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Ruth Frischknecht
Title
Dr.
Last Name
Frischknecht
First name
Ruth
Email
ruth.frischknecht@unisg.ch
Phone
+41 71 224 7585
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PublicationTechnical autonomy in human-machine collaboration: An exploration of human responses to advanced technologyBased on the assumptions that technology is becoming increasingly autonomous and new human-machine constellations are emerging, this thesis explores the question of how humans respond to such increasingly autonomous technical systems. Although many tasks are accomplished in close collaboration between humans and machines, existing research insufficiently incorporates the user's (or collaborator's respectively) perspective. Three articles address the overarching research question. The first article introduces the concept of technical autonomy, derives five levels of this property, and distinguishes it from the notion of automation. For exploring human responses, two online experiments are conducted. The first experiment tests the effect of technical autonomy on general social perceptions (N = 288), and the second experiment analyzes the effect of technical autonomy in organizational decision-making scenarios (N = 341). The thesis presents evidence that the level of autonomy affects how people respond to technical systems. It suggests that people perceive technical systems that are high in autonomy as having more agency and competence, and are more willing to rely on them than systems operating on lower levels of autonomy. Third, this effect is particularly evident when technical systems are described as adaptive or both, adaptive and open. The results of this research will inform both research and practice. For the former, the results suggest that technical autonomy is a relevant variable in human-machine collaboration and this technical property should be further incorporated into research in general and theory-building. For the latter, the findings suggest that autonomous systems should be implemented with caution.Type: doctoral thesis