Artificial Intelligence and Communication: Toward a Human-Machine Communication Research Agenda

• In Event: How is it Different? How is it the Same? Human vs. Artificial IntelligenceI/Bot/Virtual Reality Interaction

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an integral aspect of communication technology. From virtual agents to bots, the exchange of messages is shifting from a human-human process to one between human and machine. How is communication research to account for and develop theories by which to explain such human-machine communication—encounters in which people communicate not only through machines as a medium but also with machines as interlocutors? This article seeks to advance the study of communication in relation to AI by examining the challenges that AI poses to existing conceptualizations of communication as a human phenomenon and by developing a theoretical starting point for addressing such challenges. Drawing on human-machine communication (HMC), an emerging area of research that focuses on machines’ roles as communicators, we identify three dimensions—communicative agency, social configurations, and ontological classification—around which to develop a research agenda for the study of communication in relation to AI.

Authors

• Andrea L. Guzman

• Seth C. Lewis, U of Oregon