Bringing Together Ergonomic Concepts and Cognitive Mechanisms for Human—AI Agents Cooperation

Abstract

The deployment of artificial intelligence from experimental settings to concrete applications implies to consider the social aspects of the environment and consequently to conceive the interaction between humans and computers endowed with the aim of being partners in action. This article proposes a review of the research initiatives regarding human-artificial agents interaction, including eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) and HRI/HCI. We argue that even if vocabulary and approaches are different, the concepts converge on the necessity for the artificial agents to provide an accurate mental model of their behavior to the humans they are interacting with. This has different implications depending on whether we consider a tool/user interaction or a cooperation interaction—which is far less documented despite being at the heart of the future concepts of autonomous vehicles. From this observation, the article uses the cognitive science corpus on joint-action to raise finer cognitive mechanisms proved to be essential for human joint-action which could be considered as cognitive requirements for future artificial agents, including shared task representation and mentalization. Finally, interactions content hypotheses are arisen to satisfy the identified mechanisms, including the ability for the artificial agent to elicit its intentions and to trigger mentalization toward them from the human cooperators.

Disclosure statement

We have no relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This research project is supported by ONERA the French aerospace lab and Region SUD

Notes on contributors

Marin Le Guillou

Marin Le Guillou is a PhD student at ONERA and LPL working on Human-Artificial Agents cooperation towards a smooth integration of manned and unmanned drone engaged in cooperative tasks. He graduated in artificial intelligence of Centrale Marseille engineering school and Aix-Marseille University.

Laurent Prévot

Laurent Prévot is a professor in Language Sciences at Aix Marseille Université. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science and worked as post-doc in interdisciplinary labs in Europe and Asia. His recent projects are dealing with conversational feedback and interpersonal dynamics in conversation.

Bruno Berberian

Bruno Berberian is a senior researcher with 10 years of experience in cognitive ergonomics. He is currently working as a research engineer at the ONERA. His current research investigates how automation technology impact human operator and aim to propose tools and models from cognitive science to explore this issue.