Who Wrote this? How Smart Replies Impact Language and Agency in the Workplace

TL;DR

This study investigates how AI smart replies influence human language and agency in workplace communication, revealing that AI affects content creation and behavior, with agency transfer being fluid and multifaceted.

Contribution

It introduces a loss of agency theory to analyze AI's impact on human agency, supported by mixed methods and experimental evidence.

Findings

AI influences human language and behavior

Agency transfer between humans and AI is fluid and multifaceted

Machine agency affects content and actions in communication

Abstract

AI-mediated communication is designed to help us do our work more quickly and efficiently. But does it come at a cost? This study uses smart replies (SRs) to show how AI influences humans without any intent on the part of the developer - the very use of AI is sufficient. I propose a loss of agency theory as a viable approach for studying the impact of AI on human agency. This theory focusses on the transfer of agency that is forced by circumstances (such as time pressure), human weaknesses (such as complacency), and conceptual priming. Mixed methods involving a crowdsourced experiment test that theory. The quantitative results reveal that machine agency affects the content we author and the behavior we generate. But it is a non-zero-sum game. The transfers between human and machine agency are fluid; they complement, replace, and reinforce each other at the same time.