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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Ontological Boundaries Between Humans And Computers And The Implications For Human-Machine Communication, Andrea L. Guzman Feb 2020

Ontological Boundaries Between Humans And Computers And The Implications For Human-Machine Communication, Andrea L. Guzman

Human-Machine Communication

In human-machine communication, people interact with a communication partner that is of a different ontological nature from themselves. This study examines how people conceptualize ontological differences between humans and computers and the implications of these differences for human-machine communication. Findings based on data from qualitative interviews with 73 U.S. adults regarding disembodied artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (voice-based AI assistants, automated-writing software) show that people differentiate between humans and computers based on origin of being, degree of autonomy, status as tool/tool-user, level of intelligence, emotional capabilities, and inherent flaws. In addition, these ontological boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as technologies emulate …


Toward An Agent-Agnostic Transmission Model: Synthesizing Anthropocentric And Technocentric Paradigms In Communication, Jaime Banks, Maartje M. A. De Graaf Feb 2020

Toward An Agent-Agnostic Transmission Model: Synthesizing Anthropocentric And Technocentric Paradigms In Communication, Jaime Banks, Maartje M. A. De Graaf

Human-Machine Communication

Technological and social evolutions have prompted operational, phenomenological, and ontological shifts in communication processes. These shifts, we argue, trigger the need to regard human and machine roles in communication processes in a more egalitarian fashion. Integrating anthropocentric and technocentric perspectives on communication, we propose an agent-agnostic framework for human-machine communication. This framework rejects exclusive assignment of communicative roles (sender, message, channel, receiver) to traditionally held agents and instead focuses on evaluating agents according to their functions as a means for considering what roles are held in communication processes. As a first step in advancing this agent-agnostic perspective, this theoretical paper …


Opening Space For Theoretical, Methodological, And Empirical Issues In Human-Machine Communication, Leopoldina Fortunati, Autumn P. Edwards Feb 2020

Opening Space For Theoretical, Methodological, And Empirical Issues In Human-Machine Communication, Leopoldina Fortunati, Autumn P. Edwards

Human-Machine Communication

This journal offers a space dedicated to theorizing, researching empirically, and discussing human-machine communication (HMC), a new form of communication with digital interlocutors that has recently developed and has imposed the urgency to be analyzed and understood. There is the need to properly address the model of this specific communication as well as the roles, objectives, functions, experiences, practices, and identities of the interlocutors involved, both human and digital. Reading these seven articles is an advantageous intellectual exercise for entering this new field of research on Human-Machine Communication. The present volume contributes substantially both at theoretical and empirical levels by …