Human, too human? Experience, Learning, Interaction with AI

Abstract

The contribution addresses the topic of interaction with AI with the aim of investigating the importance of interface characteristics for the acceptance of and interaction with produced innovations, with a special focus on social robotics. While on the one hand the realisation of anthropomorphic products would seem to facilitate interaction, on the other hand the analysis of the literature conducted has revealed ambivalent reactions towards AI applications characterised by traits that are far too like humans. The importance of the contribution lies in emphasising the need to keep the two components, the artificial and the human, separate to foster an interactional and communicational exchange destined to become increasingly frequent in the future, as is already the case in most social contexts. The multiplication of the spheres of interaction between humans and AI embodied in social robots makes it possible to consolidate a partnership with interesting developments from an epistemological point of view and with possible applications in which two intelligences of different natures, organic and inorganic, can for the first time work together to produce knowledge. The pairing of social robots with humans makes it increasingly clear that it is possible to work in integrated and mixed teams composed of different types of actors, which already demonstrate interesting levels of effectiveness in work and training. However, these considerations also give rise to the need to reflect on the training possibilities for individuals and social groups characterised by individuals who are not necessarily adequately prepared to interact with the AI embodied in social robots. Thus, from the scenario outlined emerges the need to review the canonical theoretical frameworks of the sociological tradition, founded on the study of relations between human beings, as a horizon rich in epistemic opportunities is discovered from the emergence of new forms of interaction between human and non-human. Hence the need to search for a theoretical conceptual framework within a phenomenological perspective, declined in this work in a symbolic interactionist key.

Keywords

• ai
• interaction
• epistemological frameworks
• social theory