The Readable Mind: Recognition, Capture, and LLMs as Psychological Infrastructure

This conceptual working paper argues that large language models are emerging as psychological infrastructure.

 It distinguishes psychological understanding from operational readability, introduces the concept of interpretation transfer (AI-to-AI exchange of psychological meaning), and uses recognition versus capture as the normative frame for evaluating whether AI-mediated readability serves the person or the system.

The paper examines how different psychological traditions may be affected by AI-mediated interpretation and outlines governance principles for psychological AI, including the principle that psychological data should not be allowed to age into authority.