As humanoid robot technology, anthropomorphized by artificial intelligence (AI), has rapidly advanced to introduce more human-resembling automated robots that can communicate, interact, and work like humans, we have begun to expect active interactions with Humanoid AI Robots (HAIRs) in the near future. Coupled with the HAIR technology development, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered our interest in using health care robots with many substantial advantages that overcome critical human vulnerabilities against the strong infectious COVID-19 virus. Recognizing the tremendous potential for the active application of HAIRs, this article explores feasible ways to implement HAIRs in health care and patient services and suggests recommendations for strategically developing and diffusing autonomous HAIRs in health care facilities. While discussing the integration of HAIRs into health care, this article points out some important ethical concerns that should be addressed for implementing HAIRs for health care services.
{"title":"Communicative Development and Diffusion of Humanoid AI Robots for the Post-Pandemic Health Care System","authors":"Do Kyun David Kim, Gary Kreps, Rukhsana Ahmed","doi":"10.30658/hmc.3.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.3.5","url":null,"abstract":"As humanoid robot technology, anthropomorphized by artificial intelligence (AI), has rapidly advanced to introduce more human-resembling automated robots that can communicate, interact, and work like humans, we have begun to expect active interactions with Humanoid AI Robots (HAIRs) in the near future. Coupled with the HAIR technology development, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered our interest in using health care robots with many substantial advantages that overcome critical human vulnerabilities against the strong infectious COVID-19 virus. Recognizing the tremendous potential for the active application of HAIRs, this article explores feasible ways to implement HAIRs in health care and patient services and suggests recommendations for strategically developing and diffusing autonomous HAIRs in health care facilities. While discussing the integration of HAIRs into health care, this article points out some important ethical concerns that should be addressed for implementing HAIRs for health care services.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42079964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global emergency. Clinicians and medical researchers are suddenly thrown into a situation where they need to keep up with the latest and best evidence for decision-making at work in order to save lives and develop solutions for COVID-19 treatments and preventions. However, a challenge is the overwhelming numbers of online publications with a wide range of quality. We explain a science gateway platform designed to help users to filter the overwhelming amount of literature efficiently (with speed) and effectively (with quality), to find answers to their scientific questions. It is equipped with a chatbot to assist users to overcome infodemic, low usability, and high learning curve. We argue that human-machine communication via a chatbot play a critical role in enabling the diffusion of innovations.
{"title":"The Role of Vidura Chatbot in the Diffusion of KnowCOVID-19 Gateway","authors":"Kerk F. Kee, P. Calyam, Hariharan Regunath","doi":"10.30658/hmc.3.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.3.4","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global emergency. Clinicians and medical researchers are suddenly thrown into a situation where they need to keep up with the latest and best evidence for decision-making at work in order to save lives and develop solutions for COVID-19 treatments and preventions. However, a challenge is the overwhelming numbers of online publications with a wide range of quality. We explain a science gateway platform designed to help users to filter the overwhelming amount of literature efficiently (with speed) and effectively (with quality), to find answers to their scientific questions. It is equipped with a chatbot to assist users to overcome infodemic, low usability, and high learning curve. We argue that human-machine communication via a chatbot play a critical role in enabling the diffusion of innovations.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45429946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions such as the distribution of ventilators must be made. For many of these decisions, humans could team up with algorithms; however, people often prefer human decision-makers. We examined the role of situational (morality of the scenario; perspective) and individual factors (need for leadership; conventionalism) for algorithm preference in a preregistered online experiment with German adults (n = 1,127). As expected, algorithm preference was lowest in the most moral-laden scenario. The effect of perspective (i.e., decision-makers vs. decision targets) was only significant in the most moral scenario. Need for leadership predicted a stronger algorithm preference, whereas conventionalism was related to weaker algorithm preference. Exploratory analyses revealed that attitudes and knowledge also mattered, stressing the importance of individual factors.
{"title":"The Effects of Situational and Individual Factors on Algorithm Acceptance in COVID-19-Related Decision-Making: A Preregistered Online Experiment","authors":"S. Utz, Lara N. Wolfers, A. Göritz","doi":"10.30658/hmc.3.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.3.3","url":null,"abstract":"In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions such as the distribution of ventilators must be made. For many of these decisions, humans could team up with algorithms; however, people often prefer human decision-makers. We examined the role of situational (morality of the scenario; perspective) and individual factors (need for leadership; conventionalism) for algorithm preference in a preregistered online experiment with German adults (n = 1,127). As expected, algorithm preference was lowest in the most moral-laden scenario. The effect of perspective (i.e., decision-makers vs. decision targets) was only significant in the most moral scenario. Need for leadership predicted a stronger algorithm preference, whereas conventionalism was related to weaker algorithm preference. Exploratory analyses revealed that attitudes and knowledge also mattered, stressing the importance of individual factors.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48828353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The rampant misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates an obvious need for persuasion. This article draws on the fields of digital rhetoric and rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine to explore the persuasive threats and opportunities machine communicators pose to public health. As a specific case, Alexa and the machine’s performative similarities to the Oracle at Delphi are tracked alongside the voice-based assistant’s further resonances with the discourses of expert systems to develop an account of the machine’s rhetorical energies. From here, machine communicators are discussed as optimal deliverers of inoculations against misinformation in light of the fact that their performances are attended by rhetorical energies that can enliven persuasions against misinformation.
{"title":"Leveraging the Rhetorical Energies of Machines: COVID-19, Misinformation, and Persuasive Labor","authors":"Miles C. Coleman","doi":"10.30658/hmc.3.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.3.2","url":null,"abstract":"The rampant misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates an obvious need for persuasion. This article draws on the fields of digital rhetoric and rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine to explore the persuasive threats and opportunities machine communicators pose to public health. As a specific case, Alexa and the machine’s performative similarities to the Oracle at Delphi are tracked alongside the voice-based assistant’s further resonances with the discourses of expert systems to develop an account of the machine’s rhetorical energies. From here, machine communicators are discussed as optimal deliverers of inoculations against misinformation in light of the fact that their performances are attended by rhetorical energies that can enliven persuasions against misinformation.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44878964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For billions of people, the threat of the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its variants has precipitated the adoption of new behaviors. Pandemics are radical events that disrupt the gradual course of societal change, offering the possibility that some rapidly adopted innovations will persist in use past the time period of the event and, thus, diffuse more rapidly than in the absence of such an event. Human-machine communication includes a range of technologies with which many of us have quickly become more familiar due to stay-athome orders, distancing, workplace closures, remote instruction, home-bound entertainment, fear of contracting COVID-19, and boredom. In this commentary I focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents, and specifically chatbots, in considering the factors that may affect chatbot diffusion. I consider anthropomorphism and expectancy violations, the characteristics of chatbots, business imperatives, millennials and younger users, and from the user perspective, uses and gratifications.
{"title":"What Will Affect the Diffusion of AI Agents?","authors":"J. Dearing","doi":"10.30658/hmc.3.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.3.6","url":null,"abstract":"For billions of people, the threat of the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its variants has precipitated the adoption of new behaviors. Pandemics are radical events that disrupt the gradual course of societal change, offering the possibility that some rapidly adopted innovations will persist in use past the time period of the event and, thus, diffuse more rapidly than in the absence of such an event. Human-machine communication includes a range of technologies with which many of us have quickly become more familiar due to stay-athome orders, distancing, workplace closures, remote instruction, home-bound entertainment, fear of contracting COVID-19, and boredom. In this commentary I focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents, and specifically chatbots, in considering the factors that may affect chatbot diffusion. I consider anthropomorphism and expectancy violations, the characteristics of chatbots, business imperatives, millennials and younger users, and from the user perspective, uses and gratifications.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48407742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study uses a sample of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (N = 240) who differ in skill, education, and income to replicate and extend past findings about socioeconomic disparities in the perceptions of automation. Specifically, this study applies the skills-biased technical change hypothesis, an economic theory that low-skill jobs are the most likely to be affected by increased automation (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019), to the mental models of pharmacy workers. We formalize the hypothesis that anxiety about automation leads to perceptions that jobs will change in the future and automation will increase. We also posit anxiety about overpayment related to these outcomes. Results largely support the skillsbiased hypothesis as a mental model shared by pharmacy workers regardless of position, with few effects for overpayment anxiety.
{"title":"Automation Anxieties: Perceptions About Technological Automation and the Future of Pharmacy Work","authors":"Cameron W. Piercy, Angela N. Gist-Mackey","doi":"10.30658/HMC.2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/HMC.2.10","url":null,"abstract":"This study uses a sample of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (N = 240) who differ in skill, education, and income to replicate and extend past findings about socioeconomic disparities in the perceptions of automation. Specifically, this study applies the skills-biased technical change hypothesis, an economic theory that low-skill jobs are the most likely to be affected by increased automation (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019), to the mental models of pharmacy workers. We formalize the hypothesis that anxiety about automation leads to perceptions that jobs will change in the future and automation will increase. We also posit anxiety about overpayment related to these outcomes. Results largely support the skillsbiased hypothesis as a mental model shared by pharmacy workers regardless of position, with few effects for overpayment anxiety.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41284150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This research explores how the technological affordances of emerging social virtual environments and VR platforms where individuals from an online disability community are represented in avatar form, correspond to these users’ development of embodied identity, ability, and access to work and social communities. The visual attributes of these avatars, which can realistically reflect the user’s physical self or divert from human form entirely, raise interesting questions regarding the role identity plays in the workplace, be it gender, race, age, weight, or visible disability. Additionally, the technology itself becomes fundamental to identity as the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), motion capture, and speech-to-text/text-to-speech technologies create digital capabilities that become part of an individual’s identity. This raises further questions about how virtual world technologies can both increase and potentially create barriers to accessibility for individuals who find freedom in their technologically embodied surrogates.
{"title":"The Machine as an Extension of the Body: When Identity, Immersion and Interactive Design Serve as Both Resource and Limitation for the Disabled","authors":"Donna Z. Davis, Shelby Shelby","doi":"10.30658/HMC.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/HMC.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"This research explores how the technological affordances of emerging social virtual environments and VR platforms where individuals from an online disability community are represented in avatar form, correspond to these users’ development of embodied identity, ability, and access to work and social communities. The visual attributes of these avatars, which can realistically reflect the user’s physical self or divert from human form entirely, raise interesting questions regarding the role identity plays in the workplace, be it gender, race, age, weight, or visible disability. Additionally, the technology itself becomes fundamental to identity as the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), motion capture, and speech-to-text/text-to-speech technologies create digital capabilities that become part of an individual’s identity. This raises further questions about how virtual world technologies can both increase and potentially create barriers to accessibility for individuals who find freedom in their technologically embodied surrogates.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46345382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jennifer L. Gibbs, Gavin Kirkwood, Chengyu Fang, J. Wilkenfeld
Intelligent technologies have the potential to transform organizations and organizing processes. In particular, they are unique from prior organizational technologies in that they reposition technology as agent rather than a tool or object of use. Scholars studying human-machine communication (HMC) have begun to theorize the dual role played by human and machine agency, but they have focused primarily on the individual level. Drawing on Structuration Theory (Giddens, 1984), we propose a theoretical framework to explain agency in HMC as a process involving the negotiation of control between human and machine agents. This article contributes to HMC scholarship by offering a framework and research agenda to guide future theory-building and research on the use of intelligent technologies in organizational contexts.
{"title":"Negotiating Agency and Control: Theorizing Human-Machine Communication from a Structurational Perspective","authors":"Jennifer L. Gibbs, Gavin Kirkwood, Chengyu Fang, J. Wilkenfeld","doi":"10.30658/HMC.2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/HMC.2.8","url":null,"abstract":"Intelligent technologies have the potential to transform organizations and organizing processes. In particular, they are unique from prior organizational technologies in that they reposition technology as agent rather than a tool or object of use. Scholars studying human-machine communication (HMC) have begun to theorize the dual role played by human and machine agency, but they have focused primarily on the individual level. Drawing on Structuration Theory (Giddens, 1984), we propose a theoretical framework to explain agency in HMC as a process involving the negotiation of control between human and machine agents. This article contributes to HMC scholarship by offering a framework and research agenda to guide future theory-building and research on the use of intelligent technologies in organizational contexts.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46641972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Artificial intuition (AI acting intuitively) is one trend in artificial intelligence. This article analyzes how it is discussed by technology journalism on the internet. The journalistic narratives that were analyzed claim that intuition can make AI more efficient, autonomous, and human. Some commentators also write that intuitive AI could execute tasks better than humans themselves ever could (e.g., in digital games); therefore, it could ultimately surpass human intuition. Such views do not pay enough attention to biases as well as transparency and explainability of AI. We contrast the journalistic narratives with philosophical understandings of intuition and a psychoanalytic view of the human. Those perspectives allow for a more complex view that goes beyond the focus on rationality and computational perspectives of tech journalism.
{"title":"Artificial Intuition in Tech Journalism on AI: Imagining the Human Subject","authors":"J. Johanssen, Xin Wang","doi":"10.30658/HMC.2.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/HMC.2.9","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial intuition (AI acting intuitively) is one trend in artificial intelligence. This article analyzes how it is discussed by technology journalism on the internet. The journalistic narratives that were analyzed claim that intuition can make AI more efficient, autonomous, and human. Some commentators also write that intuitive AI could execute tasks better than humans themselves ever could (e.g., in digital games); therefore, it could ultimately surpass human intuition. Such views do not pay enough attention to biases as well as transparency and explainability of AI. We contrast the journalistic narratives with philosophical understandings of intuition and a psychoanalytic view of the human. Those perspectives allow for a more complex view that goes beyond the focus on rationality and computational perspectives of tech journalism.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44553936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The world is getting into a new phase in history. For the first time, humans are verbally communicating and developing meaningful relationships with non-living objects. AI is a wormhole to open a gateway to the new world, and the COVID-19 pandemic prepared the world to transform its system to be an open system that responds to, communicates with, and utilizes the remnants coming out of the wormhole of the new world. Now, we urgently need to create a holistic discourse on how we can recognize, develop, or shape the identities of communicable machines as people develop a partnership with them. Based on the emerging questions and discourses about human-machine communication, this special issue strives to investigate the present and future of advanced human-machine communication.
{"title":"Our Future Arrived: Diffusion of Human-Machine Communication and Transformation of the World for the Post-Pandemic Era","authors":"Do Kyun David Kim, Gary Kreps, Rukhsana Ahmed","doi":"10.30658/hmc.3.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.3.1","url":null,"abstract":"The world is getting into a new phase in history. For the first time, humans are verbally communicating and developing meaningful relationships with non-living objects. AI is a wormhole to open a gateway to the new world, and the COVID-19 pandemic prepared the world to transform its system to be an open system that responds to, communicates with, and utilizes the remnants coming out of the wormhole of the new world. Now, we urgently need to create a holistic discourse on how we can recognize, develop, or shape the identities of communicable machines as people develop a partnership with them. Based on the emerging questions and discourses about human-machine communication, this special issue strives to investigate the present and future of advanced human-machine communication.","PeriodicalId":34860,"journal":{"name":"HumanMachine Communication Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42933096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}