Abstract
What are ways in which human and AI identities will interact and intertwine as AI technological evolution is racing toward the present at unprecedented speed of innovation and organizational/societal disruption? The purpose of this paper is to introduce frameworks of abductive logic and analytic perspectives to engage in exigent, time-sensitive research that will pre-emptively prepare individuals, organizations, and societies to address the massive reconfigurations that rapid GenAI-AGI evolution will bring in near and distant futures—especially to understand how those reconfigurations might plausibly impact individual identities in terms of human responses in identity work—whether to expand identity to incorporate AI collaboration as part of that identity (identity elasticity), to fear or resist AI due to lingering mistrust or power issues (identity threat), or to resent and challenge AI as an illegitimate replacement of formerly “owned” role identities and positions held (identity theft). I review a nascent and disciplinarily diffused literature on these topics and propose abductive logic and research approaches as most appropriate to engage plausible futures of AI development vis-à-vis human identity as concepts evolve of “what it means to be human” in the age of AI.