How I define conversational symbiosis? (Second Go)

Note: This may change over time. This is an exercise for the purposes of my mid-semester presentation.

Conversation symbiosis can occur at many different levels. Theses levels include:

1. Human to Human
2. Human to Agent/Machine
3. Human to Human to Agent/Machine

While similar, symbiosis is slightly different at each of these levels. For instance, symbiosis that occurs at the level of two humans and agent/machine can or can not rely on a history built together.

For symbiosis to occur at any of these levels, I considered J.C.R Licklider’s Man-Computer Symbiosis and other similar pieces to derive my own definition conversational symbiosis. For me, conversational symbiosis occurs when participants:

• Embrace Difference and Take Advantage of Competencies — Humans and agents are inherently different, they should take advantage of those differences. Human’s should translate body language, while agent’s should analyze large data sets. These different abilities give both humans and agents the ability to see things from a different perspective (can the computer frame a problem a couple is having in a different way, can the agent find problems a couple is not even aware of, can a human tell a computer they have it wrong and help improve a model).
• Promote Cooperation — Conversational symbiosis should support the working together between humans and machines. An interface should always support this. Humans should be part of every computation, even if that is a fairly simple exchange.
• Mutual Understanding — Humans and agents should do as much as possible for the other to understand their thinking/computation/reasoning.