Designing for Work with Intelligent Entities: A Review of Perspectives

Abstract: As the power of AI continues to advance, there is increased interest in how best to combine AI-based agents with humans to achieve mission effectiveness. Three perspectives have emerged. The first stems from more conventional human factors traditions and views these entities as highly capable tools that humans can use to accomplish increasingly sophisticated tasks. The second "camp" believes that as the sophistication of these entities increases, it becomes increasingly appropriate to talk about them as "teammates" and use the research on human teams as a foundation for further exploration. The third perspective is emerging and finds both the "tools" and "teammate" metaphors flawed and limiting. This perspective emphasizes "joint activity," "joint cognitive activity," or something similar. In this article, we briefly review these three perspectives.