Symbiotic autonomous systems (SAS) are advanced intelligent and cognitive systems that exhibit autonomous collective intelligence enabled by coherent symbiosis of human–machine interactions in hybrid societies. Basic research in the emerging field of SAS has triggered advanced general-AI technologies that either function without human intervention or synergize humans and intelligent machines in coherent cognitive systems. This work presents a theoretical framework of SAS underpinned by the latest advances in intelligence, cognition, computer, and system sciences. SAS are characterized by the composition of autonomous and symbiotic systems that adopt bio-brain-social-inspired and heterogeneously synergized structures and autonomous behaviours. This paper explores the cognitive and mathematical foundations of SAS. The challenges to seamless human–machine interactions in a hybrid environment are addressed. SAS-based collective intelligence is explored in order to augment human capability by autonomous machine intelligence towards the next generation of general AI, cognitive computers, and trustworthy mission-critical intelligent systems. Emerging paradigms and engineering applications of SAS are elaborated via autonomous knowledge learning systems that symbiotically work between humans and cognitive robots.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards symbiotic autonomous systems'.

共生自治系统 (SAS) 是先进的智能和认知系统，通过混合社会中人机交互的连贯共生实现自主集体智慧。SAS 新兴领域的基础研究引发了先进的通用人工智能技术，这些技术要么在没有人工干预的情况下发挥作用，要么在连贯的认知系统中协同人类和智能机器。这项工作提出了以智能、认知、计算机和系统科学的最新进展为基础的 SAS 理论框架。SAS 的特点是自主和共生系统的组成，这些系统采用生物-大脑-社会启发和异质协同结构和自主行为。本文探讨了 SAS 的认知和数学基础。解决了混合环境中无缝人机交互的挑战。探索基于 SAS 的集体智能，以通过自主机器智能增强人类能力，面向下一代通用人工智能、认知计算机和值得信赖的关键任务智能系统。SAS 的新兴范式和工程应用是通过在人类和认知机器人之间共生的自主知识学习系统来阐述的。

这篇文章是主题问题“走向共生自治系统”的一部分。