PreprintCited by 18Social Robot Interaction and HRIAI in Service InteractionsInnovative Human-Technology Interaction

Examining Agency, Expertise, and Roles of AI Systems in AI-Mediated Communication

Open access
Mieczkowski, Hannah, Hancock, Jeffrey·2022

Abstract

AI-Mediated Communication (AI-MC) occurs when an AI system operates on behalf of an individual in communication between people. Building on literature in psychology and human-machine communication, the following three studies answered two overarching questions: 1) how do people perceive their own agency when an AI system operates on their behalf in interpersonal communication? and 2) how do people perceive the role(s) of the system under these circumstances? Through a think-aloud study, as well as an online experiment, these studies revealed that people strive to maintain their agency in AI-MC, and devise various strategies to do so. Additionally, even though AI systems can play many roles in a communication task, people view them as social actors instead of as extensions of the self, which impacts how they attribute agency and behave in human-AI interactions. Lastly, people show increased reliance on the AI system when they lack expertise, which underlies decreased feelings of agency as well as changes in collaboration dynamics. Taken together, these studies apply research on agency and human-AI interaction to the nascent study of AI-MC. The results provide insights into the effects of AI-involvement and topical expertise on people’s perceptions and behaviors, as well as how they think about the roles of AI systems.

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Crossref · 10.31219/osf.io/asnv4

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  • In visual co-creation, AI agency often starts as reactive to the initial prompt but may shift towards co-operative during refinement.

    “AI agency often starts as reactive to the initial prompt [60, 112] (AI-centric locus) but may shift towards co-operative during refinement (shared locus) [118].”

    From Exploring Collaboration Patterns and Strategies in Human-AI Co-creation through the Lens of Agency: A Scoping Review of the Top-tier HCI Literature (2025) · cites this paper as [118]

    Section 3.4.1 (page unavailable) reports bidirectional influence: participants shaped AI output, and AI output affected what they wrote next. That supports a cooperative aspect, but the paper studies message writing, not visual co-creation, and does not establish a shift from reactive prompting to cooperative agency during refinement. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • In the textual pathway, AI commonly exhibits cooperative agency, functioning as an active partner.

    “The AI commonly exhibits cooperative agency, functioning as an active partner [118].”
  • A more comprehensive understanding of views surrounding authenticity in human-AI co-creation remains elusive.

    “Recent work on AI use for writing has begun to explore relevant constructs, such as ownership, authorship, and agency [11,13,39,49], but a more comprehensive understanding of views surrounding authenticity in human-AI co-creation remains elusive.”
  • Integration of autonomous AI into co-creation could significantly restructure creative industries and labor markets, raising questions about intellectual property, fair compensation, and skill requirements.

    “Societally, the integration of autonomous AI into co-creation could significantly restructure creative industries and labor markets [18, 60, 118], raising critical questions about the future of creative work, including intellectual property [83], fair compensation [82], and evolving skill requirements [202].”

    From Exploring Collaboration Patterns and Strategies in Human-AI Co-creation through the Lens of Agency: A Scoping Review of the Top-tier HCI Literature (2025) · cites this paper as [118]

    The citation is attached to the proposed restructuring of creative industries and labor markets; the sentence cites other sources for intellectual property, compensation, and skills. Section 6.2 (Future Directions; page unavailable) discusses workplace consequences of attributing agency and credit or blame in human–AI collaboration, but does not address industry or labor-market restructuring. Searches for creative industries, labor markets, employment, and displacement found no passage establishing that point. (LLM, conf=0.76)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Cynthia Breazeal. 1999. Robot in Society: Friend or Appliance. In Proc. Autonomous Agents Workshop on Emotion-Based Agent Architectures. 18-26.
  2. Yoonseo Choi, Eun Jeong Kang, and Juho Kim. 2021. How Does Netflix "Understand" Me?: Exploring End-user Needs to Design Human-centered Explanations. In 35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. Sydney, Australia. https://kixlab.github.io/website-files/2021/neurips2021-workshop-HumanCenteredExplanation-paper.pdf
  3. Ada S Chulef, Stephen J Read, and David A Walsh. 2001. A hierarchical taxonomy of human goals. Motivation and Emotion 25, 3 (2001), 191-232.
  4. Haiyi Zhu, Bowen Yu, Aaron Halfaker, and Loren Terveen. 2018. Value-sensitive algorithm design: Method, case study, and lessons. Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction 2, CSCW (2018), 1-23.

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Authors
Mieczkowski, H., & Hancock, J.
Affiliations
Stanford University (US)
Published
2022-07-15
OpenAlex
W4285591746
Cited by
16
References
100
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1
Type
posted content
Language
en
Open access
Locations
OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
Keywords
AI-mediated communication, agency, expertise, AI roles, human-AI interaction, interpersonal communication, AI reliance, collaboration dynamics, think-aloud

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