Rise of Machine Agency: A Framework for Studying the Psychology of Human-AI Interaction (HAII)

Advances in personalization algorithms and other applications of machine learning have vastly enhanced the ease and convenience of our media and communication experiences, but they have also raised significant concerns about privacy, transparency of technologies and human control over their operations. Going forth, reconciling such tensions between machine agency and human agency will be important in the era of artificial intelligence (AI), as machines get more agentic and media experiences become increasingly determined by algorithms. Theory and research should be geared toward a deeper understanding of the human experience of algorithms in general and the psychology of Human-AI interaction (HAII) in particular. This article proposes some directions by applying the dual-process framework of the Theory of Interactive Media Effects (TIME) for studying the symbolic and enabling effects of the affordances of AI-driven media on user perceptions and experiences.