Human-Agent Collaboration: Can an Agent be a Partner?

Human-Agent Interaction has been much studied and discussed in the last two decades. We have two starting points for this panel. First we observe that interaction is not the same as collaboration. Collaboration involves mutual goal understanding, preemptive task co-management and shared progress tracking. Second, that much of the on-going discourse around human-agent interaction implies that agents can be trusted, collaborative partners. Our position is that while virtual and embodied agents have the potential to be work partners, for this goal to be achieved we need to better understand what partnership in collaboration involves. In this panel we ask: Can this potential for trusted collaboration be realized? If so, what will it take? This panel will bring together HCI experts who work on collaboration, virtual agent design and human-robot-interaction. Panelists will engage the audience through discussion of their shared and diverging visions, and through suggestions for opportunities and challenges for the future of human-agent collaboration.