This paper comprehensively presents the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) through a five-stage evolutionary framework that parallels the historical development of human cognitive technology. It argues that AI has evolved through distinct epochs, each defined by a revolutionary change in its representational and reasoning capabilities, analogous to the invention of clay tablets, alphabets, grammar and logic, calculus, and formal logic systems. This “cognitive geometry” framework not only explains the past structural changes in AI from expert systems to transformers, but also provides a systematic interdisciplinary model that suggests specific and normative future paths. Importantly, it shows that this evolution is not simply linear but reflexive. As AI progresses through these stages, the tools and insights it develops create feedback loops that fundamentally reconfigure the fundamental architecture of AI itself. It is currently moving into a “metalinguistic moment” characterized by the emergence of self-reflective capabilities such as thought-chain prompts and constitutional AI. The subsequent steps, the “Mathematical Symbolism Moment” and the “Formal Logic Systems Moment,” will lead to provably aligned and trustworthy AIs that reconstruct their own underlying representations by developing a computable calculus of thought via neurosymbolic architectures and program synthesis. This study presents the methodological conclusion to a trilogy that previously explored the economic drivers (“why”) and cognitive nature (“what”) of AI, and addresses the “how” of AI, providing a theoretical foundation for future research and concrete, actionable strategies for startups and developers looking to build the next generation of intelligent systems.
