Pascal Mariany, Chair of Working Group 5 at The Human Factor Association

The Human Factor Association has appointed Pascal Mariany as chair of Working Group 5, focusing on human agency, critical thinking, and cognitive resilience in an era where AI is increasingly becoming part of our intellectual work.

Pascal is a senior lecturer at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, founder of CivAI, and author of The Art of Coexisting with AI (Van Duuren Media, 2026). With this background, he brings a concrete ambition to the working group: a Cognitive Resilience Lab that helps professionals, lecturers, and students keep their own judgement sharp while working with AI.

The most important question is not what AI can do

Pascal explains why he is leading this working group. "The most important question in the AI era is not what machines can do, but what happens to our own thinking when we leave it to them. Working Group 5 is building a Cognitive Resilience Lab, a practical workshop programme that helps professionals, lecturers, and students keep their agency, judgement, and critical thinking sharp while working with AI. Not a white paper, but something you can already use in your own team, classroom, or boardroom the following week."

The working group translates these questions into workshop activities that are immediately applicable within organisations and educational institutions. The aim is to help people use AI with a clear understanding of what they themselves must continue to question, assess, and decide.

Exactly the core of EduGPT

This directly aligns with what CivAI and EduGPT already stand for. The starting point is not the technology, but the learning objective and the preservation of human judgement. By combining this role at The Human Factor Association with his work at CivAI, Pascal ensures that insights from the classroom and practice directly feed into the international discussion on AI and cognitive resilience, and vice versa.