyond actors and processes in human life. It affects agency and identity development, bringing into play ‘more-than-human-centered design’ of technology-based artefacts. Transhumanism uses science and technology to expand human capabilities, in particular intellect and health. Posthumanism addresses the co-existence of human and artificial actors while decentering human actors. It examines how technology has already and is still influencing agency and identity without necessarily requiring physical extensions. Both approaches affect (future) system development. Socio-technical system design can contribute to the respective discourse. Key issues relevant for transhumanist concerns are the dynamics of socio-technical system design, the functional, communication, and interaction capabilities of networked system elements (including human support), and learning infrastructures. Considering this structure and these capabilities lays the ground for approaching posthuman system design issues in terms of representing networked entities and their behavior albeit their different nature of actors. Implementation of a respective framework requires enabling infrastructures for the (dynamic) reconfiguration of heterogeneous networked components. The entry finally discusses how such a design framework could inform future research at the intersection of design theory, human–technology integration, and critical futures studies.

1. Introduction

The design of socio-technical systems is increasingly becoming central to debates about the future of humanity, technology, and society, as it explicitly addresses the reciprocal influence of social practices, organizational structures, and technical infrastructures, rather than viewing technology as a neutral tool [1,2,3]. Socio-technical systems theory emphasizes the joint optimization of social and technical subsystems and argues that sustainable system performance and human well-being arise when organizational norms, division of labor, and technological artifacts are designed as an integrated whole [4].

While the recent discourse on digitalization, AI, and cyber-physical infrastructures has its focus on complex systems influencing human action, distribution of responsibilities, and the generation of new forms of risk and dependency [5], transhumanism views advanced technologies as tools for extending human capabilities and overcoming biological limitations through the targeted modification and enhancement of cognitive, affective, and physical functions [6]. Transhumanist proponents advocate the (ethical) development and use of genetic engineering, neuroenhancement, and advanced prosthetics and other biotechnologies to enhance human intellectual and physical capabilities [7]. From this perspective, new technologies, including superintelligent machines and human–machine hybrids, are conceptualized as part of a broader “transhuman” developmental path in which human existence becomes a space for design, continuously optimized and explored [8].

Posthumanism questions human exceptionalism and emphasizes that humans, technologies, non-human animals, and ecological systems form tightly interwoven networks of mutual constitution [9]. Research addresses anthropocentric assumptions about autonomy, rationality, and moral status by highlighting design issues like distributed agency, circular causality, and the hybrid nature of human–technology systems [10,11]. Posthumanism, which draws on cyborg theory and biocentric ethics, emphasizes that the boundaries between humans and machines, organisms and environments, and self and other are historically conditioned and increasingly permeable in technologically shaped lifeworlds [12,13]. From this perspective, new technologies such as virtual reality, brain–computer interfaces, and cognitive prostheses are not only tools for enhancement but also design mediators that reshape subjectivity, embodiment, and ecological relationships [5,11,14]: ‘The technology evolution and its adoption may eventually create a human 2.0. This “human” will probably have a different social behavior. … Increasing use of gamification, behavioral science, AI and sensorization will propel human to be more communal/collaborative, empathetic, guided/motivated, and efficient/optimized’ [15].

Hence, it needs to be studied whether socio-technical system design approaches offer concrete methods and infrastructures for structuring human–technology relationships in organizations, public institutions, and everyday life [16,17,18]. Socio-technical design principles such as co-optimization, minimal critical specification, and aligning technical capabilities with user needs and values provide operational guidelines for the design of information systems, workplace technologies, and digital services [19,20], in particular recognizing the particularities of increasing human–robot collaboration [21]. These principles consider both human aspirations for improvement and posthumanist insights into relationality and interdependence [22].

In practice, this means modeling human–technology interaction as part of dynamic socio-technical systems in which organizational policies, user practices, and technical architectures evolve together and must be designed to promote autonomy, participation, and systemic resilience [21,23]. Consequently, socio-technical systems design can be understood as a mediating approach that translates abstract debates about transhumanism and posthumanism into situated interventions in the control, configuration, and everyday use of digital technologies [5,24].

In this paper, conceptual links between practical design approaches and trans- and posthumanist principles are addressed. The first objective is to formulate an understanding of transhumanism suitable for the discourse on socio-technical design before existing design approaches can be interpreted from a transhumanist perspective. The second objective is to develop a complementary, context-sensitive definition of posthumanism and consider the same work from a posthumanist perspective, emphasizing distributed agency and non-human structures. Socio-technical design approaches can be interpreted in both ways, and thus, enable more differentiated discussions about the future of human–technology relationships in design research, system development, reflection, and operation.

The work is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces transhumanist and posthumanist concepts and basic distinguishing features. Section 3, with respect to the origin of the approach, reviews socio-technical systems design in the context of future human–technology relations in organizational settings. Section 4 provides an explanatory definition of transhumanism in the context of socio-technical systems, and refers to stakeholder interactions to be considered for transhumanist systems design. Section 5 develops a set of constructive relations of transhuman development to posthumanist socio-technical design. It addresses conceptual and methodological aspects, including system boundaries and evolving structures. Section 6 puts the findings in mutual relationships and advises reflective design decisions. Section 7 concludes the paper referring to commonalties and differences in trans- and posthumanist design thinking that need to be kept in mind in the course of socio-technical system development.

2. Transhumanism and Posthumanism as Drivers of Socio-Technical Change

In this section we summarize the main idea and some fundamental principles of trans- and posthumanism and structure them to contextualize the socio-technical design consideration in the subsequent sections.

2.1. Transhumanism

Transhumanism envisions intelligent life evolving beyond its current human form, in particular overcoming human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values [25]. Targeting the intellectual and physical capabilities of human beings beyond their current limits, prominent proponents like Nick Bostrom [8], Ray Kurzweil [26], and Toby Walsh [27] consider already existing and future technologies, particularly biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, information and communication technology, as human enhancement technologies.

These have been further discussed with respect to the future of humanity (cf. [28]), questioning the scope and ideal of human self-modification towards immortality, strength, invulnerability, eternal youth, invisibility, and invincibility [29,30]. These authors argue that technologically modifying human biology threatens the foundations of political equality and shared human essence, since nobody can predict what technological possibilities will emerge for human self-modification. Still, it needs to be investigated whether the transhumanist movement leads to enhancements that can be considered as a natural evolution of human freedom and should be pursued to improve global well-being.

According to its concept, transhumanism is an intellectual, cultural, and technological approach, as it explores the possibility and desire to improve human living conditions through science and technology. Its origins range from ancient myths and Enlightenment humanism to the technological optimism of the late 20th century. Enlightenment humanism from the 17th- and 18th-century philosophy praised rationality, autonomy, universalism, secularity, and progress through knowledge to be essential for intellectual and social life—endless moral and scientific progress is possible through the use of science, secular governance, and universal human rights [31]. Accordingly, contemporary transhumanism integrates philosophical reflection, scientific ambition, and ethical debate, forming a multidisciplinary framework when envisioning and developing humanity’s potential future [32].

The term “transhumanism” itself was coined in 1951 by the British evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley. He envisioned humanity transcending itself through science and technology [33]. The linguistic roots date back to Dante’s use of the term “transumanare,” meaning “to transcend the human condition” [34]. Huxley’s formulation marked a turning point insofar as he considered the improvement of humanity as a conscious, scientifically grounded project rather than a mythological vision. Taking shape in the 1980s and 1990s, transhumanism has been institutionalized through Extropy Institute (https://www.extropy.org/) and the corresponding journal [35]. Beyond the understanding of transhumanism as the endeavor to fundamentally improve human existence through applied reason, science, and technology, More works introduced the term “extropianism”. It emphasizes continuous progress, self-transformation, and the use of technology to transcend biological limitations [32] and provided the starting point for self-aware organized communities and explicit goals.

Transhumanist artefacts integrate findings from different fields, including biotechnology, robotics, information technology, molecular nanotechnology and artificial general intelligence, with the central interest in brain functions that are considered for whole-brain emulation (cf. [8], p. 30 ff.). Capabilities needed for that are:

• Scanning, ranging from preprocessing/fixation and physical handling to imaging.
• Translation, starting with image processing, allowing for scan interpretations, and in this way, laying the groundwork for software models of the neural system.
• Simulation, addressing storage, bandwidth, CPU, (virtual) body and (virtual) environment simulation.

Central themes include life extension, cognitive enhancement, the eradication of disease, and the development of artificial intelligence. Bostrom also highlights the establishment of important institutions such as the World Transhumanist Association (now Humanity+), which contributed to the global consolidation of the movement [32]. Philosophically, transhumanism can be understood as both a continuation and a transformation of humanism, as can be concluded from the suggested ethical use of technologies when developing posthuman artefacts in the transhumanist’s declaration (https://www.humanityplus.org/the-transhumanist-declaration, accessed on 2 June 2026):

“Sooner or later, the most glaring implementational inefficiencies will have been optimized away, the most promising algorithmic variations will have been tested, and the easiest opportunities for organizational innovation will have been exploited.” ([8], p. 69). Transferring an intellect from a biological brain to a computer system through uploading will thus come to a point in time “when the rate of technological development becomes so rapid that the progress-curve becomes nearly vertical. Within a very brief time (months, days, or even just hours), the world might be transformed almost beyond recognition. This hypothetical point is referred to as the singularity. The most likely cause of a singularity would be the creation of some form of rapidly self-enhancing greater-than-human intelligence.” (https://www.humanityplus.org/transhumanist-faq, accessed on 20 June 2026).

Hence, enhancement, autonomy, and ethics shape the contemporary transhumanist discourse [36].

2.2. Posthumanism

Posthumanism, as a critical challenge to traditional humanistic assumptions, emerged from the interplay of philosophical critique, literary theory, and science and technology studies. The term gained significance in the critical discourse of the late 20th century, with Ihab Hassan considered one of the pioneers who formulated posthumanist approaches that question the central role of humankind in Western thought. Posthumanism and its precursors challenge the self-creating “human being” as a universal measure of value and instrument of knowledge [37,38].

The shift from humanism to posthuman approaches has been triggered by the departure from a universal, human-centered subject towards decentering human action or embedding it in broader networks of non-human actors, technology, and the environment. This shift often involves a rethinking of agency, embodiment, and ethical obligations beyond purely human interests. The Posthumanist Glossary illustrates this development by compiling key terms that define the field of posthumanist thought and its critique of anthropocentrism and the hierarchy of species [39].

Fundamental influences reveal interdisciplinary currents, as posthumanism entangles findings from feminist theory, poststructuralist critique, animal ethics, science and technology studies, and deconstructive philosophy. Critical posthumanism, in particular, emphasizes nomadic subjectivity and relational embodiment, arguing that subjects are not closed entities but are continually formed through material and affective relationships with others, including non-human beings and technologies [40,41].

Redefining humanity by decentering the human subject challenges the long-established notion of a sovereign, self-contained human subject. Instead, it views identity and knowledge as distributed across networks of people, animals, objects, and environments. This implies a shift away from universalist assumptions about human nature toward a pluralistic, situated ontology in which embodiment and materiality are as important as cognition or intention [37,38].

Critical posthumanism extends the project of decentering to planetary contexts, foregrounding sustainability, interspecies justice, and interdependent ecosystems. Rosi Braidotti and her colleagues advocate for a genealogy of posthumanism that connects feminist theory, neomaterialism, and post-anthropocentrism. This approach views the subject as nomadic—transversal, relational, affective, embedded, and embodied—and emphasizes ethical obligations that transcend species boundaries and planetary dimensions [39,40]. Critical posthumanism, while emphasizing relationality, ecological entanglement, hybridity, distributed agency, and multispecies kinship, rejects the bounded, sovereign subject in favor of vulnerability, becoming-with, and resistance to neoliberal techno-solutionism [42].

2.3. Differentiations

Transhumanists envision as a design entity “post-humans”, that through continuous growth of intelligence can be uploaded to computer systems. When laying the groundwork for levels of consciousness that human brains cannot access so far, posthumans could either be completely synthetic artificial intelligences or composed of many smaller systems augmenting biological human capabilities, which finally cumulates in profound enrichments of human capabilities (cf. [43]). While transhumanism researchers strive for the technological enhancement of humans, posthumanistic approaches reject anthropocentrism and views humans as part of an extended technological system, with technologies like cyborgs and AI influencing anthropological developments [44].

Lockhart frames transhumanism as a technological intensification and corporate rebranding of Enlightenment/liberal humanism: it envisions the human as an enhanced, autonomous, self-optimizing agent aligned with neoliberal ideals of individuation, commodification, and market capture. It operates through “technogenesis” (co-creation of human and technological subjectivities) but ultimately incubates subjectivity within platform infrastructures (e.g., Apple, Meta, Google), turning existence into subscription-based, datafied governance [42].

Posthumanism repositions human reality with technologies put in control of behavior and development. In striving for improvement (and immortality), posthumanism allows technologies to alter the nature of human identity and the understanding of life and consciousness in general. Going beyond extending and transcending human limitations through technology like transhumanism, posthumanism emphasizes embodied complexity and continuity with non-human actors. Accordingly, the posthuman is not a future transcendence but a reimagined present that acknowledges the inseparability of human life from material and ecological conditions [37,45].

Posthumanist projects often foreground ethical questions concerning how humans interact with animals, ecosystems, and technologies. They also examine political implications—how social bonds, power, and community can be reimagined in a world where human exceptionalism is being questioned. Posthuman studies use concepts like new materialism, to analyze culture, media, art, and social theory [41,46]. Consequently, posthuman approaches have to be understood as following a different analytical perspective than transhumanism, often emphasizing ethical and political responses to other non-human organisms or systems and environmental crises.

Table 1. Essential aspects of transhumanism and posthumanism.

Aspect	Transhumanism	Posthumanism
(Original) Drivers	Improvement of human capabilities, techno-optimism, technological convergence	Anthropocentrism critique, ontological/social embeddedness
Intention/Purpose	Enhancing human condition through optimization and extension of human capabilities through technology	Redefining human identity within an interconnected system through rejecting anthropocentrism and transcending traditional, Enlightenment-based humanism
Focus	Human individual	Systemic collective/Networked coexistence
Constituent Disciplines	Biotechnology (Genetic Engineering), Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, Cognitive Science	Ecology, Ethics, Media Science, Political Science, Artificial Intelligence
Socio-technical system design	Technology is key enabler	Inherent part of interconnected system co-development

overviews main aspects relevant for this study on trans- and posthumanism in the design of socio-technical systems. It summarizes the main drivers of trans- and posthumanism, the intention and purpose of the respective developments and their focus. The latter is of particular importance when looking at design activities, as they refer to human concerns. Reconsidering “what it means to be human” in socio-technical settings [47] includes exploring global traditions of personal growth and civic education (Bildung). Being human requires a balance between individual uniqueness and community connection, albeit a third type of intelligence, termed source intelligence aside artificial and organic [48], which is increasingly challenged by social media and AI in the 21st century. Recognizing this type of intelligence affects the status and importance of creativity as well as the resulting epistemic shift resulting from enhancement (transhumanism) and relationality (posthumanism) [49,50].

3. Socio-Technical Systems Design and Human–Technology Futures

In this section we review socio-technical systems design as an approach to understand organizations as complex systems of social and technical components. Their relation has undergone several development steps, including the mutually adjusted optimization [51], modeling, analyzing, and redesigning work systems and digital infrastructures [4,52]. Key concerns comprise participation and collaboration when complex human work practices are aligned with technological capabilities [53].

Socio-technical design emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations in London. There, Trist et al. [54] studied new mining technologies affecting established work practices and group autonomy in British coal mines. Their results revealed that the introduction of advanced technologies without considering social organization reduced both productivity and worker satisfaction. The close relationship highlighted there between technological change and social structures formed the basis of socio-technical systems theory, which views organizations as complex systems of social and technical elements, rather than as purely technical or purely social entities [55,56]. Although socio-technical thinking expanded from industrial contexts to information systems and digital work environments, it retained its focus on the joint design of technology and work organization [57].

A central principle of socio-technical design is joint optimization. This requires that social and technical subsystems be designed in such a way that neither is optimized at the expense of the other [58,59]. This principle implies that high organizational performance requires aligning human needs, including autonomy, learning, and quality of life in the workplace, with technical performance goals such as efficiency, reliability, and throughput [60]. Instead of viewing people as constraints on technology, socio-technical design sees human capabilities and values as design resources that shape technical decisions and the structure of work systems [57]. Consequently, socio-technical design defines system development as a process of configuring interactions between tasks, technologies, and social arrangements to achieve both human well-being and organizational effectiveness [56].

Socio-technical design is also characterized by principles such as minimal critical specification, source variance control, and the design of self-regulating workgroups [19,20,21]. Minimal critical specification means defining only what is essential in the design while allowing room for local decision-making. Such a specification gives employees the flexibility to decide how best to perform their tasks in their respective contexts [20,21]. Source variance control emphasizes that those closest to the work are equipped with the information and authority to identify and resolve problems where they arise. This reduces escalations and increases responsiveness [19,60,61]. The focus on semi-autonomous groups reinforces these principles by structuring work in a way that allows teams to coordinate internally, respond to disruptions, and take responsibility for quality and performance [54].

Socio-technical design has also been considered as a multidimensional system [62]. As inputs serve as design data like process specification or basic product information that are developed towards a design plan by a design team, designers need to take into account financial, technological and market risks that influence behavior and interactions. With respect to the socio-technical nature of the design process, social interactions influence technical decisions. Coordination is facilitated by a common language while actors’ behaviors have to be mapped onto some process behaviors.

Methodologically, socio-technical design is based on participatory, iterative processes in which stakeholders are actively involved in analyzing current work, developing alternatives, and designing system features [58,63]. Stakeholder participation is essential because local actors possess situated knowledge about tasks, constraints, and opportunities that cannot be fully captured by external experts or purely technical models [64,65].

Contemporary socio-technical approaches link systems development with change management and emphasize the need to integrate social, organizational, and technical aspects throughout the entire lifecycle of technology adoption and use [56,66]. In particular, dynamic socio-technical systems design emphasizes the continuous adaptation of processes through active stakeholder engagement and thus views socio-technical systems as evolving rather than static entities (e.g., [20,67]). In the current age of digital transformation, socio-technical systems design is considered crucial for aligning digital opportunities with social needs to achieve sustainable value creation and improved quality of life in the workplace [68,69].

Transhumanism and posthumanism offer competing, yet partially overlapping, visions of the human–technology relationship. Transhumanism advocates the use of advanced technologies to enhance human physical, cognitive, and emotional capabilities and to overcome innate limitations [32,43]. Posthumanism questions the central role and superiority of humans and emphasizes the agency of non-human entities as well as the inseparability of humans, technology, and the environment [70,71].

The design of socio-technical systems provides a meso-level context in which these abstract orientations are given material and organizational form. The design of processes, infrastructures, and systems to support humans can be understood either as a form of enhancement of humans or as an intervention in non-human systems. The following sections develop context-sensitive definitions of transhumanism and posthumanism tailored to this design perspective.

4. Transhumanism in the Context of Socio-Technical System Design

In this section, after defining transhumanism in the context of socio-technical systems, we discuss how stakeholder interaction can shape such systems.

For the design of socio-technical systems, transhumanism can be understood as follows: Transhumanism is a future-oriented orientation that explicitly aims to enhance human cognitive, physical, and social capabilities through the close integration of advanced technologies—including digital platforms, cyber-physical systems, artificial intelligence, and data infrastructures. The human organism and its organizational context are viewed as open, extendable systems, while humans remain the central value-giver, actor, and design agent [18,32,43]. According to this understanding, several characteristics connect transhumanism with socio-technical design (cf. [32,72]):

• Enhancement as an explicit design goal. Transhumanism is not merely descriptive. It advocates the targeted enhancement of human capabilities through technology.
• Human-centered value orientation. Even when transhumanism considers “posthuman” actors, its (ethical) focus remains on improving human life, choice, and agency.
• Socio-technical embedding. Improvements are embedded in organizational and infrastructural structures and are not isolated devices. Digital platforms, workflows, and human support systems are crucial elements for improvement.
• Reflective governance. Transhumanism raises questions about how technological development can be guided, risks managed, and equitable access to improvements ensured.

Accordingly, design becomes relevant from a transhuman perspective when it views human capabilities as malleable, expandable, and co-evolving with technology, and wherever it offers concrete routines for designing and governing improvements in organizational contexts. When the dynamic design of socio-technical systems is based on and driven by stakeholder interaction (cf. [73,74,75]), stakeholders are not only consulted to provide inputs for modeling and reflection, but they also co-design and execute organizational processes [67,76].

From a transhumanist perspective, this approach can be interpreted as follows:

• Stakeholders as Self-Designers. Transhumanism often emphasizes humans as self-designers who can control their own biological, cognitive, and social evolution [43]. Dynamic socio-technical design operationalizes this ethos at the organizational level: Stakeholders design and modify the processes that structure their work and decision-making. In doing so, they effectively improve their socio-technical environment and thus their coordination and control capabilities.
• Executable Models as Cognitive Exoskeletons. Subject-oriented models externalize complex coordination knowledge into a structured, executable form. This can be understood as a cognitive exoskeleton: by outsourcing process logic to explicit models and workflow engines, individuals expand their limited memory and foresight, thereby improving their ability to analyze systemic consequences and alternative configurations.
• Continuous Adaptation as Evolutionary Improvement. Dynamic adaptation views socio-technical systems as open to ongoing modifications. This aligns with transhumanist approaches to continuous improvement, where people and their environment adapt to changing challenges and opportunities rather than remaining static.
• Organizational Decisions as Improvement Controls. The design of socio-technical systems traditionally emphasizes organizational decisions in the coordination of social and technical subsystems [52]. In the transhumanist context, this choice becomes the control of improvement: organizations must decide which forms of improvement they implement, for whom, and under what conditions. Participatory modeling and execution environment provide methods for legitimizing and controlling these decisions. However, power relations between differently positioned stakeholders inside or external to a socio-technical system play a crucial role [77].

Hence, dynamic socio-technical systems design can be considered a meso-level technology of transhumanism that translates abstract aspirations for improvement into concrete design practices within organizations (cf. [78]).

When placing autonomy, agility, and learning at the core of transhumanist development, any model must be sufficiently accessible to stakeholders to understand and adapt them. From a transhumanist perspective, several aspects are relevant:

• Operationalizing autonomy in digitally mediated contexts. As work is increasingly mediated by digital workflows, algorithms, and platforms, there is a risk that human actors will lose transparency and control. Human-centered design approaches such as modeling and executing work processes from a stakeholder role’s perspective [23,79] provide tools to restore and enhance autonomy by enabling stakeholders to see, understand, and adapt the processes that coordinate their actions.
• Human–machine synergy as a design goal. Methodologies based on articulation work on work processes [80] explicitly allow addressing the division of labor between human subjects and automated services. These approaches support the design of human–machine synergies in which humans are augmented rather than replaced—in line with transhumanist visions of hybrid human–technology constellations.
• Organizational learning as improvement process. Linking organizational learning with interactive business process management views process revisions as a learning loop (cf. [81,82]). Each iteration involves a human-centered improvement in organizational performance. This corresponds to an institutional form of transhuman improvement.

For effective human operation support, modular apps need to encapsulate behaviors and be orchestrated based on contextual information to support users’ tasks and decision-making (e.g., [83,84]). Such systems aim for autonomy, self-regulation, and self-management in distributed socio-technical environments. From a transhumanist perspective, contextual app’ification can be understood as follows:

• Behavioral micro-management. Apps function as small, targeted cognitive and behavioral prostheses. They support memory (e.g., reminders), coordination (e.g., scheduling), and decision-making (e.g., recommendations), thus extending functional capabilities on an organizational level (cf. [85]) without altering the biological basis.
• Context-aware coupling as a step toward cyborg integration. Context-aware systems continuously monitor signals from devices, environments, and users. Such types of systems create tight feedback loops between human action and technological response (cf. [86]), anticipating more intensive forms of human–technology fusion including wearables and brain–computer interfaces.
• Self-regulating augmentation. The architecture supports self-regulation at both the individual and system levels [87]. Users can configure how and when support is triggered. The system adapts to the context. Such an approach aligns with transhumanist concerns about maintaining agency in the face of powerful augmentation technologies.

Finally, for embedding learning and knowledge sharing into the design process, the development of infrastructures for cognitive and organizational augmentation becomes essential [88]. Explicating and making design rationales transparent supports the individual adaptation of interventions to learners [89].

5. Posthumanism in the Context of Socio-Technical Systems

In this section, an understanding for constructive relations of posthumanism to transhuman development and socio-technical systems design is developed. Methodological considerations reveal differences and some commonalties with transhumanist approaches.

5.1. Shifting the Design Scope and Boundary

While transhumanism maintains a human-centered value orientation, posthumanism questions the central role of humans and attempts to rethink agency and ethics beyond the human perspective. For socio-technical designs, a context-sensitive understanding of posthumanism is a critical orientation that decenters humans as the sole bearers of values and agency and considers humans, technologies, other organisms, and environments as interconnected actors in distributed systems. However, it leads to a matter of social sovereignty due to opacity and disconnection [90]. When questioning human exceptionalism and aims for design practices that acknowledge and consider these superhuman configurations [70,71], it needs to be clarified who enacts which values and triggers system behavior in which way or direction, given the various ontologies [42] and to focus on relationality [15].

Important implications for the design of socio-technical systems are:

• Distributed agency: Agency is not limited to individuals, as technical artifacts, infrastructures, and environments contribute to achieving results.
• Systems thinking: Systems are conceived as systems that emerge from relationships between heterogeneous elements, not as extensions of human will.
• More-than-human ethics: Designs must consider impacts on non-human entities and ecosystems, not just human users or stakeholders.

In this context, existing contextual design work, such as Ackerman et al. [4] or Elstermann et al. [23], needs to be reinterpreted as an articulation of infrastructures and representational tools for mapping and redesigning non-human structures. For instance, considering subject-oriented development as encoded distributed agency initially lends itself particularly well to a posthumanist interpretation. Although originally developed to enhance human understanding and participation in process design, the underlying formalism treats “subjects” abstractly. A subject can be a human actor, a software service, an organizational unit, or a technical device.

From a posthumanist perspective, subjects can encapsulate non-human behavior aside from human behavior. This aligns with actor–network theories that extend agency to non-human actors [91]. Furthermore, interaction patterns can be considered as assemblages between human and artificial actors. The primary unit of concern in subject-oriented systems is the network of message exchange, not the isolated subject. This corresponds to assemblage thinking, according to which properties emerge from relationships rather than from intrinsic characteristics of individual components. Finally, as subjects abstract from concrete implementation, non-human agency is visible in the same way as human ones. The explication of message flows and state transitions reveals how non-human elements—software components, sensors, platforms—shape the outcomes of ecosystems. This visibility is a prerequisite for taking distributed agency seriously from an ethical and political perspective.

Hence, subject-oriented models can be read as an initial code of a posthumanist ontology in which different subjects jointly constitute system behavior. However, design tools abstracting from actual implementation in terms of models need to be embodied in development environments or tools that, at some point, address and support mediating conflicting ontologies, since seamless integration is not an inherent posthuman design property, as understood in transhumanist enrichments.

5.2. Dynamic Socio-Technical Systems as Evolving Structures

The design of dynamic socio-technical systems aligns with posthumanism when the focus shifts from enhancing human capabilities to understanding evolving structures. Since socio-technical systems are more-than-human environments, posthumanism reinforces the socio-technical theory—organizations are composites of people, technologies, structures, and physical environments. Posthumanism emphasizes that these components are inseparable and mutually constitutive. Hence, non-human stakeholders need and can be addressed in modeling constructs, including environmental conditions, welfare of living systems, or future generations (via proxies). Such an extension would translate posthumanist ethical concerns into concrete modeling practices recognizing their respective ontological status.

Therefore, emergent adaptation captures the dynamic nature of design. System behavior is not entirely controlled by a single actor. It emerges from interactions between various stakeholders, technological components, and environmental conditions in posthumanist approaches. Their focus is on distributed control and emergent phenomena (cf. [92]).

The human–technology relationship shifts towards multi-agent ecologies. Such an architecture of interacting elements can be described in terms of elements that send and receive messages and adapt their behavior according to the interpretation of the message content. This simple interaction mechanism enables handling of complex systems prevalent in posthumanism (cf. [93]), as it features the autonomy of systems components aside from their communication. In this way, automated adaptation of behavior to a component’s context and the triggering of actions without direct human intervention are facilitated. The recognition of this type of autonomy is central to the technological agency in posthuman ecosystems (cf. [94]).

5.3. Knowledge Infrastructures and Posthumanist Subjectivities

Knowledge management and its (methodological) frameworks, such as the Knowledge Life Cycle (KLC) [95], and learning technologies need to be linked to posthumanism when considering the role of infrastructures in shaping subjectivities. Infrastructures can serve as actors. Knowledge infrastructures, processes, and platforms shape what is considered relevant knowledge and how it circulates. From a posthumanist perspective, these infrastructures are non-human actors that help shape subjectivities and organizational realities. They are part of the KLC’s single loop and enable operation between human and non-human actors within socio-technical systems. Their design is informed by actor–network theory, feminist new materialism, object-oriented ontology, non-representational theory, and transhumanism [14].

In the second KLC loop, values like equality and justice for humans and non-humans (cf. [14,96,97]) need to be addressed and processed as knowledge claims. Their evaluation can then become part of the KLC’s Documented Knowledge Base, i.e., a living design memory, and inform all activities in the single loop (focusing on concrete system designs).

Ecologies with individual or personalized learning technologies affect not only individual actors or components but entire ecosystems of data, standards, institutions, and devices. Posthumanism requires developers to analyze how such ecosystems privilege certain forms of cognition and marginalize others, including non-human perspectives (e.g., environmental data). Thus, learning ecologies have higher targets than purely human optimization. If knowledge and learning infrastructures are understood as part of more complex systems, designers need to become aware of co-existential capabilities beyond human capabilities, encompassing ecological and social sustainability.

From a design perspective, design needs to be considered beyond a humanist discipline, grounded in posthumanist commitments like situated knowledges and phenomenological intentionality. An epistemological framework for design knowledge production, e.g., represented as KLC’s Documented Knowledge Base, needs to be situated, embodied, and partial, contrasting with humanist, objectivist, and universalizing understandings of design [98]. It is based on articulated structural features of nomadic practices using key posthumanist concepts, specifically multiplicity of intentionalities, situated knowing, and nomadism [98].

6. Discussion: Transhumanism, Posthumanism, and Critical Design Thinking

The portrayal of transhumanism as potentially dangerous prompts reflection on issues such as inequality, exclusion, ecological impacts, and the danger of reducing humanity to optimization goals [99]. The quest for conceptual tools leads to articulating these concerns, by emphasizing adaptation and questioning anthropocentric value hierarchies and how to understand their entries like agency and autonomy.

Transformative learning and co-creation can be interpreted as an attempt to integrate critical reflection into socio-technical design processes. Transformative learning aims not only at acquiring new knowledge but also at changing frames of reference and identity [100]. Such learning could support both transhumanist, and post-humanist design approaches. However, critical system thinking is required due to (i) the recognition of the ontology of each system actor, and (ii) the differentiation between enhancement (transhumanism) and relationality (posthumanism). The same formal and organizational tools—actor or component-oriented behavior encapsulation and modeling, dynamic adaptation, context-related application, and knowledge infrastructures for learning—can be used either to enhance human capabilities or to map and reconfigure heterogeneous structures embedding non-human and human actors.

From the findings reported, a transhumanist perspective on socio-technical design has its focus on the following aspects:

• Human agency and autonomy as central design goals.
• Enhancement of cognitive and organizational capacities through explicit modeling and process integration.
• Participatory governance of technological change, enabling stakeholders to control their own development paths.
• Transformative learning as preparation for actively shaping complex technological future scenarios.

Posthumanist areas, on the other hand, emphasize:

• Distributed agency between human and non-human actors in behavior models.
• The assemblage-like nature of socio-technical systems, whose outcomes arise from interactions and not solely from human intentions.
• Aspects beyond human ethics, including environment and infrastructure, as extensions of the active component or actor concept.
• The need for reflection on the outcome of adaptation and optimization processes with respect to future scenarios.

Socio-technical design abstracting from implementation allows for design methods as a philosophical mediator, but initially neglects ontological and relationality differentiation. Socio-technical design methods can serve as mediating practices between conceptual frameworks and concrete organizational interventions, once the ontological dimension of system actors, and enhancement and relationality can be handled in the course of development. Then, reconsidering the concept of “becoming”, in particular, whether “becoming” matters more than being, and the need to think beyond design abstractions (cf. [1]), can be handled comprehensively.

Designers and organizations need to explicitly articulate whether their primary goal is human enhancement, or a hybrid approach, promoting human flourishing while also considering ecological constraints and non-human actors—it then becomes a matter of transformative learning on an operational and value-driven level.

This situation reflects the transition towards a new era of design research (cf. [101]), addressing a transition of human-centered to more-than-human-centered design (cf. [93]) or more-than-human-design (cf. [16]). When resisting an exclusive transhumanist/singularity focus (cf. [102]), posthumanist design needs to be defined as a field with a specific vocabulary and guiding principles—posthumanism, post-anthropocentrism, post-dualism, post-Enlightenment, and post-technologism (as recently derived from 151 design papers to inform material-discursive design practices) [103].

7. Conclusions

This paper has acknowledged (i) the increased importance of socio-technical system design in increasingly technology-dominated ecosystems, and (ii) the differences between transhumanism and posthumanism, with transhumanism as enhancement/intensifier of humanism, and posthumanism as decentering humans toward more-than-human assemblages. The design of socio-technical systems can be interpreted from transhumanist and posthumanist perspectives. Following the development of contextual definitions of both orientations, various aspects—dynamic socio-technical design, actor- or component-oriented modeling, and knowledge and learning infrastructures—have been analyzed for their relevance to improving human capabilities and non-human systems.

The analysis suggests that the results could serve as inputs to a conceptual design framework for implementing transhumanist principles and concepts to enhance human agency and competence in highly digitized environments. Technical and organizational tools should make distributed agency and non-human configurations visible and modifiable. Rather than forcing a choice between transhumanism and posthumanism upfront, socio-technical design can be used to highlight both the potential and the risks of human–technology integration. However, blurring the boundaries still requires differentiation, for transhumanist design supporting enhancement, and for posthumanist designs capturing the ontological perspective of actors in terms of distributed/non-human agency. Then, designing functional behavior extensions and relationality could keep a digital humanist while skeptic perspective on optimization ideologies.

Future work could deepen this analysis by examining specific case studies of systems designed using the presented conceptual and methodological considerations investigating how transhumanist and posthumanist values are negotiated in practice. It could also explore how the explicit inclusion of non-human actors and ecological concerns might extend a design framework toward broader posthumanist design practices. Ensuring transhumanist elements remain tethered to human-centered optimization and posthumanist ones to relational/ecological reconfiguration requires learning on the operational and reflection level of design in the sense of double-loop learning processes.