Machine ex machina: A Framework Decentering the Human in AI Design Praxis

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) design typically incorporates intelligence in a manner that is affirmatory of the superiority of human forms of intelligence. In this paper, we draw from relevant research and theory to propose a social-ecological design praxis of machine inclusivity that rejects the presumption of primacy afforded to human-centered AI. We provide new perspectives for how human-machine communication (HMC) scholarship can be synergistically combined with modern neuroscience’s integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness. We propose an integrated theoretical framework with five design practice recommendations to guide how we might think about responsible and conscious AI environments of the future: symbiotic design through mutuality; connectomapping; more-than-human user storytelling, designing for AI conscious awakenings; and the revising of vernaculars to advance HMC and AI design. By adopting the boundaries HMC scholarship extends, we advocate for replacing ex machina mentalities with richer understandings of the more-than-human world formed by interconnected and integrated human, human-made, and nonhuman conscious machines, not superior or inferior but each unique.