This essay reformulates the question of human augmentation as a problem of advanced human-machine communication, theorizing that such communication implies robust artificial intelligence and necessitates understanding the relational role new technologies play in human-machine communication. We focus on the questions, “When do electronic tools cease to be ’simply’ tools, and become meaningfully part of ourselves,” and, “When might we think of these tools as augmenting our selves, rather than simply amplifying our capabilities?” These questions, already important to the medical and rehabilitative fields, loom larger with increasing commodification of pervasive augmentation technologies, and indicate the verge on which human-machine communication now finds itself. Through analyses of human and machine agency, mediated through a theory of close human-machine communication, we argue that the critical element in discussions of human-machine communication is an increase in sense of agency, extending the traditional human-computer interface dictum to provide an internal locus of control.

Keywords
Human Augmentics, Human-Machine Communication, Human-Computer Interaction, Agency, Sense of Agency

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Novak, J., Archer, J., Mateevitsi, V., Jones, S., Communication, Machines & Human Augmentics, communication +1, vol 5, Article 8, September 1st, 2016. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cpo/vol5/iss1/8