Roots and Requirements for Collaborative AIs

The vision of AI collaborators has long been a staple of stories and science fiction, where artificial agents understand nuances of collaboration and human communication. They assist their human partners and teams and have special talents. Government advisory groups and leaders in AI have advocated for years that AIs should be human compatible and effective collaborators. Nonetheless, robust AIs that collaborate like talented people remain out of reach. The simpler dream of effective information tools that augment human intelligence (IA) has its roots in the 1960s and arguably helped drive an information technology revolution. With the vast increase in hybrid and remote work since the COVID pandemic, the benefits and requirements for better coordination, collaboration, and communication are in focus for the workplace. Many factors (such as the costs of homes near work) are impeding a return to in-person work at the office. If we need better tools, how artificially intelligent (AI) should our tools be? This position paper reviews the arc of technology and calls for human-machine teaming. It draws on psychology and social sciences for an analysis of what effective and robust collaboration requires. It is the context for a second paper (Stefik & Price, 2023) that argues that current mainstream AI cannot produce robust, intelligent, and human-compatible collaborators. Rather, a radical shift in technology and methodology is required.