Is Conversational AI Taking Control?: From Individualistic to Holistic Approaches to Sustaining Human Agency

Abstract

Conversational AI systems are increasingly presented as agentic, intended to carry out tasks on behalf of users with a degree of autonomy. While agentic conversational AI systems have the potential to improve work efficiency and quality of life, they also introduce new risks and harms. We present the findings of a conceptual review that describes four concepts of agency, including personal agency, social agency, institutional agency, and artificial agency. Based on these interrelated concepts, we present four provocations to foster discussion on the extent to which conversational AI systems are becoming agentic and in which ways these systems may support and impede human agency. In doing so, we focus attention on the performative affordances of agentic conversational AI systems and highlight the societal responsibilities involved in their design. We argue for shifts from individualistic toward holistic approaches to developing agentic conversational AI systems that sustain our diverse and evolving forms of human agency in everyday life.